On land and on water

Another double helping, folks.  First the write-up of last week, by the Session Leader:

Usually our Green Gym sessions involve tasks where everyone can practise the same

one or two skills, perhaps coppicing, or watercress removal.  Not this week!

Today several skills were needed, and it soon became apparent that our members were

developing individual specialisms that suited their own strengths.  The task was explained by George, the new site warden working with us: it was to supply and fit protection for freshly coppiced stumps to guard against depredation by deer.

These were the stumps in need of some PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), down by the pond area, where the big trees had been coppiced:

The new growth was to be kept away from nibbling deer by caging them.  Building cages around the trees, that is, not putting the wild animals into cages [or venison pie – Ed.]:

First, posts were to be set up around each stump, or group of stumps.  Holes were

punched in the ground using the heavy iron spikes:

This suited tall strong members.

Then posts were driven into the holes using the even heavier two-person post drivers:

Note our own PPE.  Hard hats very necessary when lifting the drivers on to or off the posts.

Next the posts were wrapped with plastic netting.  This called for patience and juggling skills:

Those with small fingers hammered staples through the netting into the posts, while taking care to make sure that someone was not left encased in the cage.

This, it was observed, was “an operation requiring two ladies or three men.”

Some lengths of netting had to be joined together by weaving strips of flexible wooden whips through the holes:

Even nimbler fingers were needed for this.

At the end there was a forest of netting that should baffle the deer.

And now for this week’s news, presented for you by ‘C’:

“Another thankless task”?  To be sure, we were back at a site we often frequent, beside Ewelme stream, facing much the same situation as before: there’s mud in the water.

The brook at Ewelme being a Chilterns chalk stream, that should not be.  Human beings before us, however, have confined the flow to a fixed watercourse, so the natural process of the stream cleaning itself has been interrupted.

There were three targets for Green-Gym operations today.  One was to dig out mud from the stream itself.  This was the first section to be tackled:

Before

After

The advantage today was that we were blessed with the weather, as they say in Ireland.  Or as one of our volunteers put it: “It’s the first time I’ve been able to say I’m warm in my wellies.”  So while we toiled, birds sang alongside, and butterflies fluttered by – including the odd orange-tip (Anthocharis cardamines).

To assist with removing mud to compost heap, someone had the great idea of redeploying the long plank of wood we had retrieved from the stream on a previous occasion.  It would, he reckoned, make a good gangway from bund to shore:

Others were not quite so sure:

“Are you sure that bridge will take your weight and the barrow?”

– “It’s been here for 35 years.  I’m sure it will hold!”

With those confident words, he stepped out on to the gangplank.  There was a mighty crack.  Thankfully, not followed by a splash of man falling into water.
 

In fact, this mini-bridge did prove to be perfectly serviceable for the session, but every person using it after that first try took it quite gingerly.

The second target was a little harder to see from a distance.  It was a pile of mud, which had been dug out by a previous working party and left on the bank to dry:

First the mud had to be wheelbarrowed, load by load, to a compost heap on the other side of the site:

After tea-break, the bank itself had to be restored to its proper state:

Now I would love to say that at tea-break the crack was mighty.  [Northern English/Scots dialect for ‘fun, banter’, often gaelicised as ‘craic’ – Ed.]  But apart from the fact that we serve nothing stronger than tea/coffee, the normal flow of Green-Gym chatter seemed to have been obstructed.  “Cake is killing the art of conversation,” explained one volunteer.

After the break, a couple of us turned our attention to the third target, beside the old ‘pond-dipping platform’:

There used to be a pond there:

The hope is that if the area is dug out again, it might refill with open water.  So while one person excavated mud, I wheeled my wheelbarrow through paths broad and narrow to another compost heap. 

By session end, there was no new pond.  But there was a hole in the ground, for the next group working on site to extend:

That next group is scheduled for tomorrow.  Heavy rain is forecast.