‘Free Time’ @ Green Gym

By ‘C’:

It’s Tuesday morning, sun comes up nice and warm, but not too warm – must be a Green-Gym day.

An unusual start, though.  A Green-Gym eleven duly reported for duty at a site we had not visited in a while.  The person we were expecting to liaise with: not on site, it’s his day off.  Never mind!  We had been emailed general instructions: maintenance & repair of the dead-hedge fence we had built round the perimeter; and another round of nettle-bashing.  Having brought our own tools, we decided to use our best judgement to decide priorities, and issue ourselves our own orders.  

It was indeed a beautiful day to be outdoors, in a beautiful place, at a beautiful time of year.  What was not to like?

No mist this morning …

but plenty of mellow fruitfulness.

In the background: a labyrinth mown in the lawn

The first Green-Gym action was one detail carrying out a reconnaissance of the perimeter fence, starting by the entrance, from where one could glimpse the spacious village-green:

The recce party found that most of the fence was still sturdy enough: just low in a few places, where materials had settled.  There were also some stretches where vertical supports were beginning to fail, and the fill-material was sagging sideways. 

The solution?  Green-Gymmers found a willow hedge-support they had hammered in some years ago now growing strongly and anchoring the hedge.  They coppiced it, and used the branches to make more supports, which – we hope – will in their turn grow, and make lives easier for future volunteers.

Meanwhile, those of us who opted for the more destructive of the two tasks found there was no shortage of targets to choose from.  This was just one patch of many (note the hedge-inspectors in the background):

Having chosen their target, some nettle-destroyers opted to slash.  Here, a dasselbasher in use:

For myself, I preferred to use my gloved hands to pull rather than slash.  There is something sadly satisfying about reeling in several feet of nettle root!  And it means the return of the nettles will be delayed that little bit longer.  There were other areas, though, where that was not practical, and a sickle proved a nifty tool:

What to do with the very great quantities of cut stuff?  In places, it seemed sensible to tidy away in small heaps beneath other vegetation.  I noticed that behind me, however, other Green-Gymmers were spontaneously loading cuttings into barrow, presumably with the intention of wheeling the spoil over to the compost heap:

When we were scattered across a large site, gathering us all together for our tea-break was a challenge.  The setting was highly civilised: an actual table, with places to sit, on the edge of a fine lawn facing the main house, in the shade of a most convenient and handsome tree:

The tree proved to be a main topic of conversation.  What kind of a tree was it?  Green-Gymmers studied the bark, looked up and admired the height and shape of the tree, noted the form of the leaves, and even borrowed a Swiss-Army knife to dissect one of the fruit:

“It looks like a London Planetree to me”

“No, it’s definitely some kind of maple”

“Well it’s certainly not a sweet chestnut”

Fortunately, a volunteer gardener was on hand to tell us that those who thought it was a London Planetree (Platanus × acerifolia) were right.  Cue people sagely announcing, “Ah yes, I thought so.”  (I hadn’t a clue myself: I only knew it wasn’t an oak tree.  Or a nettle.)

The subsidiary topic of conversation round the table was: species of animals kept at the college, to which one of our number returns next week; and the surprising range of species to be seen in South Oxfordshire.

By session end, we had certainly done a great deal, but the results of our efforts were perhaps not as readily noticeable as at some sessions.  This, for instance, is the spot where I happened to be when the word came, “Session end!”  I had not taken a ‘before’ photograph, because I did not know that there was a bush with these pretty little flowers there before I began stripping nettles off what I presumed was intended to be a woodland path.  So this is a slightly ineffectual ‘after’ shot, with which to finish, but sometimes one’s best, is all one can do:

Much grass!

By one of the session volunteers:

Mowbray Fields is a favourite site for some of the tasks there, but not necessarily for today’s job.  We had wondered how many of us there would be today. 

Raking cut grass is not the most popular task.  [Especially not at that particular site – Ed.]  In the event, however, it was a good turnout, and a session which many of us enjoyed much more than we expected. 

To keep the neighbours happy, we were able to park our cars on the site rather than by the side of the congested approach-road.

There was a lot of meadow-cut to be gathered, as the grass on the wild flower meadow had grown prolifically this year. 

Yesterday, the site warden had managed to cut about 80% of the area, before the machine broke down!  Today, site warden was at the wheel of the ever-dependable landie – at the start of the session, manoeuvring the trailer to alongside where the workers would be, for ease of loading:

The Green-Gymmers were, of course, equipped with the traditional tools for this purpose:

 

The task didn’t seem so great at first.

As the raking got under way, however, the rolls of grass got bigger and heavier.  Not that this seemed to dampen Green-Gymmers’ spirits:

Some volunteers developed a positively balletic technique:

As the rakers rolled it up, the pitchforkers took each consignment, and loaded it on to the trailer:

From time to time, the trailer was driven down to the bottom of the site to be offloaded beside the compost heap, then stacked on to the heap – more manual labour required.

As the session progressed, there was discussion about using sheep to keep the grass under control as the royal parks are doing. 

Some of the local wildlife was not pleased at our disrupting their territory, and escaped as soon as possible.

Our agile warden rescued another, and – pausing only for a quick photoshoot - took it to a place of safety.

By the end of the session three trailer-loads had been gathered, transported, offloaded, and stacked.  That amounted to about two-thirds of what had been cut,
so most of the meadow had been cleared:

It had been good and satisfying exercise for us, and the weather warm, but not sunny – just right.  For that we were very thankful.  Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find the lost bolt from the machine.