An Ambiguous Season

By ‘C’:

You know the weather has been spookily warm when one of these appears, in the space of one morning in late October, in the middle of your lawn …

Common/Corn/Flanders Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)

one of these lands on your bathroom window (but sadly didn’t stay long enough to have its portrait better taken):

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

and that same afternoon a very confused bumblebee almost the size of a small bat literally flies into you as you are sitting at your desk.  Honest!  Body length must have been at least 25 mm.  A queen Bombus terrestris?  Or the rare Ruderal bumblebee?  Very hard to tell as this one was melanic – and my attention was focussed on trying to help the creature back outside.  (Hence no photo at all; now ain’t that a shame.)  For comparison, a mature Pipistrelle Bat comes in at 35 mm. 

There was even a possibility that Green Gym itself might have gone to the dogs today.  Our wonderful Tools Officer gave notice that he might find himself running late: something complicated about a canine play-date …

All, however, turned out well.  The site-warden would have had enough equipment for us to get started happily enough.  As it happened, our own tools arrived in good time – our Tools Officer said he had picked out “the dirty forks” …

because in the stream they get cleaned better.  And in any event, today’s undertaking was one which can be tackled with plain (gloved) hands.  For after last week’s winter-time job, today we – augmented by volunteers from the nearby air station – were deployed on a task we normally associate with summer: pulling excess watercress to keep channels clear for the Chilterns chalk stream.

Actually, the first phase of the operation consisted of slashing nettles on the bank.   

Or we’d have had nowhere to put the piles of excess watercress.

Also the work did not consist entirely of disposing of watercress.  There was some riparian willow and to trim back as well – and dispose of.  Transporting brash at Green Gym mostly means carrying it.  In this case, from the place where it had been cut …

over a wall …

and across the bridge (with the observation “Heavy plant crossing!” when the larger loads were being moved):

Then it was decided the first place it had been moved to, was perhaps not the best:

So more carrying …

to the processing area, where the unwanted species (ash) and the spoil from the desirable species (willow) could be thrown directly on to the compost heap:

There the good willow was turned into neat bundles of rods.  Of which this, it was decided, was the neatest:

Meanwhile, the watercress-channel clearing continued.  This is hard work, so tea-break – with a welcome range of goodies, some sweet, some savoury, some seasonal – was most welcome:

After the break, the focus was mostly on transporting again.  This time, piles of watercress from the concrete bund (where at least some of the water had dripped out) to the bank:

Oh and there was the area around “the kingfisher post” to clear – so that the kingfisher has somewhere to perch:

How will the kingfisher know that this is a kingfisher post?  Green-Gym answer: Because the kingfisher reads the blog!

All this with a hefty RAF presence.  Not just in the form of RAF manpower assisting us on the ground (and in the water).  But also RAF in the skies above us, and providing an acoustic & aromatic accompaniment from the runways:

At last, it was tidying-up and collecting-tools time.  The willow bundles were stacked with their feet in the water to keep them alive and well until they are used:

With all that extra muscle power and dedication behind Green Gym this morning, a more than good job had been done:

Before

Just putting the finishing touches

Who’s up for a challenge?

By ‘C’:

“A winter sun.”

– “But a mild day, all the same.”

So we reflected, as we gathered for the start of a winter’s task: to coppice encroaching willow from an area which is meant to be a ‘wet meadow’.  

To get to the said meadow meant walking past a point where there had once been: railings (removed because they got damaged); and, over the duckboards, chicken-wire (removed by us, and replaced with staples, which were hammered in one by one):

From there, we had to plunge into the ‘undergrowth’ – where the site-warden cheerfully assured us that “There is a way in there somewhere, which takes you through to the meadow!”  One volunteer went on ahead, to explore the route:

Then the rest of us followed, one by one, with the hand-tools:

“The rakes’ progress”

This was the mid-way point, where we realised why we had been advised to wear wellies rather than walking/working boots:

Thankfully, the meadow itself was quite dry, as it usually is at this time of year – just a little tricky to walk across on account of natural trip hazards (the odd bramble or stump).

We knew that the combination of this weather and this task was gonna make us sweat.  But volunteers showed the usual Green-Gym relish for a tough task.  (Though it does not compare to the sporting challenge recently completed by the site-warden – respect!)

Smaller scrub could be tackled with loppers:

Every Green-Gymmer has their own style.  This particular volunteer opted for working from the outer edge of the area, inwards.  Why?  “So that I can see where I’ve been”:

Bigger targets took a bowsaw:

Cutting down the largest stand of all was not an exclusively male venture.  But that you cannot see from the photograph, because the woman with the arborist’s saw was behind the camera lens:

What is true was that it was some of the men on the team who took particular delight in reducing this …

 

to this:

All these operations naturally produced considerable quantities of brash.  For the moment, those were piled in the meadow – alongside heaps of softer materials which had been cut earlier by the warden with the brush-cutter, and which she had now raked:

By tea-break, there were piles of cut stuff all over the shop:

Inevitably this meant that in the second half of the morning, we were engaged in moving these outsize risings to brash piles – not a favourite task with some volunteers: “Cutting is fun!  Dragging is boring.”

In the meantime, there were respective merits of different pieces of kit to discuss.  From the mechanism of loppers (levers or cog-wheels) …

to the capabilities of this beast, which the warden would be wielding later, as a substitute for the brush-cutter:

A ‘BCS’ (so called after the manufacturer)

with Allen Scythe attachment

Once the dragging began, we made surprisingly short work of it.  Despite the occasional queue to get to the brash pile:

“It’s literally a log jam”

Soon it was a question of volunteers going over the ground to pick up “the last pieces”.  This happened several times, so no guarantee that this photograph records the very last bit being removed from site:

For the finishing touch, someone artistically arranged the morning’s ‘find’.  What was a clump of willow (unwanted because in the wrong place), is now “an art installation”: