Enjoying an Inside Line

By the Session Leader:

On Monday, the weather forecast was not good.  A band of rain working its way across the country would spend all of Tuesday morning over Oxfordshire, with the wettest time mid morning – just when we would be having our tea and cake break. 

One of resourceful members reported they had rung the Met Office to point out that this was not acceptable for Green Gym.   Lo and behold! Tuesday morning came, and the forecast had been amended, so that the rain would come in the afternoon.  And so it did.  The advantage of having an inside line to those who organize the weather!  Or so we like to think.

Thus we started on a dry and cheerful note, quite happy to be checked out by the natives (and a number of dogs having their morning walk).

Our task was to cut down “blackthorn and other shrubs” on another inside line: in and on the banks of a ditch/watercourse, beside a barbed-wire fence.  The plan was to cut the stumps to 6” so that the wardens could come back on a dry day to treat the stumps to deter them from growing again.  The idea behind this plan is that all this may help water voles get better established. 

Actually the target was nearly all blackthorn.  Very thorny and well established three-year growth.

We split into three teams, two working on the said inside line, one cutting down at each end of the nominated section of the ditch …

with the third working outside the barbed wire fence, dragging the brash away …  

into the trees …

then cutting it up to reduce the size of the many piles:

At the end the rain was starting, but it was too late to dampen our spirits as we were able to look back and see that we had completed the task we had been set: