Remember the summer of 2018?
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| Endless hot days great for holiday visitors to Wallingford beach: a nightmare for many farmers |
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Earliest wheat harvest in living memory (but barley growers paid more for the straw than for the cereal)
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Cows fed nutritional supplements in the field
in August
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Today all that seemed a long time ago. Temperatures were still remarkably high – for
the time of year. But the forecast was
for wind and rain: lots of both. The
only question was when that heavy rain would arrive. We hoped it would not be this morning.
Eleven stalwart Green-Gymmers would not be put
off by the uncertainty of the forecast, and made our way to the crest of the
Chilterns scarp. Even among these elite
volunteers there was some difference of opinion about the blusterous weather. To some it was a deal too blowy; to others it
made for an exhilarating day to be out on the roof of Oxfordshire.
The particular spot where we were working,
however, was more sheltered. Indeed
almost too sheltered from the point of view of establishing a bonfire to burn
the cuttings we would be producing when we got stuck into a session of scrub
clearance. There was plenty of breeze up
on the ridge, just not so much at the fire spot:
Our Fire Marshal had the situation all in hand,
though. As soon as he heard breakfast
sounds (‘snap, crackle, and pop’) in the depths of the fire which a previous
party had begun, he primed it with a little scrunched up newspaper plus a stick
or two of kindling – it blazed into life, and instantly asked where breakfast was:
“Hurrah!” exclaimed another volunteer: “We’ve
got flames.” To which the answer was a
sober “But it’s not about flames: it’s about heat.”
Once the fire was going steadily, the task
then was to restrain over-enthusiastic volunteers from either feeding it too
much at a time or treating it to a diet over-balanced towards light, dry
brash.
There was plenty of the latter arriving in
large quantities, from the pile left over by another group, which just needed
reducing further, and supplying in right portion sizes to the fire:
Meanwhile, other volunteers had their eye on
targets which needed cutting down first.
Most of the targets which were out of bounds to us were marked with
red-and-white tiger tape, for instance the infant beech tree in the first bonfire photograph above. One Green-Gymmer caused his colleagues a
moment of alarm:
I think that’s one of the trees we are not meant to cut down!
– I know: I’m just going to free it from overgrowing bramble.
That he duly did, thus revealing that the true
destiny of that little tree was to serve as a coat-stand:
Also due for removal were a carpet of bramble
and a few smaller arboreal specimens in areas which are supposed to be chalk
grassland:
Tea-break was an opportunity to pause and
appreciate better the loveliness of the spot we were in, chat, and of course
eat mince pies which had been ingeniously kept warm by means of what looked
like a large parcel of bubble-wrap and duvet.
(We do appreciate creative engineering at Green Gym!)
After
the break, more attention was paid to removing some of the sturdier hawthorn. The best technique here, it was found, was to
cut UP before cutting DOWN. Also to wear one of the pairs of safety specs which are always in the kit-bag:
2½
hours into the session, and the brash pile had all been consigned to the
flames. It seemed a good moment to halt
work on cutting any more, and let the fire die down:
While
the rest of the team set about manhandling tools and equipment back up
the slope to the vehicles, one volunteer remained behind to watch the bonfire,
until certain that it had reached the point where gusting wind could no longer
create mischief:
The
rain was sure to dampen it down in due course, but we did not know when that
would be. In fact, the first drops began
to fall on my windscreen about half an hour after leaving for home. The torrents arrived around tea-time, while this
– the last WGG blog of the year – was being composed.
Have
a good one! And we’ll see you in 2019.
