On the Green Edge

By ‘C’:

Another perspective for us on the village of Dorchester:

That’s the northern green edge to the Oxfordshire village – except that it is not looking especially green at the moment.  In the background of the pic: Wittenham Clumps, part of.  During the session itself, we could not see them: in the first half, that was because from the north side of the village there are few views of the gorgeous countryside to the south unless one has the advantage of a bit of elevation.  Where that shot was taken, the artificial height was in the form of a track leading to the little-used bridge which spans the (in)famous Dorchester by-pass.

It was the first time I had traveled to Green Gym on the bus.  Normally we are at locations not well served by public transport.  What you cannot see from the by-pass, not even while carried along as a passenger on the top deck of a bus, is Demesne Field (which is still worked as farmland) and the old lane alongside it, which now serves as a footpath.  Both field and pathway were looking rather more autumnal than one might expect in July:

One stretch of the path has been adopted by a trust.  The other stretch – well no-one knows who it belongs to.  Over the years, volunteers from the village have kept it clear of fallen branches.  Before our own volunteer team started work, it did not look too bad this year, because vegetation has been checked by the very dry summer.  Even so, one half of ‘our’ stretch featured vegetation encroaching from the sides:

The very first thing to be done was definitely one which fell to the Session Leader.  That was me today.  So, before the team assembled, I walk the length of ‘our’ stretch of path, kitted out with sturdy plastic gloves + large supply of biodegradable bags, and cleared up after irresponsible dog-owners.  Most of the mess was within a 3-metre radius of the facilities provided by thoughtful parish council!

Evidently there are some people who think of the path as ‘theirs’ in the sense that they and their animals are entitled to walk along it, but not in the sense that they accept their share of responsibility for keeping it in good order – and pleasant for everyone else:

That had been sprayed on the ground before I arrived.  (Is there a specific term for a ground, as opposed to the usual wall, graffito?)  My guess is that the artist does not so much wish to know the identity of the miscreants, as desire that they cease and desist.

After the dog-poo patrol had passed by, the rest of the team could follow on behind, and clear vegetation without having to be quite so concerned about where they put their feet.  Clearing space for path-users was swiftly done …

and then it was on to the next task.

Task 2 was on a picturesque lane on the south side of the village.  Walking along after the crew had car-pooled their way there, I was wondering to begin with what call there could be for Green Gym at this location:

Then I came to the stretch where there certainly was need for some care for nature, mostly of the removing of ‘bully species’ type:

Here too one could see there are residents who are very village-proud and not backward in coming forward to express their views:

Tea-break was by the allotments, from where there are clear views of the Clumps
– a good place to be consuming cake which had a tendency to crumble, and therefore needed squashing together into … clumps:

This was near where, on a previous visit, we had come across archaeological investigations in full swing.  The dig-site is presently returned to its former state:

Some ingenious allotment-technology also caught Green-Gymmers’ eyes.  This delightful home-made bird-scarer dances in the breeze:

After tea-break the verge-crew finished off their work.  Then the ‘Ivy League’ teams got stuck into some serious tree-care activity – which they seemed to enjoy a lot.  Here it was a question of freeing living tree from the grip of dead tree and a great weight of ivy:

“I think we may have saved a tree there.”

Fortunately, the weather was kind to us today.  It had been quite beastly during the week.  I mean, people may have differing views on whether hot & sunny = good, but just when clear skies would have been really good … ha!

One had spent some time preparing.  It was going be full moon last Friday.  Moon close to horizon, therefore seeming larger.  And a lunar eclipse: from 20:49 to 22:13 in London, so around 8.52 to 10.16 pm in our neighbourhood.  In some parts of the world, likely an enhanced ‘blood-moon’ due to effect of smoke from wildfires.  Plus, at the same time, the red planet appearing larger and brighter than in the last 15 years, because Mars is approaching its closest point to Earth (‘perihelic opposition’, apparently).  One had worked out a couple of days in advance the best places for viewing and photographing without going too far from home:

Then come the big day – or rather the dark night – the heavens were like this:

Worst of both worlds!  Sufficient cloud cover to disappoint sky-gazers, but not enough to let fall even a few drops of much needed rain.  If given the choice, I would gladly have foregone astronomical wonders in favour of a land-reviving downpour.

For the latter we had to wait until Sunday morning, when it rained (almost) cats and dogs.  And still the dry weary land could use more!

Under a burning sun

By ‘C’:

Some of the cows had the right idea, I thought, on my way to the session this morning:

It has been eyes to the skies for many of us over the past few days: not looking out for aircraft this time, but weather watching, mostly in hope of rain.  It was not just a few drops that were wanted, but a downpour bordering on torrent, because prolonged sunny spell has now graduated to driest start to a summer in England since records began:

On Friday evening in my village it had been almost a social event, popping outside to get a good vantage point of a promising-looking weather front coming in, and speculating whether it would in fact deliver:

When the merest sprinkling of a shower began and promptly ceased, expectation wilted.  Quarter of an hour later, however, came a sound we had not heard in weeks:

Phew! 

What has been lacking since has been any kind of precipitative follow-up.  Or plants noticeably growing again: they have merely ceased to wilt quite so fast. 

 

Some species seem to be foregoing the idea of fruiting this year.  Others are getting on with letting fruit ripen seriously early – it is still only July:

At home, grass not growing simply means one less job to do in the garden.  No point even attempting to water the lawn, any more than there would be reason to mow (or scythe) it.  To a livestock-farmer, however, meadows not producing must be seriously bad news?  It has been most strange over the last week or so seeing cattle at other sites, on what should be best-quality pasture-land, tucking into bails of hay.  (Though, of course, the situation hardly bears comparison with that in some other countries at the moment.)

Meantime there has been no shortage of interesting and beautiful things to look at in the heavens.  Sunbeams just like in devotional pictures on theme ‘resurrection’ are pretty, and can be quite startling when you see them in real life; but they do not signify meteorological conditions likely to result in more rain:

Light refracted as in a rainbow – except that it was not a rainbow – does not mean rain either.  ’Fraid you will have to take my word for it that the cloud pictured below, was acting like a prism: I was not able to capture all the colours on film.  Nor do I know what the technical term for this phenomenon is.  ‘Cloud iridescence’ perhaps?

As for golden sunsets, well those usually presage fine weather the following day:

Sure enough, after a gorgeous sunset on Sunday, yesterday dawned bright ...

... then turned into a ‘scorcher’.  – Or in Met-Office parlance, the conditions which trigger a level-3 Heat Health Watch alert.

So not a day for anyone to seek peace and quiet by going up on the roof.

Fortunately, today – Tuesday: Green-Gym day – the weather was a little kinder to those looking to work outdoors.  Lower temperatures anyway; and a lovely cooling breeze in favoured spots, eg atop ramparts of Wallingford Castle Meadows. 

So, sunhats, sunglasses, full-length flowing sleeves, factor-50 sunscreen, chilled water, and rest-breaks in the shade, it was time for all of those.  With the result that, as usual, the main danger of losing a person overboard at Green Gym would be (continuing the numerical theme from last week’s AGM quiz) would not be heat exhaustion, but someone having to admit after the tea-break, “The square root of minus one divided by the square root of sixtyfour.”

The first task today was to have been to change a plaque and run up a new flag.  A Green Flag has become almost a permanent fixture at Wallingford Castle Meadows.  They are awarded annually.  Which means that for the last ten years around this time of year it has been someone’s job to raise a new one.  This year it had fallen to us to form a flag-raising detail – except that someone forgot the key, so all we could do was to change over the notice on the fence. 

How many Green-Gymmers does it take to fix a new sign?

When it came to the main task of the morning, at least the desiccated state of the grass on the Upper Meadow meant that our targets could be easily spotted:

As before, ragwort and thistle were taken out by lazy dog (or plain gloved hands) and scythe respectively:

By session-end, in all the zones we worked (which form nearly all of Upper Meadow) there was not a ragwort to be seen.  Which was very satisfying. 

The butterflies flitting about the place (Chalk Hill Blue, I think) were also very pretty.  A pity they would not stay still long enough for a photoshoot! 

Still no sign of any more rain in the foreseeable. 

Oh, and the explanation of the mathematical turn of humour?  It was supplied after the AGM by today’s Session Leader.  I found it easiest (with some assistance from my family: thank you!) to start from the end, and work my way back:

The square root of 64 = 8

The operation ‘divided by’ can also be expressed as ‘over’

The square root of -1 is i (symbol used for notating imaginary and complex numbers)

So, square root of minus one divided by square root of sixtyfour = i/8 

= I over-ate