How to Bee Happy

By the Session Leader:

Red sky at night, Shepherd’s delight – but what if it is orange?  Does that count as a good omen?

Orange lights at sunset, looking towards Wallingford Oxon, the day before Green Gym (10 Sep 2018)

We are never quite sure what the tasks will be when we go to the Abbey [The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay, that is – Ed.] except that one of them is sure to be renovating the dead-hedge fence.  We constructed most of it in the first place, and over the years maintenance work has fallen to us.  So our chief engineer went off to assess the state of the hedge at the back of the site:

Meanwhile the bulk of the group went off to clear a woodland path, mainly huge quantities of leaves, even though autumn leaf fall had not started properly:

One member seemed to have grown oversize hands especially for the job:

One area was cleared to reveal a dip in the ground which The Abbey hoped to make into a pond.  Perhaps not the best place in the middle of the wood?  The intention is to construct a feature which will be good for wildlife: frogs and such like.  [Hence the joke among some Green-Gymmers that the cheerful hand signal above was semaphore for ‘Frogs approaching’ – Ed.]

Two volunteers set to, to dig out a circular pond:

Plans were revised into a lozenge shape when a “bees’ nest” was discovered in what was going to be the middle, guarded by the fork in the picture:

None of us have more than a theoretical knowledge of how to set about re-locating a bees’ nest.  [Among the early suggestions, “Call an apiarist,” seemed to me to bee the best advice – Ed.]  

It was only later that it was discovered to be a wasps’ nest that we “could”(?!) have removed.  We shall know another time: before discussing nest-moving strategies, first positively identify nest-occupants.

(Spot the wasp?)

At tea break something about the venue made one person think of yoga, or was it to straighten their back after the digging?

The section of hedging by the road also needed attention with a number of uprights needing replacing:

As always there was one tool needed that we didn’t bring: the long spike to make holes in the hard ground.  So not much progress was made here, other than topping up the filling in the middle of the fence-line.

Finally, the ‘pond hole’ reached a full circle [or classic mint shape – Ed.] ready for the next stage when the wasps have retreated.  The hard work seems to have given some of us permanent bows.