Tasks old and new

By the Session Leader:

Exhausted by the end; dirty; wet.  All the signs of a tremendous session and a really good workout! 

And in perfect autumn sunshine too:

Green-Gym colours of fall:
warm top swiftly discarded, and hung up alongside the turning leaves

With so many of us (a turn-out of 18), we had a wide variety of tasks.  Mostly wet (hooray!) and in amongst the watercress:

Keeping the water channels running free, clear of overgrowing vegetation, is a never-ending task.  Naturally volunteers had their own ideas about how the excess-watercress problem ‘ought’ to be tackled ;)

I think SODC should send a sprig with every council-tax bill.
– And if the customer doesn’t pay within 18 days, send a larger one!

Unusually, the other tasks included planting bulbs, and making a planter out of rubbish which had been left on site.  The tools this morning therefore included some items we had not used before – and which volunteers ended up not using this time either.  Of the tool set below, it was the trowel Mk 1 which was preferred, in order to set bulbs by a variation on the slit-planting technique we have used for tree whips:

Another thing that was unusual for Green Gym: by the end of that particular task, you would (by design) hardly have known that we had been there:

Before: remains of fallen tree had to be cleared first

After: you’ll be able to see where we have been next spring (all being well),
when wild-daffodil plants begin to spring up

Meanwhile, another small Green-Gym team had been despatched to look for the rubbish which, we were told, had been left near an area which kids use for a playground.  One of us remembered where that was likely to be, and indeed there was no mistaking it when we found it.  The totally unofficial play kit was greatly admired (but no, not used, however tempting it looked):

These were the materials for the planter, which needed to be carried/wheeled to their new location – for the inevitable Green-Gym discussion on how the construction project should be carried out:

It was largely a solo project, with the odd helping hand and provision of extra tools, eg a narrow-handled spoon from the tea-crate for forcing a cable-tie through the thickness of a rubber tyre.

This is the (almost) finished product.  Just one more load of soil to be added when the first batch has had time to settle.  What the local youth will make of it is another matter – a central feature for an improv race-track?

The other task was one we have done before.  The pond-dredging team manfully coped with lovely sticky silt, getting stuck, over-balancing, and nearly playing dominoes with their colleagues.  [I wonder why this job always seems to come up on the Tuesday nearest Armistice Day? – Ed.]

The tea-crate volunteer did us proud with his delicious filo pastry flans (“It’s nice to have savoury for a change”) and a spread of cakes, with plenty of tea and coffee.  Thank you! 

Naturally, tea-break was the time for the really serious Green-Gym discussions ;)  This, for instance, on the subject of how to build up the six layers of filo for optimum effect:

“I didn’t make the filo pastry myself.”
– “I don’t know anyone who does.”

After the break, it was noticed that a pair of mallards had been quick to explore the area which had been cleared – presumably in the hope that Green-Gym efforts would have stirred up something nice for ducks to eat.  The male is reasonably easy to spot, the female is well camouflaged:

There was also some discussion among the pond-digging-out squad as to whether to carry on with that task (“There’s a small amount of room left in my wellies for water”) or to switch to something different (“It’s jolly hard on the back”).  In the end, it was judged that the team had already done a grand job at the pond, and it was time to trade in one set of tools for loppers &c, and go and cut back some of the trees overhanging the stream.

At session end, our final tool count found two forks missing, one of which emerged from the silt with just its handle peaking out, and the other might be gently rusting over for discovery sometime in the future.  Or maybe it’s that one still in the site-warden’s car.

Happily, the final head count produced all 18 of us; no-one gently rusting over in the silt.