Back in the water

Green Gym working in water again: the chalk stream at Ewelme.  Clearing water channels.  Again.  Weeding where watercress should be growing.  Again.  

For all that we have done this so many times before, inevitably the session began with discussion of what, exactly, is a weed at this site.  A complication is that one unwanted species is a type of watercress, but apparently, “It’s the wrong sort of watercress.”

As usual, it was then a question of volunteers deciding whether to remove unwanted plants with aid of fork or by hand, and how best to get risings in wheelbarrow. 

At that point, the session departed from the usual pattern for this job.  The Green-Gym team began work with ten water-based volunteers and one longshoreman.  This week, however, a different system was tried out for wheelbarrowing stuff to compost-heap, and returning empty barrows to where they were needed, in the stream.

Whether the new system made for greater efficiency is one for management to decide.  

It made the position of dedicated longshoreman redundant.  Which doubtless the longshoremen’s union is not happy about ;)  All the same, it is probable that, come tea-break, Green-Gymmers’ appetites were of habitually tigerish proportions.  It was thirsty work, for all that feet were in water, and more of the wet stuff was – occasionally – falling out of the sky.

There was nothing we could do about the several big areas of very short cress.  Watercress appears to have stopped growing where large quantities of mud have accumulated.  Which may be due to low levels of water in the stream.  [You would almost think someone was trying to drink all the water in the stream – Ed.]  Another time we, or other volunteers, might be invited to have another go at digging out the silt?  But not today.