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.

 

Many hands make for light work

By the Session Leader:

“What a grand day!” as one of our volunteers exclaimed as she arrived.  

Overnight temperatures at the nearest weather station had dipped to -4.6 C.  So first thing the sweet spring flowers had frost on them:

Frost soon melted in the warm sunshine.  Green-Gymmers warmed up too. 

There were many of us this morning: 15 volunteers altogether.  [Plus 2 supernumeraries – Ed.]  Hence a crowded car park: 

We had worked on the site in the autumn, and not much had grown over the winter.  The leader was therefore worried that we were not going to have enough work.  He need not have been concerned: we were given a good list of five main jobs.

The first was right behind the cars.  Wheel-barrowing (some of) the pile of logs …

over to the wood store.  

Not so easy as two of the barrows had faulty tyres!  But by the end of the session the workforce had moved those logs which were ready for burning, restacked the oversize ones, and left the area neat and tidy:

The second job was very familiar: filling in potholes along a driveway.  This looked as if this was a task which had been done before in previous years:

With all their training and experience from last time we did this at Green Gym, there were Green-Gymmers eager to volunteer for that:

It had to be a team of 4: two to shovel (we had only 2 spades); one person “wheelbarrow competent and confident”; and one supervisor to hold the imaginary clipboard. 

They started at the far end of the driveway …

and worked their way inwards, with much mock-serious discussion about “grading” of potholes, “belts” of potholes, whether the team should be engaged in “pothole prevention work” by addressing smaller depressions which had the potential to become potholes in the future, and working methods:

“You need to work in unison.”

– “We are in Unison!”

– “And we could tender for projects left by Carillion.”

When they had done, you could certainly see where they had been.  They had left the drive easier to motor along, but looking like it had sticking plasters:

 

Meanwhile the third task was being tackled in hiding:

This team was cutting down part of a tree that had collapsed with the weight of ivy and wind-pressure.

A fourth team was tackling a bigger horizontal tree that had also collapsed.  But the leader failed to take a photo.  Or were those volunteers trying to stay incognito?

The fifth team had found a gap in the dead hedge at the far end of the site which required some hefty stakes to be brought over from the sawing teams:

The porter happens to be Scottish, but this is not the Highland Fling.

The stakes had to be sharpened …

then hammered into place.

In the middle of all the work we had to stop for tea-break which was in an idyllic spot …

under the shade of the London plane tree which we have admired on previous occasions:

The goodies included home-made Jaffa cakes and frangipane:

The general verdict was that they were “better than the ones you can buy in shops.”

As the tasks were finishing we were left to drag as much dead, and live, wood as we could to build up the dead hedge by the road:

Two characters turned up along the way, and wanted to join: 

Spiderman I recognize.  Who’s the other dude?

PS from the Editor:

One of our readers may be able to help with identification of our supernumeraries?  Spiderman was my fave comic-book hero when I was a kid; subject of endless spin-offs since.  I have yet to see a Green-Gymmer superhero or lego character.