Returning to roots

For a group named after the town it is surprisingly seldom that we get to work in Wallingford Castle Meadows.

Aeons ago, WCM was where WGG started: with a major project to bring into public use – and improve the biodiversity of – the pond area.  Today, Green-Gymmers’ main task was one which simply never arose in the early days, to clear the meadows of a noxious plant which first made its appearance on site during a particularly damp year.

So, weeding again:

“Hmmm.  Woody Nightshade (for some of us) last week, Hemlock next.  I’m detecting a pattern.”

Part of the pattern was that target acquisition presented a bit of a challenge.  First, instruction in positively identifying the species in question.  Then, making out green on green, or spotting the spotty stem.  “We are now all experts in Hemlock spotting.” 

Then it was just a matter of wielding tool of choice (“You can go with this; you can go with that”) and being thorough in disposal of cuttings – also hand-care during and after.

At least it was dry underfoot.  Yes, we are well aware the land very much needs more moisture, but from PoV of volunteers moving vegetation this morning, it was good that rain held off until the afternoon.

Inevitably there were a few ‘odd jobs’ as well.  One was to scythe thistles across the site.  As in previous years, thistles were thickest where Wallingford Castle excavations had taken place.

As you will have seen from the photographs, at this time of year WCM is a shared space: between humans and livestock.  Members of the public can visit year-round; but in the summer months we engage in an interesting co-existence exercise with a small number of (peaceable) cattle which are put out to graze, but are also very keen on ‘helping’:

They did point out one job for us.  At first light yesterday, an off-duty Green-Gymmer out for a walk noticed that one of them had learned how to operate the side gate from Upper to Lower Meadows.  We know they are smart animals, but it was quite amusing to see a steer deftly push against the handle with the side of the neck, then neatly swing the gate open with the shoulder, trot through, and set about cropping the greener grass on the other side of the fence.  

On closer inspection it became clear that the creature need not have gone to the trouble of very carefully using the handle.  For whatever reason, fittings had slipped out of alignment.  [Caused by posts shifting as they and ground dry out? – Ed.]  The result was that it would not have taken much of a push – by livestock or human visitor – to get the gate to swing forward anyway, without releasing the latch:

Another wonder was why the other steers remained the other side of the gateway, just playing with the side gate: opening and closing it, but not walking through to the lush pasture in the meadow below.  Naturally, as soon as human observer took camera out of pocket, play stopped:

Off-duty Green-Gymmer had, therefore, suggested that while volunteers were on site, they might have a go at fixing the gate.  Or at least investigate possibilities of mechanism being adjusted so that the latch engaged properly.  “Well that will spoil the cows’ fun,” was the instant response from our session leader.  Followed by: “I am sure we could have a look at it.”

So they had a look ... and fixed it.  At least we hope so.  This was the solution they come up with:

It will be interesting to see over the next few days what the bovine riposte will be.

Mini Green-Gym

By ‘C’:

We knew we hadn’t finished the job the time before last.  We left the scene at session end, secure in the knowledge that another group would come along after us.

They didn’t in fact finish the job.  So, here we were again:

It was brighter than last time.  Also considerably colder.  (“Why was the snowman looking at the box of carrots?” – “Because he was picking his nose!”)

It did not take us long to decide that today was going to be a 2-tea-break day.  Warmth from within was very much required, when for the most part we could only work in turns, fresh pairs of hands taking over as volunteers grew weary.  For that reason – also because this was an extra, ad-hoc session – it was only some of us who assembled of a Thursday morning to see if we could complete the replacement of gate-posts begun on 14 November.  (How will we remember tomorrow that it’s Friday, not Wednesday?) 

The ‘hanging post’, which we had left temporarily in place, had been finished off.  As far as we could make out, however, no further progress had been made on the ‘clanging post’.  So our first task was to deepen the hole, to 3 feet, and extract remnants of old post.  Having learned from experience, we deployed an even greater variety of tools and methods. 

As the hole deepened, among the Green-Gym chatter was some speculation about the effect this was having on the test match in Australia.

Some of the extract was chalk.  Other bits, although small, were clearly remains of previous gate-post:

It’s wood!

– Yes, but is it Norwegian wood?

After a good hour’s toil, we had still not managed to get down as far as the bottom of the previous post.  (“There’s plenty of chalk, but where’s the blackboard?”)  Time for a first round of refreshments, courtesy of Mr Kipling:

Do you like Kipling?

“I don’t know: I’ve never kippled.

Almost as soon as work resumed, the breakthrough came.  This may not look spectacular:

But it was the first lump of wood to have come out which showed the bottom edge of the former post. 

The end is in sight?

– That’s beginning to sound like a song: ‘The end, my friend …’

After that, the rest of the post seemed to surrender without a fuss – or at least without insisting on being taken out in fragments not much larger than a splinter at a time:

Ah, the caffeine effect!

– No, CAKE!

Meantime, some anxious gazes had been cast at the other post.  It didn’t look quite straight, even allowing for the slope of the ground:

If it had been ‘out’, then we would have had to align ours similarly.  In fact, the spirit level showed that it was perfectly true in the plane which mattered: in relation to the gate.  It was leaning only slightly in the other direction, parallel with the gate:

(In due course, ‘ours’ – the clanging gate – would do exactly the same.)

A couple of items appeared to missing from the fixtures on the hanging post, which seemed odd.  Had the other group run out of time, or been missing a complement of components?

Investigations were undertaken:

Findings appeared to indicate that two of the bolts had sheared off.  That spurred the team to work carefully, so that we did not do the same.

Positions of post and gate were carefully measured:

Then, and only then, was it time to fill in the hole:

This was done with a combination of materials – stones, smashed brick, gravel, and chalk –all tamped down, one layer at a time.  Until at last it could be declared, with confidence, that the post had been properly set:

That’s not going anywhere.

– Well I hope it goes round with the rest of the planet.

– It won’t go round: it’s square.

It was at this point that the work became more technical, with the fitting of the latch.  That called for a change of tools, and even the use of a (battery)power-tool:

“Sounds like being at the dentist”

For the finishing touches – plugging the gap between gate and fence line – it was back to hand tools.  Nails were levered out of a length of timber, straightened, and used to re-attach the rail with its notice to dog-walkers …

and three staples hammered into place, to fix stock-wire to the new post:

All this just gave us just time to admire our handiwork, before knocking off at normal Green-Gym time.  – Except that we did linger a little while longer to let the duty warden in the office know that we were done, and to have another round of re-invigorating caffeine and cake.

Now all that is needed is for someone to re-attach the small green plaque with the field (or is it gate?) number, which we had so carefully salvaged from the old post.

If at first you don’t succeed

By ‘C’:

A round of applause for the foreman does not happen often at Green Gym.  It did today. 

This was the moment of triumph, when a stubborn gate-post, which even more stubborn Green-Gymmers had applied effort, ingenuity, then more effort into shifting, finally began to yield:

Session leader I may have been, but really Graham – dubbed ‘foreman’ for the day – was the brains and inspiration behind today’s session.  He it was who, while I was away, met with the site manager in advance to recce the job, and organized some extra tools.

As he explained at the start of the session, really we needed to split into three teams:

• one group to ‘scrub-bash’, in this case to remove vegetation where it was encroaching on fence-lines in an area where sheep are corralled when they are in transit to fresh pasture
• one group to remove the left gate-post at the end of that area
• and one group to remove the right-hand gate-post

Or: to use the ‘technical’ terms, “the hanging post and the clanging post”.

Ah, the things we do for sheep, while all they do is hang out and have a good time.

The trouble with a gate-post is that it is a bit like an iceberg.  It’s big, what you can see above the ground; but there’s so much more below the surface than you can easily credit.  And, unfortunately, they rot.  So sometimes they have to be dug out and replaced, and the gate re-hung.

Actually, the first thing to do was to find the right gate.  Not this one …

nor this …

That one, in front of us, was the target:

After detaching the gate itself, step 1 was, of course, to pull out the old posts, and to remove from them, all the metal fittings:

Ha!  Step 1 in fact took up the whole session.  The right-hand post was rotten, and broke off.  It was then a question of using a pic to break up the wood left in the hole, and scooping out fragments handful by handful:

As the hole got deeper, the volunteer on ‘scooping duty’ (yes, I took my turn) had to get lower and lower:

This was labour- and time-intensive work.  Half-way through the session, volunteers found themselves re-measuring the original, in the hope that the task might not be as massive as they anticipated. 

Alas, the measuring had been done correctly.  Depth of hole required: 1.3 metres.  Depth achieved by then: 0.65 m.  And: not having ‘sugar-tongs’ to hand (even between us, we can’t supply the full range of tools ourselves, and the site manager was in a meeting today), there naturally came a point where the hole was simply too deep for the longest human arm to reach.

As for the other gate-post, well that one would not budge at all.  Considerable ingenuity was applied to try to enable its removal without digging a large hole all the way round.  Here, the team is seeing whether a trolley jack and a bit of leverage would do the trick.  Answer was: no.

Meanwhile, the scrub-bashers were making excellent progress, on either side of the track, and on either side of the fence:

By half-time, they had about completed that particular section:

This led some of the gatepost-removal teams to suggest that after the break, we should all do a swap round: scrub-bashers to work on gate-posts; gate-posters to have a breather on the scrub-clearance job which was almost done.

There are days when the whistle for tea-break is extra specially welcome.  This was one of them: a little rest for the muscles; the chance to re-think tactics; and, as usual, a wide-ranging discussion to engage in.

Answers to some of the questions raised:

• There is no such thing as a Tibetan Llama: Tibetan Antelope, Tibetan Argali, Tibetan Gazelle, Tibetan Mastiff, and Tibetan Wild Ass yes, plus wild camels, yaks, wolves, snow leopards, &c; but no llamas spelled with a double ‘l’ in the Himalayas
• The differences between llamas and alpacas: both come from the Andes (Peru and Bolivia), and both are part of the camelid family; but llamas are twice the size (so can be used as pack animals), have more elongated faces and ears, grow coarser hair (which makes for less good fleeces from the human farmer’s PoV), and are more independent-minded

After the break, scrub-bashers ambled on along further stretches of fence-line, among flora which is certainly very pretty, but not quite as exotic as that of the Tibetan steppe:

Gate-post extractors conceded that they needed to excavate a much larger slot around the post which was proving resistant, and then exert more leverage:

It was a case of trying and trying again – and trying out one new suggestion after another:

Here, another variation on brute force + ignorance, trying to ‘wiggle’ the post within the hole:

All credit to Green-Gymmers: they keep smiling even when things are not going their way:

Eventually, hooray!  Patience and determination paid off:

And that was when a spontaneous round of applause broke out for the foreman.  What a shame he has his back to the camera here, when this ‘big fish’ had, of course, to be measured:

“220 altogether!”

By now we had got to the end of what we could usefully do in a session.  So the new posts were temporarily lifted into position:

That allowed us to lean the gates against them, to improvise a barrier across the lane, and so comply with The Countryside Code (‘leave gates as you find them’):

The rest of the job – sinking the new posts and hanging the gates – we’re leaving for another group, another time.