Under a burning sun

By ‘C’:

Some of the cows had the right idea, I thought, on my way to the session this morning:

It has been eyes to the skies for many of us over the past few days: not looking out for aircraft this time, but weather watching, mostly in hope of rain.  It was not just a few drops that were wanted, but a downpour bordering on torrent, because prolonged sunny spell has now graduated to driest start to a summer in England since records began:

On Friday evening in my village it had been almost a social event, popping outside to get a good vantage point of a promising-looking weather front coming in, and speculating whether it would in fact deliver:

When the merest sprinkling of a shower began and promptly ceased, expectation wilted.  Quarter of an hour later, however, came a sound we had not heard in weeks:

Phew! 

What has been lacking since has been any kind of precipitative follow-up.  Or plants noticeably growing again: they have merely ceased to wilt quite so fast. 

 

Some species seem to be foregoing the idea of fruiting this year.  Others are getting on with letting fruit ripen seriously early – it is still only July:

At home, grass not growing simply means one less job to do in the garden.  No point even attempting to water the lawn, any more than there would be reason to mow (or scythe) it.  To a livestock-farmer, however, meadows not producing must be seriously bad news?  It has been most strange over the last week or so seeing cattle at other sites, on what should be best-quality pasture-land, tucking into bails of hay.  (Though, of course, the situation hardly bears comparison with that in some other countries at the moment.)

Meantime there has been no shortage of interesting and beautiful things to look at in the heavens.  Sunbeams just like in devotional pictures on theme ‘resurrection’ are pretty, and can be quite startling when you see them in real life; but they do not signify meteorological conditions likely to result in more rain:

Light refracted as in a rainbow – except that it was not a rainbow – does not mean rain either.  ’Fraid you will have to take my word for it that the cloud pictured below, was acting like a prism: I was not able to capture all the colours on film.  Nor do I know what the technical term for this phenomenon is.  ‘Cloud iridescence’ perhaps?

As for golden sunsets, well those usually presage fine weather the following day:

Sure enough, after a gorgeous sunset on Sunday, yesterday dawned bright ...

... then turned into a ‘scorcher’.  – Or in Met-Office parlance, the conditions which trigger a level-3 Heat Health Watch alert.

So not a day for anyone to seek peace and quiet by going up on the roof.

Fortunately, today – Tuesday: Green-Gym day – the weather was a little kinder to those looking to work outdoors.  Lower temperatures anyway; and a lovely cooling breeze in favoured spots, eg atop ramparts of Wallingford Castle Meadows. 

So, sunhats, sunglasses, full-length flowing sleeves, factor-50 sunscreen, chilled water, and rest-breaks in the shade, it was time for all of those.  With the result that, as usual, the main danger of losing a person overboard at Green Gym would be (continuing the numerical theme from last week’s AGM quiz) would not be heat exhaustion, but someone having to admit after the tea-break, “The square root of minus one divided by the square root of sixtyfour.”

The first task today was to have been to change a plaque and run up a new flag.  A Green Flag has become almost a permanent fixture at Wallingford Castle Meadows.  They are awarded annually.  Which means that for the last ten years around this time of year it has been someone’s job to raise a new one.  This year it had fallen to us to form a flag-raising detail – except that someone forgot the key, so all we could do was to change over the notice on the fence. 

How many Green-Gymmers does it take to fix a new sign?

When it came to the main task of the morning, at least the desiccated state of the grass on the Upper Meadow meant that our targets could be easily spotted:

As before, ragwort and thistle were taken out by lazy dog (or plain gloved hands) and scythe respectively:

By session-end, in all the zones we worked (which form nearly all of Upper Meadow) there was not a ragwort to be seen.  Which was very satisfying. 

The butterflies flitting about the place (Chalk Hill Blue, I think) were also very pretty.  A pity they would not stay still long enough for a photoshoot! 

Still no sign of any more rain in the foreseeable. 

Oh, and the explanation of the mathematical turn of humour?  It was supplied after the AGM by today’s Session Leader.  I found it easiest (with some assistance from my family: thank you!) to start from the end, and work my way back:

The square root of 64 = 8

The operation ‘divided by’ can also be expressed as ‘over’

The square root of -1 is i (symbol used for notating imaginary and complex numbers)

So, square root of minus one divided by square root of sixtyfour = i/8 

= I over-ate

Turning up the heat on weeds

By ‘C’:

This species was one of our targets today:

Habitat for cinnabar moth; seriously not good for other species

The particular specimen of ragwort in that photograph was in my own garden.  ‘Was’ because I took it out before setting off for Green Gym this morning, on a ‘first sweep your own doorstep’ basis, as they say in Wisconsin.

Our other target: the thistle.  Sometimes it seemed a shame to take them out, but thistles too can monopolise an area if left unchecked.  At least one could find something else to do, while waiting for insect to finish meal:

We have on previous occasions had two varieties of thistle to deal with – which prompted this comparison, from a Sister in Wisconsin (yes, really: WI USA):

We have two main kinds of thistles here: Canada thistles (tame little things that get 2-3 feet, and are as invasive as digital technology) and something I call monster thistles (probably just regular thistles*) that come equipped with large spines, surveillance cameras etc.

[* Cirsium vulgare: native to Europe; introduced to USA
relatively recently, probably by European settlers – Ed.]

This time the ragwort and thistles in our sights were on the doorstep of our titular ‘home’-town of Wallingford.  This site is not only valuable green space, but also of historical importance.  Because of its archaeological interest (and the fragility of the soil) digging out plant-roots out with a fork is not such a great idea here – even when the ground is not as hard and dry as it is at the moment.  

So tools today were: lazy-dog for ragwort; scythe for topping thistles.  And no need to discriminate between different kinds of thistle!  The arc-swing of a well-handled scythe blade is equally deadly to all types & sizes of thistle: clean and sure as Harry Kane taking a penalty (or two).    

The main challenge for scythers was to pick out target-species amidst the long grass:

There is a patch of thistle ahead in that shot.  But not all purple/blue flowers seen from a distance turned out to be thistles (though some are clearly related) when one got closer:

Most of the plant-life consisted of various kinds of grasses.  In some ways this is a bit disappointing.  I mean, look at the abundance of flora beside the Thames just a little further downstream, towards the village of Cholsey:

Here, or at least where I was working, perhaps because they have been used for agriculture – and still are, though less intensively – the fields seem to have not quite the abundance of wildflowers it was hoped they would be sporting by now?   It is getting on for twenty years since they were taken into public ownership, and managed for nature-conservation as well as public-access green space.

There was no denying, though, that it was a peaceful spot:

Even the nearest Green-Gymmer was quite some distance away.  [Very wise!  A mistimed swipe with a scythe can do an awful lot of unintended damage. – Ed.]

By the looks of things, my nearest neighbour was taking out ragwort, and stowing it out of range of livestock, behind a fence.   

In other parts of the site, ragwort was stacked for removal in the pick-up later today:

Really the main difficulty was keeping going in the shredded heat of weather brought direct to us from Russia.  (Worst possible conditions for scything: too dry.)  We did not have to dig in deep like a cyclist setting a world record, but equally we did not find it as (relatively) easy going as several other sessions lately.  We were very grateful to the tea-crate volunteer, who had the forethought to stock up on lots of cold water and squash, among other goodies.

Shade at half-time was most welcome:

Likewise a rest at the end for some, before packing up and heading home.  [Possibly via pub? – Ed.]

My route [yes, straight home – Ed.] took me past the spot where a contractor was also having a brief break, before putting the finishing touches to a new line of fencing, where we had, in a previous session, taken out the old fittings: