What to look out for in a ‘winter’ churchyard

Wasn’t it lovely this morning?  Here’s a snap on the way to the session – Tower of St Leonard’s in the background: 

Where the birds are, in the foreground, is where we are meant to be next week!  In the meantime, the water-meadows beside the Thames are precisely as water-meadows are supposed to be in winter.

Today’s session was to tidy up the churchyard of this oldest church in Wallingford.

The churchyard looked in pretty good nick after our previous visit:

Apart from the 12-foot brambles, some of which were growing in the tranquil stream, into which this volunteer waded:

And apart from ivy, for which one volunteer found a new technique of removal:

Then of course we had to bag up the debris …

all the while taking care not to trample the snowdrops and other bulbs peeking through:

Other signs of spring came with this tree (pussy willow?) …

and this dainty flower, prunus subhirtella autumnalis:

The tea wallah brought us delicious filo pastry tart with spinach ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes, followed of course by cake upon cake.

After tea, we excavated the ivy, and found a super aluminium ladder:

Your woodland friends

Did we do our first tree-planting of the season today?  No!

That had been the tentative plan, but since stocks on site consisted only of hawthorn, the site warden thought better of it: better to wait until another delivery, so that mixed planting can be done – by some other group.  Instead, we were put to doing something which, from our point of view, is even better: cutting trees down.  To be more precise: coppicing old trees to make way for new growth (in woodland-management speak, “to improve the stand structure”).

One-twelfth of the arboreal crown atop Round Hill, Wittenham, is cut back each year.  The resulting brash is used to construct a temporary dead-hedge fence, to protect the re-growth from being munched by animals which regard fresh shoots as a particular delicacy.  While most of us were engaged on starting a new length of the section marked off for attention this year, two Green-Gymmers volunteered to finish off the work done by another community group.  They completed the coppicing, and built up the rest of the defensive hedge:

Meanwhile, some of us in the main Green-Gym force were discovering that there was more to the job than just lopping and sawing off branches, dragging and stacking the cut wood, and stepping back to admire one’s handiwork.  The stumps had to be reduced, preferably to ankle height.   

Here my near-neighbour on the job had just finished taking down one seriously scrubby old tree:

C: That’s a mighty task you’ve completed there.

Volunteer: But now comes the hard bit.

C: Well, you never know.  The site warden might start talking about a chainsaw.

Volunteer: No, it’s all got to be done by Green-Gym muscle power!

Site warden: You can console yourself with the thought that it’s the softest wood you’ll ever have to cut.

Volunteer: Why?  What kind of wood is it?
Site warden: Lime – a favourite of wood-carvers.

C: And the task will feel much easier after tea-break.

It was not immediately obvious where to begin:

Nothing daunted, though, the volunteer set to:

“At least it’s not mahogany!”

And yes: the tea interval did intervene to give the man a rest; and refreshments, in honour of the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, had a high-GI rating.

This was the point at which we got to eat one of ‘our woodland friends’ – in the form of ‘Reggie the Robin’:

“It’s a sort of Christmas Easter-Egg”

The chocolate red robin was one of the many retail lines which had been sold off on terms extremely advantageous to the shopper, because from the stores’ PoV, ‘Xmas’ ends when they shut up shop at close of play on 24 December.  “Meaning,” as another Green-Gymmer observed, “you can pick up bargains for the rest of the Christmas period, and buy your Easter eggs at the same time!”

As the weather cleared, we enjoyed the sound not of a robin, but skylarks.  And took in some views, the majesty of which the camera lens cannot capture, but I tried my best anyway:

Other marvels were on a smaller scale.  Rocks, for instance, which had been brought from further north and deposited on site (? some 10,000 years ago, which in geological time is but yesterday):

“Why is there a pebble on the top of a hill, which you’d normally expect to find in the bed of a river?”

Also these examples of wild-food which is edible, but for which one would hardly want to forage unless pretty desperate (on account of the rubbery texture):

Jelly Ear Fungus

This was one session when we did not expect to finish off the task.  There is plenty more to be done by another group, another time!  We hope we left the work-site in a neat, tidy state for the next team. 

Best wishes for 2016 to all our readers!

Is it autumn or spring?

By ‘C’

It certainly does not feel like winter.  The date may be the last week in December, but the weather has been oscillating between autumnal gales and vernal sunshine.

These last couple of days, the forecast has been for dry & sunny, but dawn has worn a more menacing look …

and indeed it did actually rain as we were on our way to Green Gym this morning.   

Which made these seem even more incongruous:

Fortunately, the weather, poised between alternatives summed up by the two patterns of cloud, one low and heavy with rain, the other high and light ...

settled for the warm-and-dry option.

In fact it turned out to be a beautiful day to be out by the watercress beds …

and a beautiful day to be outside wielding a mattock:

The birdsong around us, as we worked, was definitely spring repertoire.  The notable performers were a chiff-chaff and a blackbird (“the one that sounds like someone using an old-fashioned bicycle pump”).

For the Tuesday after Xmas, we had a good turnout.  Those who were able to come, discovered that there was some Christmastide treats lurking amid the normal items at tea-break:

Preparation for the session had not been without its difficulties.  Baking the meringues, the session leader claimed, had been one of the easier tasks.  (“He’s a man of many talents!”)  The principal difficulty had been with a computer playing up: hence delegation of blog.  Thankfully, he was able to fall back on the iPad recently given him by his loving family – which, I can report, he has safely got to grips with.  Not all the normal pre-session communications between Green-Gymmers had, however, come to pass.

As for the task, for which the mattock was the most apt tool, it was to … dig up some of the trees planted by us in a session some years ago.  As they grew, some of the saplings (obtained on special offer?) turned out to be beech trees.  These simply grow too large, shade out other plants, and drop too many leaves to be suitable for this site.  So out they had to come.  By brute force if necessary:

Those items which could be re-used (eg straight lengths of trunk, with the side branches trimmed away – with the billhook) were stowed away against another day:

Meanwhile, the other task was to clear some of the unwanted vegetation from the bank.  Here, Green-Gymmers are in tidying-up mode:

This was the only casualty of the day:

It eventually gave way altogether, when some unfortunate person, who had not realised that it was on its way out, attempted to use it:

The last act of the session was a washing-up party – washing the tools, that is, not the session-leader’s iPad:

The city of Oxford, I am reliably informed, has woken up again after the Christmas shut-down.  My walk back home, however, took me through sleepy South-Oxfordshire villages:

It is actually Tuesday today, I am sure.  For how else would it have been Green Gym this morning?   

For a final WGG treat, my route took me along a path which we cleared in another session some years back now.  You can still see where we’ve been, maintaining the public path; and now I know how the grass to the side has been kept in check:

The grass is always greener …