Abingdon Green Gym Blog

Blog by Sally.  Photos by David, Michele and Sally We had a very good turnout, with 17 Green Gymmers, for our second visit to Lincombe Lane Field, one of the Boars Hill sites owned by Oxford Preservation Trust.  Once again, we were lucky with the weather - it was a beautiful spring day.  We met consultant ecologist, Rod d'Ayala, under whose direction we worked and made our way down the field with the various tools for the jobs which Rod had listed for us.  The field slopes towards the village of Sunningwell.  At the bottom of the field, there is a wood and part of our task is to restore that to fen.  On this visit, however, we were limited in what we could do as it is bird nesting season, so we could only work in certain areas and do limited tasks which meant that we wouldn't disturb any. Rod briefs the group We had three main tasks.  One was to cut and rake the nettle slope, removing any stray hemlock plants.  The second was to dig up hemlock fro...

 Blog by Eleanor, photos by Sally, Kevin and Eleanor Thirteen of us met by the bridge over the weir, where the Ock joins the Thames, on a lovely sunny day. Our main task was to spread woodchip on the path which curves away from the main footpath and rejoins it later on. This is a task we do every year in Spring when the risk of flooding is past. Unfortunately, this year, we found that the council had only left us one fairly small heap, barely enough to cover a quarter of the path. However, Green Gymmers are not easily defeated, and we had noticed that there was some woodchip spread out by the path and within the wooded area where previous tree work had been done by contractors, so, while a group tackled the meagre heap Kevin set off to start raking the spread out woodchip into heaps, ready for shovelling, barrowing and spreading. Ready for work Adrian and Carolyn path laying Spreading the woodchip Raking Another task was litter picking. AbiBinit had organised a big litter pick all ...

  Ten Green Gymmers met at the entrance to Lashford Lane Reserve on this lovely sunny day. The Sandford Brook flows through the reserve, which is managed by BBOWT. We made our encampment in the meadow next to the fen.  One task was to dig up sprouting hawthorn in the meadow area. David and Susan stayed to do this. The rest of us made our way down to the fen. We had to pick our way carefully, as much of it was very soggy, but, after all, it is a fen.  The vegetation we had to scythe Moving it on to a heap There was a very big fallen willow on the other side of the brook. We had been asked to cut off the smaller branches and pile them along the fence line as a dead hedge. BBOWT will send in a chain saw in the next few days to cut up the rest. Lesley, Rosie and Eleanor volunteered to do this. It was tricky finding a suitable place to cross the brook where we wouldn't sink in.   Lesley & Rosie Adrian & Jim scything We all met back in the meadow for our break, the...