Matthew Arnold Field, Saturday 11th December 2021

By -

 This week's blog post was written by session leader, Eleanor Dangerfield: 

This Saturday thirteen of us gathered in Jarn Way to work in Matthew Arnold Field, Boars Hill. We met the new Oxford Preservation Trust officer, Charlie, for the first time, who told us that our main task was to clear the belt of brambles growing half way down the field and to stack them along the fence at the bottom of the field.

Sally and Adrian set to work with their scythes and others with slashers and loppers and soon there were plenty of brambles to rake up and carry down to the fence.

We worked hard until tea break time but realised that the task was going to take us all morning. However, our break was not as relaxing as we had hoped as a horse, which we hadn’t even noticed before, ambled up with the clear intention of sharing our biscuits. We tried shooing it away, but it refused to budge, trampling on the tarpaulin and grabbing plastic bags and rucksacks in the hope that they would be tasty. I think it must spend its time standing by the field gate (where it has a perfectly good sack of hay) and being fed treats by walkers and thus associates all humans with food.

In the end, we decided to take our bags and rucksacks back to the cars and the horse lost interest in us and resumed its post by the gate.

We carried on with the slashing, raking and stacking  and were pleased to see that, by the end of the session, we had cleared all the brambles. We were lucky with the weather, too as it stayed dry until almost the end of the morning. We look forward to coming back to Boars hill again, where the different sites offer a variety of tasks.


'Do you have any mince pies?'


Tasty tarpaulin




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pinkhill Meadow Nature Reserve, Farmoor Reservoir, 16th March 2019

By Andrew -
Image
Another week, another new site for the Abingdon Green Gym! We met at the car park at Farmoor Reservoir, a healthy turn out of 17 of us, including French father Sebastien, and his eleven-year old son, Maelo, who was joining us for a school project. The session was led by James under the instruction of Hanna Jenkins, the warden of Pinkhill Meadow Nature Reserve, so called because it is right on the banks of the River Thames, just near Pinkhill Lock. It was another blustery day. Will this crazy wind ever let up? We followed Hanna in convoy round the edge of the reservoir, which was choppy to say the least, and parked up on the other side where it was thankfully a little calmer, the high banks of the reservoir providing some shelter. Equipped with our tools, gloves and goggles, we made our way onto the spot on the nature reserve where we were to do our work. Hanna told us that the reserve had been formed in 1991, but some aspects had been neglected over the last ten years. The aim
Read more

Kennington Memorial Field, 29th October 2016

By Andrew -
We have been working at Kennington Memorial Field for a number of years now, clearing scrub from the slopes so that the valley remains an area of grassland and wild flowers. This time Rachel from Oxford Preservation Trust was in charge and led us down to the lower end of the field, where we were to cut back the trees and bushes by several metres and burn the scrub on a bonfire. We were joined by some families with children of varying ages, the youngest only three, who had answered a local appeal for volunteers. We set to work and soon we had a bonfire going. Even the children who were too young to use loppers and saws joined in, carrying branches to the bonfire pile. Despite the drizzly weather they all worked cheerfully. At tea break time we enjoyed some delicious snacks that Rachel had brought and a tin of chocolates supplied by Michele. We found two old birds' nests in the course of the morning and cutting back the scrub revealed a log pile with a rabbit hole under
Read more

Ock Valley Walk, Town End, 22nd June 2013

By Andrew -
Image
Quite a small group gathered for this session and the weather didn't look promising. However, we were pleased to welcome a new member, Laura. We set off for the woodchip path,where we made our encampment. The nettles had grown high and dense since our previous visit, almost concealing the young trees, compising beech, oak, silver birch, cherry and rowan, which we had planted as whips almost two and a half years previously. One of our tasks was to clear the nettles and other vegetation immediately around them. As you can see from the photo of the young cherry, most of the trees are flourishing. Other tasks were to cut up and clear fallen branches into piles and the inevitable litter picking. There was a sharp shower shortly before 11 o'clock but it had stopped when we gathered for a welcome tea break. By the end of the morning we had finished clearing round the trees, tidied away the dead wood and picked up quite a respectable amount of litter, though I suspect t
Read more