Abingdon Green Gym Blog

This week's blog post was written by AGG Chair, the wonderful Eleanor D.!:  Eleven of us braved the sub zero temperatures to work on Boundary House Fen under the direction of Rod d’Ayala.  It was very cold but sunny as we set off for the part of the fen where Rod wanted us to work. Jim and Adrian scythed while the rest of us raked up reeds and transported them to the watercourse. Being frozen, the ground was not too soggy.  We worked hard until tea break time and soon began to warm up. The fen looked very beautiful with the frost on it under a blue sky and we were glad that we hadn’t stayed huddled indoors.  There was some discussion about whether to drag the tarpaulin into the sunshine, but it was pointed out that the sunny area was by now also the soggy area!  After the break we continued with the work, piling quite a lot of the cut material into piles under some trees. A robin was very appreciative of our work and hung around for the goodies we had uncovered....

This week's blog post was written by the heroic Helen and Henry!: This week, Green Gym assembled on a chilly December morning in Boars Hill. After layering up and donning our wellies, we headed over to Jarn Heath, the area nestled between Jarn Mound and Matthew Arnold Field. Sally briefed us on the tasks to be done, which included cleaning the stone bench between Jarn Heath and Jarn Mound, and clearing a glade in the wood by removing bramble and hard raking the woodland floor to expose the soil seed bank; OPT’s aim is to create favourable conditions for brown hairstreak butterflies.    Long sleeves and gloves were very welcome whilst clearing the bramble, and helped take the edge off the cold, though it wasn’t long until our activities warmed us up! We raked our trimmings into   dead hedges at the periphery of the heath, taking care to avoid smothering any holly bushes or honeysuckles. With our arms hurting from “rake ache” we then packed up the tools and headed back home...