Start of the (rainy) season

 The beginning of August marks the start of the cutting season on the Common, so it’s no surprise that it rained heavily on the night before the first working party. Our wonderful winch had misbehaved earlier in the year and chewed up some of the very expensive rope used to haul the heavily-laden sheets. A repair of the winch had been carried out, and a pricey new rope had been obtained, but before using them in earnest the winch crew decided that a test was called for, to provide reassurance that the fault would not recur. Safety is paramount, and the last thing wanted is for a rope to part under strain, with possibly disastrous results. Five doughty winch specialists therefore convened to carry out the test in significant heat, requiring, inevitably, a beer break.

You’ll be happy to know that the winch passed with flying colours.

In order for there to be work for volunteers to do from the start of the Sunday sessions, we usually do a pre-cut on Sunday, and this was no exception. Regular readers won’t be surprised to learn that your regular correspondent was once again ahem, unavailable, for the entire weekend. What follows is therefore courtesy of stand-in blogger, Team Leader Julie:

Before we cut, the Central Area (area G) looked like this 

The visiting alpacas were largely hidden by the tall Reed at that stage: can you spot one? 

The lovely, and aptly named, Fragrant Orchid…luckily not where we were cutting this week.

On Sunday the day started very wet but the forecast was promising so we decided to go ahead with the work party and hope some of our volunteers had checked the forecast too! Before we could do anything else a couple of us had to clear the boardwalk between the car park and the container, which was virtually impassable (certainly not without getting soaked) due to overhanging branches and reed. That done, we set up on the central area for the first cut of the season. As promised the rain cleared and left us with a decent temperature to work in…although it was very damp underfoot…

We had a hugely impressive 16 turn out today, including another new volunteer, Ruth. We have now had seven new volunteers join us since December 2020, which is fantastic. Our NWT volunteer coordinator Alan has also been very impressed each time I have sent him another Consent Form from a new volunteer.

I was waffling away, as I do, to Ruth about what we were doing and casually pointing at Grizzly as I explained the process…only to be reminded that I had not clarified that Grizzly was the machine and not the man using it! Sorry John, you can come out from the trees…we would never label you Grizzly obviously! 

Anyway, back to the task in hand, we got to work slurping through the mud (it’s the only way to describe the sound it made sucking at our wellies) and at times it resembled work in a paddy field. However, this is good news as it is a wetland area and we have seen a decline in some of our plants with the area drying out over recent years. 

Our refreshments at half time had also declined due to COVID, but today the wonderful shout of “coffee time” was heard and everyone downed tools and started to head for the bench for teas, coffees and homemade cakes…a very welcome return….thank you Margaret.

 Then, feeling refreshed we all got back to work again. 

Due to the recent rainfall, the work today was heavier than it normally is in this area…as Dave will tell you, pulling the sheets was like an Olympic event…though I’m not sure which one…tai chi maybe! 

Such a look of concentration on his face!

 Anyway, it was a good work party and we achieved a huge amount, leaving the area looking like this… 

Our volunteers, being so very fashion conscious, know that it’s important to hang clothes up tidily...

On the subject of clothing, Team Leaders are a special breed, as demonstrated by Kevin and his snazzy braces 

Here’s Julie’s message of thanks:

Hello all

A huge thank you to the 16 volunteers, old and new, who braved the weather to work on the Common today. Luckily, the heavy rain had all but stopped by 9am so we didn't get too wet from above (though it was rather wet underfoot) and the temperature was quite pleasant for working in. 

It was our first working party back on the main SSSI area - this is normally much easier work when the younger reed is dry, but today proved to be quite heavy work! We also had a few minor teething problems with dump sites on our first session of the season - so an extra thank you to those who had to double handle some of the reed to get it to the required dump site. We were soon back to our normal well-oiled operation and the remainder of the session ran very smoothly.

We aim to be back in the central area on the 14th August. As a lot of people are going to be away we will send an email out at the beginning of that week to gauge numbers so we know how much reed to pre-cut if numbers are going to be low.

Thanks again to all of you for your continued support.

Regards, Julie (for the Team Leaders)