Mice, men and the best laid plans

 

Never mind the mist; never mind the mellow fruitfulness: autumn excites birders because it’s migration time. I happened to be up and outside on 21^st September at an hour unsuited to my constitution, when overhead flew not one but two skeins of Pink-footed geese, yapping like a pack of demented puppies (and let’s face it, what puppy is not demented?). I then saw about 175 flying over the Common on the 25^th as well as four Redwings. These are the delightful winter-visiting thrushes whose sibilant flight calls can often be heard on calm clear nights as they arrive from the cold north in their droves.

NWT’s plan to finish cutting and clearing Area B beside Warren Road on 30^th of the month unfortunately didn’t come off. Ah well, best laid plans etc. Instead, our own doughty Grizzly drivers did the cutting by the end of September deadline, meaning that we could then clear the ‘arisings’ if not at our leisure, at least a bit later.

And so it was that 18 of us turned out at the far more civilised time of 10.00 a.m. to give it a good go. The weather was surprisingly warm; in fact it was a gorgeous morning to be out of doors. It begged the question: was this autumn, or an Indian Summer? It was quite warm enough for us thanks very much, as illustrated by the pile of discarded clothing. I had heard of strip clubs, but didn’t know until now what they were like...

Talking of clothing - as we fashion-conscious types so often do - Andrew turned up this morning and someone exclaimed “oh you have trousers on!”  You can take that as you may!!!

The task before us was actually quite a large one, not helped by the refusal of the tyre of the wheelbarrow used to transport the heavy winch and its even heavier rope to retain any air. A grim-faced Team Leader thundered off to get a barrow from her own garden, complete with air in the tyre. This had a knock-on effect, as the usual plan is to have the winch in place ready to haul filled drag sheets from the outset; today, that was not the case.

Being pragmatic souls, the first thing to do was to get some of the copious arisings moved by hand to the side of the area. Hauling by hand is what we used to do in the bad old pre-winch days, but the grass seems to have got heavier in the intervening years, or perhaps the volunteers have got older. Anyway, far less can be moved sensibly this way, but the distance being shorter, many more trips were possible.

Thank goodness for the Internet! Because these reports are available across the world, and possibly beyond, there’s a lot of attention-seeking tomfoolery that goes on, in the form of falling over at the point of tipping over of the drag sheets. Today it was Ken’s turn for glory; good to see he was alright.

      

As the sun climbed as high in the sky as it can manage at this equinoctial time of the year, the scene was one of quiet industry. Pitchforkers pitchforked, dragsheet attendants attended to their sheets as assiduously as could ever be wished for, and once the wheelbarrow had done its stuff, the winchers winched.

Speaking of the winchers, their skill is to deal with a finely tuned system. A key element of this is the little leather strap that keeps the winch anchored to a bit of old board. I am led to understand that this is to prevent the thing from bouncing about like a child on a sugar rush as it hauls in its heavy load – but that seems a bit too technical for me. The strap in question is, or was, a bit of an old man’s belt (I mean of course that the belt was old in belt years; not necessarily that its previous owner was particularly advanced in human years). Rather like the lack of air incident at the start of the session, work was held up again when the crucial bit of leather finally gave up the ghost and snapped. No gentleman there present was prepared to sacrifice his own belt, placing a high premium on keeping their trousers in their correct alignment: we’re not so much of a strip club as all that! The winchers, ever resourceful, came up with a solution which involved one performing a laying on of hands ceremony, whilst the other sat in a bucket. Oddly enough, it seemed to work.

Winching requires not only a winch, a bit of old board, a disintegrating leather strap, and a bucket, but also a long bit of string. Here we see an assessment being made of how long that piece of string is.

It’s not all hard work of course; there’s always time for play. Here we see three youngsters trying to work out why their kite won’t fly.

Faithful readers will by now be wondering if we had a break from all that hard graft. Indeed we did, and here’s the photo to prove it.

We’re often visited by a group of Alpacas out for a walk across the boardwalk. The people organising these outings might get the impression that the Southrepps Commons Volunteers are on a perpetual tea-break, but that’s just because they come at the same time as we take our brief respite from toil.

A brief note on the wildlife: two buzzards soared overhead, casting cold eyes on our efforts. Perhaps they could see what we eventually spotted; a tiny frog, and a shy lizard.

Eventually our two hours were up, and we made our weary ways home. We had hoped that all the cut vegetation would be cleared in this one session, but there's about another hour’s worth of work left, which will have to wait for another time. Here’s how Area B looks now. 

Here is the Team Leaders’ message of thanks:

Hello all

We hope that you are thoroughly enjoying the sunshine today. What a bonus!

The 18 volunteers who turned up at 10am this morning were certainly enjoying the sunshine on the Common, though it was warm work. We cleared a huge amount of cut material, leaving about an hour's work for next time unless George (NWT) comes and finishes it for us. A huge thank you to all of you for a job very well done.

We will meet again in two weeks’ time (16th October) - We will send an email nearer the date to confirm the meeting place and start time.

In the meantime, have a lovely few weeks.

Regards, Julie and the TLs