Grillo busted

 

Pit Common 20th September

Unavoidable circumstances regrettably (ahem) prevented your usual correspondent’s attendance at a recent special work party on Pit Common. Team Leader and frequent stand-in blogger Julie has provided the following account.

“We had nine hardy volunteers turn out today to clear away the grass, nettles and brambles around the Pit, which had been cut a few days previously. Also necessary was the clearing and digging out of the drainage channels leading from the road into the Pit.

Initially just two of us were setting up, and commenting that the area around the Pit is a lot bigger than you think once it is cut!!

The prime concern today was clearing the wildflower triangle that we are encouraging on Pit Common.

The volunteers were soon setting up to rake and pitchfork the cut material onto drag sheets which were then hand dragged to our dump area to the rear of the site.

The initial cut had been done with Grillo which cut the longer vegetation but it generally just flattened the softer grasses. So we also had to get the Pit mower out today to go over the wildflower area several times to get the grass shorter. It will probably need a few more cuts before it is short enough for us to scatter our additional Yellow Rattle seeds. The area is a work in progress. We have mainly got rid of the dock etc but we still need to fight the amount of grass in the area.

The sheets were dragged to the rear of the site which now serves as our dump area. We decided it was easier for a team to drag it to the area and tip it out and then for one person (me!) to pitch fork it up into a big heap.

 It was a very warm morning and we were all relieved when refreshment time was called!

As well as removing the grass we had Andrew doing a work-out clearing and digging out the drainage channels from the road …. It saved him a trip to the gym anyway!

When we had finished, I was quite proud of my enormous heap of cut material - it is much taller than me - ok that’s not saying much, but it was well over 6 foot!! It also appears that I was trying to replicate Mt Rushmore… oh come on this is definitely a face…!!

This is how the area looks now…”

Sunday 29th September

The latest work party of the Southrepps Commons Volunteers was graced by 16 of those good people. After a pretty chilly night, the weather was kind – unlike a couple of days previously, when it rained and rained and rained. Not as badly as many other parts of the country thankfully, but enough to make our little patch even soggier than it had been two weeks ago. We had left one fully loaded sheet last time, and as usual there had been a ‘pre-cut’ earlier in the week. All that had been cut had therefore absorbed a great deal of water, and thus became very heavy. Thank goodness for our winch!

The pre-cut had fortunately been extensive, so there was plenty lying around for us to work on.

It was fortunate, as during that pre-cut session Grillo had developed a serious oil leak, and is now awaiting the ministrations of a mechanic.

At every session, the first task is to sign in.

Then the drag sheets need to be laid out in suitable spots. See what I mean about the soggy conditions?

After that, it’s time to look cool with a pitchfork.

And then away we go!

Once a sheet is well loaded, it has to be accompanied on its winched journey to the dump site. Here we see two team leaders demonstrating the correct technique. The rest of us watched and learned.

Once tipped out, the loads combine to make heaps, and heaps can become a source of great pride. I tried to claim this as all my own work, but was predictably accused of inaccuracy. Such is life.

We’re all valuable of course, but we’re especially grateful to those who make the all-important winch keep on winching. These two were equally pleased to see your correspondent. Good to see Noel back in his Top Gun outfit.

Down at the winch end of the rope we do always have a good laugh, but the hysterical shriek let out by Noel when I claimed that we could move a particularly awkward load because “we’re a bunch of rootin’ tootin’ roughty toughty guys” was extreme. Down there under the trees the stray remark “don’t let it get stuck on the thing” also raised a chuckle.

Singing at the winch site has been well documented before. Offerings this time included The Undertones hit ‘My cousin Kevin’ (in tribute to Team Leader Kevin, obviously); and ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’. You can’t say we’re not eclectic in our repertoire. You can say a lot of other things, and people do, but not that.

There were many frogs of varying sizes hopping about the soggy spot, looking aggrieved at the change in their living conditions. One particularly aggrieved one had clearly had an argument with Grillo and sad to say one of its legs was hanging off. A tasteless remark from your correspondent was that it appeared to be footloose and fancy free. It also put me in mind of my favourite sketch (no longer completely politically correct) by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: the Tarzan audition, with Dud as a one-legged – indeed a uni-dexter – applicant for the role. It’s on YouTube in all its grainy glory at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbnkY1tBvMU#:~:text=Peter%20Cook%20&%20Dudley%20Moore%20-%20One%20Leg

The usual break arrived on time at 11.00 and the weary workers gathered at the bench. Perhaps we had neglected to tell Top Gun, but he had a long lonely walk to the party.

Catering having omitted to purchase any biscuits, and fearing insurrection, Team Leader Margaret kindly baked some cookies. She claimed they were a first attempt, so if that’s the case that was a very creditable effort. She did mention the ingredients, but I instantly forgot what they were. They tasted lovely, even if they were perhaps a little fragile.

We were joined at the bench by a young lizard; welcome evidence that they are continuing to breed here. Indeed, they are frequently recorded on the sightings whiteboard – 16 times so far this year.

Last time this area proved treacherous for your correspondent, and to general hilarity my welly and the socks therein absorbed a significant portion of the water lurking in a deep place. Just in case lightning would strike twice in the same spot, it seemed wise to film a sheet being winched through the mire. Happily (ahem) it passed off incident free.

We’ll have to hope Grillo is quickly repaired, so that the fun can continue in a fortnight’s time…

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Thank you to the 16 volunteers who came today. As usual you all exceeded expectations and cleared everything we needed to. Only Duncan was disappointed as no one fortunately fell in the wet conditions. There were far more frogs than I have seen in one session so we must be doing something right. Thank you too to John, Kevin and Michelle for the pre-cut so the material was light to move.

We will keep you posted on the wellbeing of Grillo. It has sprung a significant oil leak.  Hopefully George will be able to find us a replacement before the next session.

Thank you as well, for the kind comments about my first and probably last attempt to make cookies.

Thanks again and we look forward to working with you all in two weeks time.

Margaret for the team leaders

Area G revisited

 Today’s work party saw us moving on from Area B (beside Warren Road) to the central part of the Common, known prosaically as Area G. The problem with this patch is that the reedbed wants to infiltrate it, but that would be at the expense of the botanical community there that forms a major part of its SSSI designation. In order to thwart those reeds in their expansionist ambitions, the word from Natural England is that it needs to be cut now – so cut it now we must.

After a remarkably dry August, we’ve recently had a few major downpours, so the ground is very wet already – particularly as it slopes towards the Beck.

We were blessed with another fine morning; warm but not uncomfortably so. We were delighted to greet Jo, another very welcome new volunteer. Here’s the scene greeting the arriving volunteers.

There’s also encouraging interest in learning to operate Grillo. Last time we highlighted Team Leader Michelle doing this; today it was Andrew. Here he is receiving instruction…

and then flying solo…

… before the old master regained the controls.

It’s not the job for everyone; this short video shows how much effort it can take.

The vegetation on this area tends not to grow high (although the reeds try their best), so when it’s cut it tends to be quite light to move onto the drag sheets.

The half-time break arrived right on time; the biscuits this time were dark chocolate digestives, so could not have been better. All took satisfaction from viewing the results of their labours so far. The sharp-eyed amongst regular readers will spot at the far right of the picture honorary Team Leader and Commons legend John, who had dropped in to join us for a catch-up.

On returning to work after the break, the company was cheered by the sequence of muddy mishaps affecting a couple of us. Firstly, Team Leader Margaret discovered the depth of what she described as “ *** great sinkhole”

Then your own correspondent found another. This one was far deeper and hungrier, first filling my right welly with unpleasant smelling water, and then removing it altogether. My, how they all laughed! Here follows a selection from the many images taken of the unfortunate event, and even explicit video footage.

Much earlier in the session, we two unfortunates had been unceremoniously deposited backwards onto a dump site while we were helping tip out a sheet. Fortunately, no camera was present that time. A bit later, your correspondent was once again in trouble, this time for forgetting to hook the winch rope onto the sheet about to be dragged away. Only after the rope and its hook had travelled effortlessly for a few feet was the error discovered. It’s not all bad though, for I do like my whistle, and this was the perfect opportunity for a loud blast to tell the winchers to cease winching. Today was not my finest hour (or two)!

Fans (if any exist) of the banter pervading our activities will be glad to hear that when the question was put to the winch team if they were ready, the answer was “born ready”. Ready for what was not specified, and further enquiries were deemed unwise. The much-loved singing so often reported here was sadly not in much evidence this time, despite Noel’s ‘Clash’ tee shirt.

Lots of frogs were seen, including this one:

The session finished before there was time to drag off the final load, so that’s left there on its own for the next fortnight.

With the trolleys and wheelbarrows all fully loaded…

… we left Area G looking like this.

And a cheerful party of long-tailed tits waved us off from the car park.

 

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Again I have the pleasant task of thanking you all for your hard work this morning. Weren't we lucky with the weather after the brief cold snap. You were all fantastic as usual. A warm welcome to Jo and hope you weren't too tired. Well done Andrew you seem to be a natural with grillo. If anyone else would like to learn more about working grillo or the winch do let us know.

We will be returning to the central area in two weeks’ time and we hope you will be able to join us then.

Thanks again.

Margaret for the team leaders.

 

It’s good to see that there are now surprisingly large numbers of Red Admiral

and Large White butterflies. Appropriately named for the location Common Darter dragonflies are still darting about a few inches above the boardwalk. After their quiet period of moulting, some birds have started singing again; robin and wren particularly, but also some possibly newly arrived chiffchaffs. Meanwhile swallows are gathering in numbers preparatory to their long migration to Africa. Lots of them are hawking low over the fields, which must indicate that there are at least some insects for them fuel up on.

Area G plays host to a lot of specialist flowers. Although the area is now being cut, this does not appear to be affecting  their numbers. Although some are inevitably cut while still in flower, because we only cut a portion of the area at each visit, separated by two weeks, plenty remain to set seed. This picture includes Grass of Parnassus (the white ones), Devil’s Bit Scabious (blue) and Marsh Lousewort (red). There are still plenty to be seen!

Scorchio!

Warning for arachnophobes! Spider image below.

Having bemoaned the lack of insect life this summer, it is pleasing to now see plenty of dragonflies whizzing over the Common, but butterflies are still not numerous. As is normal for the time of year most birds are skulking away while they moult in preparation for migration or staying put here.

I associate fungi with rather later in the year, but I did spot this spectacular Dryad’s saddle bracket fungus at start of the Jubilee boardwalk recently.

The weather presenters are always very keen to tell us when we’ve entered a new meteorological season; in this case it’s autumn. Not much sign yet of mists or even mellow fruitfulness (although I tried a couple of blackberries yesterday – still too sharp). What there was instead today was a lot of heat and humidity, although fortunately not the thunderstorms promised for some parts of the country.

So it was that 12 volunteers arrived this morning for another work party; dressed less for the weather than to guard against the vegetation or any wildlife that might think us tasty. The result was, of course, a dozen very hot volunteers; even the ladies appeared to be doing more than merely glowing. Unusually, and exciting much comment, your correspondent arrived a full 10 minutes early, but was still outshone by about 11 eager beavers. (Memo to self: get there 10 minutes late next time, or will never get that time back.)

On my arrival, there they were, picking up the material that had been cut earlier in the week, with new Team Leader Michelle on Grillo cutting some more.

Drag sheets were already neatly laid out, waiting to be filled and then dragged by hand the short distance to be dumped under the trees. The previously cut material had at least the merit of being dry and consequently light.

The trick was, where possible, to work in the shade.

One of the drawbacks to arriving as much as 10 minutes before the advertised start is that it takes 10 minutes longer to reach the break, so for this correspondent at least, it was extra welcome when it arrived. This week’s biscuits were ginger nuts – lovely!

Once that was over we moved on to clearing the material cut today. A naughty response to the question “where is this going?” was that we should add it to someone else’s sheet when they weren’t looking: but they always were looking, so we couldn’t. This stuff being much greener and heavier, the winch was deployed.

Laborious tipping out by hand was still required; despite our best efforts no Team Leaders were buried.

Michelle is still learning the ropes as Team Leader; today it was the approved way to fold up drag sheets, under Julie’s watchful eye.

In mowing close to the edge of the notorious Area X (not formerly known as Twitter), a major infestation of the wretched Himalayan Balsam was discovered. Some was removed, but there was too much there to be properly dealt with at that time.

A significant spider was spotted on one of the sheets, and with the help of the excellent ‘Obsidentify’ app it was declared to be a four spot orb weaver. Apparently this is the heaviest of British spiders, and it certainly did seem to have a hefty abdomen, possibly stuffed full of the small grasshoppers that is its meal of choice, as apparently it builds its web close to the ground to catch jumping insects.

If any exist, regular readers of this drivel informative blog might wonder how the singing is going. To be honest, it has died down a bit lately, but when we had tipped out our final load of the morning, the ever-dependable Noel did lead us in the chorus of the Kinks’ iconic Lola. Quite like old times!

At the end of the session Area B now looks like this.

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Dear All

A huge thank you to the 12 volunteers who came today on a very hot and humid day. You did an absolutely sterling job with your usual good humour even if you did have to work harder than expected. Fortunately the first lot of cuttings were beautifully dry and light.

 We look forward to seeing you all in two weeks on the central area,

 Thanks again.

Margaret for the team leaders.