"Deer proof netting being wrapped round site cleared by Daves" P1110336
GST Voles day at Sandy Smith NR 21/03/2017 TL117388
Hi Tim
Have a great holiday in wildest Dorset. Snaps of Tuesday now at www.flickr.com/photos/pitzys_pyx/33422568442/. Not a bad day with a good turn out, a big pile of logs, great cakes from Master Baker Willis & your own donuts. The weather was briskly cool and the skies and countryside looked inviting. The Voles got an amazing amount of work done, removing Comfrey, old fencing posts, planting new fences posts, wires, netting, making gates, planting 100 trees, watering from the River, all a long way from the car park. Hopefully Malcolm will present us with one of his commentaries loosely related to many of the humourous incidents .
Cheers John P
Malcolm wrote
" The day started early. This is a waste I feel, as most of us aren't up and about until 8am, so a third of the day has been wasted. Then it ends at midnight! What time of the day do you call that? Is it still today or is it next day? In which case today is yesterday and we've missed it! Surely it would be better to have all of the day in the middle bit when we can all enjoy it? I rest my case.
So there we all were at 10am having now missed most of the day and we need something to lift our spirits. Instead Mr.T. instructed us to go down to the Upper Alders before he'd let us know what he wanted us to do. Upper Alders? Err, so why was it we have to go 'down' to them?
(Some of you who were there will have noticed I've missed out the bit where Mr.T. and I played Paint the Poo Pink. This is because I lost 5 - 3).
Anyway, there we were down in the Upper Alders feeling upbeat about getting down to the task in hand and glove. That was until we realised why Mr.T. had made us walk so far before telling us what he wanted us to do. The main body of men plus a few not so main bodies and a couple of female bodies were given spades and forks and a vast area of comfrey to dig up and clear, thereby making areas in which to plant 100 (give or take 100) small treelets (a word I've just made up but like). At this point I'd like to insert a piece from Wikipedia concerning the removal of comfrey:
'It is however difficult to remove comfrey once established as it is very deep rooting, and any fragments left in the soil will regrow. Rotovation can be successful, but may take several seasons. The best way to eradicate comfrey is to very carefully dig it out, removing as much of the root as possible. This is best done in hot, dry summer weather, wherein the dry conditions will help to kill off any remaining root stumps.'
I would just like to point out it wasn't a hot, dry summer's day and we were probably a little less than careful removing several miles of an underground root system first recorded in the doomsday book errata. However Mr.T. informed us our fears of creating more work for ourselves in the future were well founded as we will be down here again in the summer. (Book your summer holidays now folks). No, be fair, we are trying to give them a good start - the treelets not the comfrey.
The more technically minded bods had the task of building the enclosures around our budding treelets, ( there's that word again folks), to protect them from the encroaching comfrey - or was it muntjac?
The very technically mensa bods were given the job of making little gates high in the fence so that only people with very long legs could get in and out. According to Mr.T. people with very short legs are a danger to newly planted treelets. (If l use this word another 9,999,997 times this year it goes on the shortlist of new words to be added to the NED).
So we had two compounds, one for 30 treelets (9,999,996) and one for 70 treelets (9,999,995). Mr.T. required these to be planted in a random pattern! Can you have a random pattern I ask myself but in so doing ask you too? Anyway the ladies, (see Barbara and Jane I have kept your anonymity, which is very difficult as I don't know how to spell it), carefully placed 24 randomly selected sticks, randomly, in 6 randomly straight lines of randomly 4 random sticks each.
Why 24 I will here you ask yourself sometime in the future when you are reading this in your present but I will not be. Obviously so we could then spend the next few hours counting random sticks, randomly planted treelets (9,999,994) and randomly unplanted treelets (9,999,993). It was at this point that the gentlemen decided quite randomly to do away with the ladies and the random sticks and randomly plant the remaining 76 treelets (9,999,992) in the larger compound. This we managed to achieve in 10 randomly straight lines of 7 treelets (9,999,991) each perfectly randomly in line with the ones in the randomly adjacent lines. What of the other 6 treelets (9,999,990) l will here you ask..... - let's not go there again. But to satisfy your curiosity, I randomly planted them in a randomly straight line in the smaller compound in order to maintain yin and yang thus ensuring that when a butterfly flaps it's wings no one in China catches a cold from the draft.
Being as the ground was waterlogged it was decided to water all the treelets (9,999,989) to make them feel at home and drown any that were inferior. This was now easier to achieve as all our treelets (9,999,988) quite by chance were in the straightest lines we've every achieved. Now what were the odds on that?
With the day nearly over before it had begun.......(move on)..... the ladies took the tools to the river to wash along with several muddy overalls which they dipped in the river then beat on stones to remove all the dirt before hanging over brambles to dry. You would have expected the men to be grateful, but unfortunately they were still in the overalls. However the women enjoyed it.
And so we hiked up out of the Upper Alders and back to the car park for a quick rematch of Paint the Poo Pink. This time I won 1 - 0 but still lost overall as away poo only counts double if it's a draw.
Well what a day that was even though most of it wasn't as it had begun too soon and ended too late for most of us. Still the middle bit was what it was and at the end of the day what more can you say.
So many thanks to all who came and gave their all or bits of it. It was appreciated.
See you all in a fortnight's time, if not two weeks.
Me
PS Many thanks to those who came to SSNR today. I hope your boots dry out before next Tuesday. And I will not mention Mr. Clarke sliding sideways down the hill in the land rover, or trying to break the axle in badger holes, or.... oops!"
"Deer proof netting being wrapped round site cleared by Daves" P1110336
GST Voles day at Sandy Smith NR 21/03/2017 TL117388
Hi Tim
Have a great holiday in wildest Dorset. Snaps of Tuesday now at www.flickr.com/photos/pitzys_pyx/33422568442/. Not a bad day with a good turn out, a big pile of logs, great cakes from Master Baker Willis & your own donuts. The weather was briskly cool and the skies and countryside looked inviting. The Voles got an amazing amount of work done, removing Comfrey, old fencing posts, planting new fences posts, wires, netting, making gates, planting 100 trees, watering from the River, all a long way from the car park. Hopefully Malcolm will present us with one of his commentaries loosely related to many of the humourous incidents .
Cheers John P
Malcolm wrote
" The day started early. This is a waste I feel, as most of us aren't up and about until 8am, so a third of the day has been wasted. Then it ends at midnight! What time of the day do you call that? Is it still today or is it next day? In which case today is yesterday and we've missed it! Surely it would be better to have all of the day in the middle bit when we can all enjoy it? I rest my case.
So there we all were at 10am having now missed most of the day and we need something to lift our spirits. Instead Mr.T. instructed us to go down to the Upper Alders before he'd let us know what he wanted us to do. Upper Alders? Err, so why was it we have to go 'down' to them?
(Some of you who were there will have noticed I've missed out the bit where Mr.T. and I played Paint the Poo Pink. This is because I lost 5 - 3).
Anyway, there we were down in the Upper Alders feeling upbeat about getting down to the task in hand and glove. That was until we realised why Mr.T. had made us walk so far before telling us what he wanted us to do. The main body of men plus a few not so main bodies and a couple of female bodies were given spades and forks and a vast area of comfrey to dig up and clear, thereby making areas in which to plant 100 (give or take 100) small treelets (a word I've just made up but like). At this point I'd like to insert a piece from Wikipedia concerning the removal of comfrey:
'It is however difficult to remove comfrey once established as it is very deep rooting, and any fragments left in the soil will regrow. Rotovation can be successful, but may take several seasons. The best way to eradicate comfrey is to very carefully dig it out, removing as much of the root as possible. This is best done in hot, dry summer weather, wherein the dry conditions will help to kill off any remaining root stumps.'
I would just like to point out it wasn't a hot, dry summer's day and we were probably a little less than careful removing several miles of an underground root system first recorded in the doomsday book errata. However Mr.T. informed us our fears of creating more work for ourselves in the future were well founded as we will be down here again in the summer. (Book your summer holidays now folks). No, be fair, we are trying to give them a good start - the treelets not the comfrey.
The more technically minded bods had the task of building the enclosures around our budding treelets, ( there's that word again folks), to protect them from the encroaching comfrey - or was it muntjac?
The very technically mensa bods were given the job of making little gates high in the fence so that only people with very long legs could get in and out. According to Mr.T. people with very short legs are a danger to newly planted treelets. (If l use this word another 9,999,997 times this year it goes on the shortlist of new words to be added to the NED).
So we had two compounds, one for 30 treelets (9,999,996) and one for 70 treelets (9,999,995). Mr.T. required these to be planted in a random pattern! Can you have a random pattern I ask myself but in so doing ask you too? Anyway the ladies, (see Barbara and Jane I have kept your anonymity, which is very difficult as I don't know how to spell it), carefully placed 24 randomly selected sticks, randomly, in 6 randomly straight lines of randomly 4 random sticks each.
Why 24 I will here you ask yourself sometime in the future when you are reading this in your present but I will not be. Obviously so we could then spend the next few hours counting random sticks, randomly planted treelets (9,999,994) and randomly unplanted treelets (9,999,993). It was at this point that the gentlemen decided quite randomly to do away with the ladies and the random sticks and randomly plant the remaining 76 treelets (9,999,992) in the larger compound. This we managed to achieve in 10 randomly straight lines of 7 treelets (9,999,991) each perfectly randomly in line with the ones in the randomly adjacent lines. What of the other 6 treelets (9,999,990) l will here you ask..... - let's not go there again. But to satisfy your curiosity, I randomly planted them in a randomly straight line in the smaller compound in order to maintain yin and yang thus ensuring that when a butterfly flaps it's wings no one in China catches a cold from the draft.
Being as the ground was waterlogged it was decided to water all the treelets (9,999,989) to make them feel at home and drown any that were inferior. This was now easier to achieve as all our treelets (9,999,988) quite by chance were in the straightest lines we've every achieved. Now what were the odds on that?
With the day nearly over before it had begun.......(move on)..... the ladies took the tools to the river to wash along with several muddy overalls which they dipped in the river then beat on stones to remove all the dirt before hanging over brambles to dry. You would have expected the men to be grateful, but unfortunately they were still in the overalls. However the women enjoyed it.
And so we hiked up out of the Upper Alders and back to the car park for a quick rematch of Paint the Poo Pink. This time I won 1 - 0 but still lost overall as away poo only counts double if it's a draw.
Well what a day that was even though most of it wasn't as it had begun too soon and ended too late for most of us. Still the middle bit was what it was and at the end of the day what more can you say.
So many thanks to all who came and gave their all or bits of it. It was appreciated.
See you all in a fortnight's time, if not two weeks.
Me
PS Many thanks to those who came to SSNR today. I hope your boots dry out before next Tuesday. And I will not mention Mr. Clarke sliding sideways down the hill in the land rover, or trying to break the axle in badger holes, or.... oops!"