Journal of a volunteer
January 2009
| Wed 7th |
It was a timber day at Marbury. A couple of volunteers, kitted up with helmets etc., helped with the woodmiser, which had been hired, with its operator, for the day. Cedar, Turkey oak and Corsican pine trunks were turned into planks. The yard had to be tidied up to make space to store some of the timber. Logs and branches were moved to the area by the charcoal burner. I managed to lift the smaller branches, but left the heavier items to stronger volunteers. Whilst work continued preparing the charcoal burner, I was assigned to making 'pencils'. Willow had been purchased for the purpose. It had to be cut into lengths to fit into a tin, punctured with holes. The loppers provided were not the ideal tool as they required two-handed operation. Jim nipped home for some newspaper to light the charcoal burner and brought back some secateurs, which made the job easier. I was glad to be working undercover as it began to sleet, hail and snow. Diana came to join me and we filled a second tin to put into the charcoal burner. Hopefully we will have artists' charcoal to sell.
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| Thur 8th |
There was already smoke drifting from the charcoal burner when Jim and I joined the other volunteers in the cabin at lunchtime. A litter blitz was already well underway and we continued with seven of us going up to Anderton car park. Jim and I went up the hill and then down to Marshall's Wood. Sections of the path were very slippery, where snow had thawed and frozen again. Jim and I scoured the loop and lime bed before heading back to the car park, varying our route wherever possible. Back at Marbury the litter blitz was almost over, but we still found more rubbish between the yard and the nursery. The blitz had involved about a dozen people and covered Marbury Park, Anderton and Marbury Lane. It's a good time to do it, when the vegetation has died back to reveal the rubbish. It's all clear now for the lazy litter louts to do it again. |
| Wed 14th |
In the afternoon I joined Jim, Diana and Ian, who were helping Pete remove old fencing on Carey Park. Once the staples had been removed I battled with the barbed wire, winding it into vicious wreaths that would be more manageable when it came to removing the fencing from the site. After an hour even the bolt cutters were too heavy for me to lift above waist height. We were working on fields recently vacated by cattle, so I don't need to describe the conditions underfoot or under-knee for Jim and Ian, who were trying to remove the bottom staples that held the wire fencing in position. We left off at ten to four and made our way back down the hill, only to discover that we had been locked in, just two minutes after the closing time for the household waste site. Pete led the way in his van to the Butterfly Gates, so that we could exit into Leicester Street and we were spared spending the night in 'Scary' Park.
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| Thur 15th |
Things took a while to get started because of a tractor stranded at Haydn's Pool. ATS had arrived to do the repair and then got stuck in the mud. Fortunately the tractor was fixed and could be used to pull the ATS truck out. Meanwhile Jim, Alan R and I busied ourselves with escorting BTCV arrivals to the site for the pond dipping station. Whilst BCTV got to work on constructing the framework on the path, we ushered other members of the public around the obstruction with explanations and apologies. After lunch Jim and I worked alongside Pete and Steph and their chain saws, thinning the trees at the top of the hill in Carey Park. Pete had already made a start in the morning with Ian, Diana and Ranjid moving the thinnings to the sides. Earlier there had been mention of me being good with piles and the quips just keep on coming. We succeeded in encircling ourselves with a dead hedge, which we had to climb over to get out, before four o'clock this time. The dead hedge will create another habitat for wildlife, small mammals and birds. |
| Wed 21st |
Frances and I spent almost all of the day in the yard. It was bright and frosty to begin with, but gradually clouded over in the afternoon. We relied on some extra strength from other volunteers to overturn the charcoal burner and then it was down to business. We sorted through to find those pieces that weren't fully cooked (browns) and put them to one side in three large sacks. By lunchtime we had sifted, graded and bagged up twelve small sacks of saleable charcoal. Dave had already removed the tins of artist's charcoal. Jim joined us in the afternoon. We prepared the site to reinstate the charcoal burner and set about filling the enormous can all over again, first with kindling, then the browns and lastly with logs from those piled at the side. We couldn't avoid getting filthy, but I have looked worse. The disposable respirators are essential fashion accessories. Jim and Frances took turns in wielding the axe to split the last of the logs, before we replaced the cover over the almost full burner, which had looked an impossible feat when we started. It was getting a bit chilly, so Frances and I decided on a walk, with litter pickers and sacks. In just half an hour we collected as much as we could carry which included a lot of bottles. |
| Thur 22nd |
Joanne and I stayed at Marbury with Ian and Ranjid, whilst everyone else went to wallow in the mud at Haydn's Pool on sand martin bank construction. Ian and Ranjid were digging a trench for an electric cable between the office and the toilet block. Joanne and I carried cones around from the yard to be strategically placed with hazard tape by the trench for the next few days. We couldn't be of much use after that, so we went on a litter pick. There always seems to be litter to be found. |
| Wed 28th |
28th Jim, Frances and I got down and dirty to complete the trench digging for the electrician, who had arrived on site. We then dealt with the latest charcoal burn after the burner had been overturned. It had been a more successful burn than the last, yielding 19 bags of saleable charcoal and only one bag of 'browns'. After lunch the three of us joined Robin and Pete on Marbury Lane to clear the gutters on Butterfinch Bridge. It didn't take long and we moved along to Witton Mill Bridge to create access for the reed cutter. We removed fence rails and some vegetation. Inevitabley the careless litter louts had left us plenty of rubbish to collect. We drove on to Carey Park to take down more of the barbed wire from the fencing and as many of the staples that we could extract from the posts supporting the sheep fencing. It was even wetter underfoot than the last time we had been up on the hill. We carried coils of barbed wire back to the household waste site for recycling. We had completed by five to four and returned to Marbury for a cup of tea after a day of variety. |
Mary - Volunteer
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Carefully removing barbed wire
BTCV measuring up for a dip
Getting down and dirty
Guaranteed hand-prepared charcoal
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