Wed 28th May 2008 - Carisbrooke Pond

Green Gym has had an excellent record for dry Wednesday mornings.....until this week...! The rain stopped at 09:55 but by 11:15 it was bucketing it down again, resulting in lots of very wet workers..! Carisbrooke Pond is a new work site for us and a wonderful place to visit. The pond is the one that can be overlooked from the Eight Bells public house and entrance to the nature area is behind the Southern Water puming station (by the ford). A tremendous amount of work has already gone into this project and our task was to help the work inhand. We cleared the wire netting fencing that had been installed to allow the planted up banks to grow, pulled numerous weeds from the grass areas, helped to build up new areas of banking and assisted in transfering plants to these new areas - all in all a very busy morning. It was raining so hard for our teabreak, that a frog decided to seek sanctury on one of the coats.....!

Many thanks to Carrie for the photos this week - let's hope that we don't have to buy her a waterproof camera for the future......

I notice that we are ragwort pulling on the next Green Gym, so you might want to have a look at this link http://www.ragwortfacts.com/ Lots of info about the "dreaded weed".

The following was also taken from another web site (I had a similar thing happen to me when pulling ragwort) .........so BE WARNED....!

ROADSIDE RASH This man works for the local highways division. He had been strimming ragwort on a sunny day. He admitted to rolling up his sleeves because he was hot. The next day, his arms began to itch and he developed a classic phytophotodermatitis rash. Ragwort sap had splashed his arms. Combined with the sunny conditions, this sensitised his skin to produce an acute severe contact dermatitis. A potent topical steroid cream was needed to settle this.

Wed 21st May 2008 - West Wight Nursery, St Saviour's RC Primary School, Totland

Yet another new venue for the Green Gym team - this time it was helping with a school garden project. We were asked to lay out some new curving pathways, set up four new vegetable beds and construct a "grass" settee. Although we had an good turnout, it soon became apparent that the rock hard soil was going to slow down the progress of the work but everyone gave it their best..! This whole school garden project is already looking good and the views from the top of the site are really wonderful. We wish them well and look forward to returning in the future.

The photos this week were taken by Eddie and Carrie - many thanks to you both.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the Green Gym members who took part in last Sunday's Walk the Wight.......well done to you all....!

Wed 14th May 2008 - Golden Hill Fort Yarmouth.

Holding a Green Gym at Golden Hill Fort during the summer can only mean one thing...... pathway clearance and resurfacing. The Rangers have come up with a cunning new plan to get even more work out of us. Instead of dumping a huge heap of limestone chippings at the start, they show us just a small heap - but keep on going back and getting more each time we get near the end....! It is still amazing to see how much can be achieved with shovels, wheelbarrows and rakes in such a short period of time. Other GG members set about clearing many of the smaller paths as the vegetation is already starting to close them in, making it difficult for the many walkers who use this area. It was nice to see so many wild flowers growing in the areas we cleared last year, especially the spotted orchids. The stunning views over the Western Yar more than make up for the hard work......!

Many thanks to Charlene who took the photographs this week.

Wed 7th May 2008 - Cowes County Primary School.

This was our second visit to this school - the first being over a year ago. The main task was to "clear & tidy" the nature area that is adjacent to the school and the footpath - with additional work being carried out on various beds at the front of the school. The pathways around the nature area were cleared of weeds, bramble, rubbish etc and the beds were weeded out - leaving as many of the natural plants as possible. This should make the whole area far more accessible and user friendly for the children at the school to use. We had an excellent turnout and the weather was warm and sunny - is summer here at long last..? Many thanks to the school staff who were kind enough to let us use the staff room for our tea break - they even made the drinks and supplied the biscuits....!

A big thanks to Carrie & Eddie for the pics.