This week saw us back at Oakfield Primary School in Ryde, to carry out some more tasks around the school grounds. The children had been putting in some trees which were supplied in packs by the Woodland Trust along the boundaries of the field. They had a big pile of leaves which had rotted down nicely near the woodland, so our task was to rake them into piles, fill up some barrows and take these some considerable distance to be put round the trees as mulch. The rain which had been threatening all morning emptied down on us all, and some of it was actually hailstones! - good job we were all kitted out in wellies and wetsuits. Also in the school grounds is a beautiful old stone bridge, which they are hoping to incorporate into a woodland trail, but before any assessment can be made about whether this is possible, there were several very large pieces of metal which needed to be cleared from under the bridge. This involved climbing down a very steep - and muddy - bank and hauling them up to the top - these included a wheelbarrow, section of metal spiked fence, plant stand and poles.
Near the bridge we also found a splendid bracket fungus which had been ossified - what happens is the spongy fungus calcifies into a bonelike material and apparently, they were used in the past for messages written in runes - isn't history amazing!!! We have passed it on to the chap who will be doing the forest school who was delighted as he can incorporate this into something interesting for the children.
Many thanks to Carrie for the photographs and editorial.
And finally, a couple of photographs snapped by Mark on his mobile.
No comments:
Post a Comment