Making Hay While the Sun Shines

A dozen enthusiastic volunteers donned their gardening gloves and, armed with pitch forks and rakes, set to work clearing the long grass in the Townsend Community Orchard on Sunday 13th August.

Despite the infamous British weather offering one of the wettest starts to the month of August in living memory, Sunday provided glorious sunshine — perfect for making hay!

Their labours were assisted to a very significant degree by the loan of a Honda-powered two-wheeled tractor with a cutter bar attachment that looked for all the world like a mechanical plant-chomping dinosaur, and made short work of every blade of grass and undergrowth in its path.

Setting to work with this wonderful tool saved many hours of back-breaking work that would otherwise have been tackled with sickles, scythes and strimmers.

Dave Watkins had kindly procured the powered tool, courtesy of the good folks at the Cuttlebrook Nature Reserve, in Thame — to whom grateful thanks were extended.

This meant that the majority of work revolved around raking and lifting the cut grass — still plenty of effort on a warm summer's day — but the results spoke for themselves: one nicely trimmed community orchard!

Our grateful thanks for the loyal band of workers.

More photos available in our Galleries section.