Here is Jonathan’s message
Greetings All,
There’ll be a volunteer session at Fairfield Orchard, Fauna and Flora this Saturday, October 12th, starting at the usual time of 10.00am and finishing at 1.00pm. Please come along if you possibly can, for as long or as little a time as you can spare – all help is always appreciated. We meet by the new toolshed at the Sunnyside Lane end and disperse from there once suitably, erm, tooled up.
Should you be able to attend, you may well find yourself grappling with any number of the following…
Mowing the grass;
Levelling ground in the playground where the new surface forms a step;
Trimming the hedge at bottom of the play area;
Repairing broken bird box number 1;
Planting five sweet briar donated earlier in the year in the northern section of the Pads / Orchard hedge;
Removing the notices from the fruit trees;
Trimming back apple trees where they overhang the paths, consult with Keith on this. (Keith to continue training other volunteers);
Removing debris from hedge cutting along the Fauna path to a brash pile under the big ash tree;
Lopping back self seeded saplings at the bottom of the Towneley path;
Clearing away broken red currants in the fruit circle;
Clearing fly tipped rubbish alongside Towneley path;
Slashing and strimming sections of the Orchard.
Ian has asked me to mention that Alison Boden, Wyre Council’s Coast and Countryside manager, has invited any interested Fairfield volunteers to visit Wyre Estuary Country Park (Thornton Cleveleys) to meet with their volunteer team and perhaps do some work with them. This is part of our Flora volunteer training programme and should be an interesting day out. Ian shall be going and will appreciate one or two others coming along. The possible dates are Tuesday 29, Wednesday 30 or Thursday 31 October.
Please give expression to your interest in this event via the medium of song, interpretive dance or, more sensibly, by emailing Ian at or perhaps phoning him on 07811 970595.
And that’s all for this time. I’ve spoken with my usual contacts in Weather and have reserved some of their finest conditions for Saturday, so do hope you’ll be able to join us.
Best wishes,
Jonathan.
And here’s what we did
17 volunteers, including three new people, reported for duty on a bright autumn morning. So, a great deal was achieved.
• The grass was mown, hopefully for the last time this year.
• Rubber mats, borrowed from Mick, were placed in areas where the grass has turned to mud. Note these are not really big enough. Should we purchase mats for the FA?
• The grass adjoining some of the new safety surfaces in the playground was levelled to mitigate trip hazards
• Broken bird box number 1 was repaired
• Five sweet briar plants, donated earlier in the year from the Friends of the Storey Institute, were planted in the north end of the Orchard / Pads footpath
• The ‘Don’t pick yet’ notices were removed from the fruit trees and stored
• Keith continued the apple pruning, assisted by Jean who is learning the skill. Unfortunately more canker was detected which will require more serious removal of branches. Deebris was carted away to the bonfire site.
• Debris from the trimming of the Fauna / Grammar School field hedge was collected and carted to the bonfire site.
• Self seeded saplings around the bottom of the Towneley path were lopped.
• Broken red current braches were cleared away from the fruit tree circle path
• Fly tipped rubbish was cleared from near the Towneley path
• Two young volunteers were given instruction in the use of one of our petrol driven strimmers and they subsequently strimmed the area with the insect logs ready for the visit of Beavers next weekend
• Two quite large areas of the Orchard were cleared of nettles and other dying off vegetation.
• A section of the hedge along the track to Sunnyside Lane was trimmed and the results cleared