by Rod Kebble
Saturday started off as a splendid sunny autumn day — albeit one with a strong north wind. By late morning, the sky had clouded over and things looked less jolly than in this view of the dairy.
Saturday 27th October saw the opening of this year’s rhodie-bashing season, as the last of the rhododendron ponticum in Tankersford Copse is seen off the premises.
This will not, however, be the end of this winter sport as there is more rhododendron in Wey Wood awaiting attention.
John, one of our three new volunteers, takes a saw to a rhododendron branch…
Saturday’s volunteers were following in the wake of Conway Churchill, who had prepped the area with his chainsaw a day or so earlier. Useful amounts of timber for charcoal-making or firewood were recovered and now need to be reduced to a more manageable size.
New readers who are wondering what rhodie-bashing entails will find the answer here. (And if you are asking yourself what’s glorious about the 27th, it’s a reference to the start of the grouse shooting season in the UK, known as the Glorious Twelfth — of August, that is.)
… while Ollie stacks lengths of rhodie timber.
