🐦🐦🐦 The Pigeon has Landed!

# Three Pigeons Post, Small Group Session Sunday 14 June: The Pigeon has Landed!

Several small, shuffling steps for GoodGym Richmond but a giant step forward on the construction of GoodGym’s ‘The Three Pigeons Insect Hotel’.

Kate, Naomi, Adam, Salwa, JP, and Anita (with the help of duty driver and chainsaw ace Harry) did a fantastic Community Mission session at The Three Pigeons Plot on Sunday 14 June. It was a particularly poignant mission as today’s tasks had originally been scheduled for the GoodGym Richmond Group Run on Monday 23 March, one of the early casualties of the Covid-19 lockdown.

White Magic Kate and Salwa brandished paint brushes and (using paint salvaged from the Townmead Road Recycling Centre) painted the edges of two EUR1 sized heavy duty pallets (donated by Linear Toools on the Clockhouse Road Industrial Estate, Isleworth). In total, six of these will be used to create the six different floors of the Insect Hotel, with each decoratively filled with insect friendly media. A gabled roof, mimicking the adjacent Three Pigeons Apartment building (formerly The Three Pigeons Hotel) and a mini GG pub sign will complete the ‘hotel’. New planting with dwarf varieties of acers, myrtle, buddlia, caenothus and juniper will eventually conceal and protect the hotel and add height and structure to the planting scheme.

Magic Carpet Scythe. Naomi took shears to an offcut of wool carpet in order to create tight rolls of carpet, akin to giant, inedible swiss rolls. These will be posted into one of the pallets to create food and shelter for insects such as moths. Recycled jumpers will add to the wooly meal.

Floral Tribute. Naomi also took her scissors to the bedding plants and did a brilliant job of carefully deadheading the Sweet William. These bedding plants were amongst plants donated by Homebase Richmond. Because of Ciara’s heroic planting effort last October (https://www.goodgym.org/reports/three-pigeons-post-three-in-a-bed ) and the mild winter, they have not only survived but have thrived and provided a carpet of much photographed vivid colour. Naomi’s work should extend their flowering season into the summer.

Take your Pick. Q. How do you confuse a GoodGymer? A. Show her two spades and tell her to take her pick. Anita and Adam both wielded a pick-axe to loosen the stony, dry soil in the centre of the bed, with Anita giving her first ever pickaxe coaching session. All good practice for Tuesday evening’s Richmond GoodGym lunge training session: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/sweeter-than-a-creme-egg-so

Gettin’ Diggy wit’ it. Harry had started the excavation last Sunday and today Adam, Anita and JP took turns in digging out the rest of the 1.1 x 0.8m pit (‘grave’?), right down to the concrete base of the plot.

Riddle me this. In an effort to improve the stony soil, Adam, Anita and JP worked with a riddle (basically a big, circular sieve) to separate some of the stones out of the soil that had been dug out. Some of the ‘sieved’ soil was used to dress the top of the bed, with the rest later returned back into the hole. Three buckets of stones were separated out and added to the gravel-garden.

Logging-in. Harry had already chain-sawed 15” logs from lengths of tree trunk collected after the Ham Lands Mission back in March. Salwa, Anita and JP formed a human chain to get these into the middle of the plot and JP arranged them vertically in the hole. Salwa and JP then took up spades in order to backfill the hole to bury the logs. The idea behind this is to create an additional habitat of rotting logs under the ‘hotel’. This will provide a home and food source for things like Stag Beetle larvae, which spend many years chomping away on rotting wood before they pupate and emerge as insects.

Laying the Foundation. Finally, the two painted pallets were moved, with small shuffling steps, into position. This was quite momentous and JP provided suitable gravitas by humming the theme from ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’.

A Smashing Time. We smashed it. We did indeed and not just the Mission objectives. I’ve left in the self-timer photo that doesn’t show me and the (socially-distanced) team but instead captures the fast approaching tarmac.

Particular Thanks go to these sponsors who have donated materials for our Insect Hotel:

Townmead Road Waste and Recycling Centre. Particularly thanks to Mick who gave permission and facilitated collection and Phil (pictured) who, back in March, helped Anita to root around and find suitable materials including masonry paint and various materials including carpet, wooly jumpers, ceramics, bricks and more that will be used to ‘fill’ the pallets and provide habitats for different insects and mini-beasts.

JJ Roofing, Clockhouse Industrial Estate, Isleworth. Thanks to Zak (pictured) and the team for old slate roofing tiles which we will be using to cover the gabled roof of the Insect Hotel.

Linear Tools, Clockhouse Industrial Estate, Isleworth. Thanks to Ryan for the pallets that he had posted up on Gum Tree.

Alsford, Sheen, who also offered free pallets.

Friends of Ham Lands. Especially Sharon who provided the ash logs and moral support, and shared the apt phrase "waHeda, waHeda" (one step at a time).