The Path of Least Resistance

We were asked by the Friends of Chapmans Pond to help dig a path through the bird garden to improve access. There were assorted periphery tasks, and with the sun beaming down we set to.

With social distancing in mind, our household pairs started digging at either end of the path route carefully marked out by canes. Michael and Hannah had the beginning of the path, and rapidly commenced ground-breaking with enthusiasm. Hannah perfected the spade jump and balance, and carved pleasing bricks to load into the wheelbarrow, whilst Michael soon discovered it was too hot for multiple layers.

However they had it easy compared to the Paulsopps, who started at the end near the pond, and discovered the ground was 90% tree root. Despite best efforts, the far end was unconquerable, and much more rapid progress occurred when moving slightly up the hill. The stream of barrows that had to be bounced through the hole the Leadbetters had inconsiderately dug right in the way, attested to their success.

Katie and Debs were tasked with rationalising the bark chippings near the fence into one smaller habitat pile, leaving room for the soil that rapidly arrived from an impatient Michael. This was complicated by only having one specialist chippings fork, whilst Katie did a sterling job with a shovel-fork combo. When complete, there were barrowing duties as well as stick-picking to make the grassland more mowable, before joining the digging gangs.

Michael was redeployed onto pallet deconstruction, as the slats were the perfect depth-gauge-cum-edging material, whilst Hannah progressively unearthed most of a canteen of cutlery. Team far-end made quick work of their pleasingly winding section. What had seemed like an insurmountable task to begin soon began to take shape, and we were over half way through the digging when our hour came to an end, and it was time to make way and clean up ready for the B team to relieve us.