We'll nettle get the forking footpath finished at this rake

Two GoodGym Yorkies ran to help finish off the never ending footpath at Heworth Holme.

We arrived with our limestone lugging muscles ready, looking forward to basking in the glory of getting the path finished.

The first thing we noticed was that there weren't wheelbarrows full of shovels and mattocks waiting for us today. Instead there were forks, rakes and scythes... It turned out that today's task wasn't footpath building at all. Today we were tidying up the meadows around the footpath by cutting back silverweed and thistles, and raking the cuttings into habitat piles. We secretly breathed a scythe of relief that it was slightly lighter work than expected!

While some of the regular St Nick's volunteers set about scything, I raked up some pre-scythed cuttings from earlier in the week, and Paul gathered them up onto his fork and piled them up behind a forest of nettles and brambles.

A few hours later, it was much easier to see the footpath (which will probably be finished one day), what with all the pesky meadow cut back.