Welcome to the 2nd episode of PRoWlers’ Progress.
Today, the PRoWlers decided that “local” was the order of the day dealing with 2 paths that (coincidently) they both use day-to-day. As we know, priorities must not show bias and must be based on safety, footfall and need. The first path fell into the latter 2 categories and the second into all 3 categories. So on to the jobs in question…
Footpath 56 – The link path from the track that leads from Goldsmith Lane (opposite Knights Lane) to South Common.
Now Jonny (and many others) use this path nearly every day and it had grown into a tunnel. But not just any tunnel, a tunnel that had no light at the end of it! This was NOT a tunnel of love. Immediate action was required.
Ricky started at one end and Jonny at the other – hopefully to meet somewhere near the middle. Not much lopping was required as most of the hedge was soft material (see note about soft material below).
This meant they could use the “strim-strim-strim, trim-trim-trim, tidy-up” technique. Well, it’s all very well spending an hour or two trimming, but it’s always the tidy-up that takes the time.
Anyways, they were both happy with the results and have already had positive comments from path users who can now see the light – so that’s great.
Note about Soft Material… Jonny was very happy strimming the undergrowth, the new strimmer easily dealing with the soft material. Until it met with “soft material” of the smelly kind. This ended up on Jonny’s face guard and was pretty unpleasant (to say the least). Several piles of smelly material were dotted along the path evidently from the same pooping-pup.
So, if you own an animal that poops, please pick it up (the poop – not the animal) – “Stick & Flick” or “Ignore it” is not the way to deal with it. Remember – it’s the law!
Footpath 61 – The path from the stile on the Battleford House track heading west.
As I said earlier, Jonny uses 56 regularly, and Ricky uses this one (61) nearly every day. When you hop over the stile, immediately on the right hand side is an electric fence that borders the path for the first 30m or so. However, the undergrowth on the left hand side (mostly nettles and brambles) had grown away from the fence that runs parallel and had swamped the path almost entirely, forcing walkers up to the electric fence. Shocking!
This needed a bit of lopping (actually, more cutting than lopping really) as brambles just do not strim or trim very easily. Jonny carefully strimmed along the bottom of the electric fence (mainly tall grass) while Ricky dealt with the brambles and nettles. This fairly easy-looking job turned out to be more time consuming than expected. Nettles are pretty adept at clogging tools, having learned the skill from their brambly cousins.
The job was completed and walkers can now make progress without electrification.
Tool batteries depleted – Ricky and Jonny retired for a well earned cuppa. It was Ricky’s turn to bring the flask and biscuits but guess what? He failed. Jonny had words.
Both Ricky and Jonny are disappointed that the other one NEVER remembers to take a “before and after” photo of their efforts, but this is set to change. They agreed that Ricky will remind Jonny to remember to remind Ricky to take the photos… or was it the other way round? We’ll see.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode coming to your website soon.