Thanks to Cropshare volunteer Ivan for this great write-up!
A bright sunny winter Saturday, what to do? With just 14 shopping days before Christmas
does one “shop till one drops” Grand Arcade stylee or……..? Nope…….let’s go fencing. So with a bunch of other “Onion Cropsharers”
we popped up to Lode on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fen.
There we planned the day with Paul and Doreen– our organic farmers –
and drank some tea. The plan was to
drink some tea and fence off a 5 acre rectangular plot with anti-rabbit fencing. Apparently it had been decided at an earlier
meeting that the sharing of the crop was to be confined to people only – NO RABBITS!
The 5 acres will give us more choice for future cropping and because
we’ll be growing organically, land for fertility building as part of any future
crop rotation.
Now the thing about fence posts
is that they come in two types: Thems
what goes in easily and thems what don’t.
The other thing is, its best to put them in so that they are all the
same height, all vertical and all in a straight line. It has a psychological impact - on the
rabbits – apparently it looks more intimidating. That’s what I was told!
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| Fencing is Fun! |
Erecting fencing can be quite hard work. And fun. And fun –
mustn’t forget the fun. We’d
self-organised into small work groups and shared
the strenuous work taking little breaks as needed. Some of us taking more breaks than
others. Then it was time for a big break
and lunch and tea.
And what a lunch. One
of those yummy “bring and share” lunches where despite no planning a fantastic
spread was had and enjoyed. A tasty
Farmhouse Vegetable Soup. “Is it
local?”
“Yes mate, about as local as you can get!”
A real soup, made from real veg, in a real farmhouse, by a
real framer’s wife – thank you Doreen.
And bread including onion bread (made with our own 2011 harvest of course!), cheese and tea. Lots of salads, pasta, fresh vegetables, a
curried coleslaw, edamame beans,
“Are they local?”
“No yet, watch this space”,
a curried coleslaw and ROCKET – the sort of rocket leaves
that could put satellites into low earth orbit, definitely a winter
warmer. Lots of cakes and of course
tea. Then it was back to the fen for
more… fencing.
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| Quite straight- well done guys. |
Rectangles, as we all know, come with two side lengths,
short uns and long uns. I’m sure it wasn’t entirely by chance that Paul had
arranged for us to do the long one before we had our lunch and tea. So once we had “turned the corner”, as one might
say, we could see that “the end was in sight”. Bish, Bosh, Thump, Crump, the rest of the
posts went in. Nearly finished, on with
the straining wire, on with the linked fencing, bury the bottom and back fill
the trench. Stand back and enjoy. Job
well done.
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| Transition wind turbine looking good in the sunset on the farm |
The sun was setting, the moon was rising, lapwings were winging off to roost and the cranes on the next-door farm (no word of a lie) were making a bit of a
fuss. Should you really, really wish to
know what sort of fuss these birds can make http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/c/crane/index.aspx
will take you there. Make sure the volume is on low!
Picked up the tools, loaded up the trailer, back to the
farmhouse for cake and tea.
An enjoyable day, 300 meters, 105 posts, fence nearly
finished; that’ll give the bunnies something to think about. Chatted a bit about what we could grow next
year, Edamame anyone???
Where to in 2012 for Cambridge Cropshare?
Well that’s up to us.
Watch this space and the www.transitioncambridge.org
eBulletin and contact Anne or Helen if you want to get involved!
