Voted Official Scarecrow

In yesterdays posting I told you of a community group that were looking to take on a derelict piece of land. Following a successful meeting with their local authority they have been provided a lease for the land and will be creating thirty allotments, although they have followed my advice and will now make them all half size plots, so sixty allotments, as well as cleaning up the rest to provide a wildlife haven.

Well over the weekend they were there clearing the rubbish and cutting back the undergrowth. While there were twenty odd that were part of the original group that started on Saturday, by the end of the Sunday they had over sixty people working as volunteers there. They got far more done than they ever expected. All the Allotment plots are now marked out, as are the main path ways.

They have a pile of rubbish to remove though, they tell me its about three skips full. It could have been more but they have kept the different types of items separate and what can be recycled will be. Further, they found items like copper pipe dumped there, and this they have already sold to provide funds for the project.

However, the best news was that they found a fox with cubs in part of the area that will be kept for wildlife, as well as an adder colony. The snakes did cause the only disagreement of the weekend, as one or two of the volunteers wanted to get rid of them, but fortunately sense prevailed and they will be carrying out work to improve the habitat for them. It is unfortunately one of the problems of community projects that different people will not always see the value of the wildlife. Fortunately as they are protected even those that are a feared of snakes will have to lean to coexist.

At this point, I have to say that this I was informed of last night in a phone call, then just as I was writing this (I know that this is really just typing and not writing), got another call. Even more good news. Firstly one of the volunteers who turned out is also one of the parent governors of one of the local schools, and the school would like to get involved in the project. However the best news was that another volunteer has connections with the owners of the adjacent land. They are going to allow the community garden to run a water connection from a metered tap so that they will have access to water. This only came about because there had been a discussion about if they could or should burn some of the rubbish. As one of the conditions for the use of this land from their council is no fires because of the lack of access to water this volunteer offered to ask the owner of the land about access to the wet stuff. They got an immediate yes.

There are other items that may be donated too. There may be some scrap wood for a couple of sheds, and even more interesting someone knows of or has, I was not totally clear on that, a large greenhouse that if it can be dismantled and taken away the project can have.

I know that a great deal of work over the past three years has gone into the preparation for this day, but even the people involved have been amazed by the strength of community that has made this happen. But for me the best aspect of all was that one of the women I was helping last week and had been in tears of despair over the whole project, was now genuinely overjoyed at the colourful display of Wellington boots that turned up. What's more they have voted me to be the official Scarecrow, at last a real role for me!