Enhancing the Valley for wildlife and informal recreation
All are welcome to give the support they can. There are big opportunities this month to get your hands dirty and join the volunteers to contribute directly to the wellbeing of Yare Valley wildlife:
Cringleford Bridge Meadow on Monday 4th and Friday 15th
Eaton Burial Ground on Church Lane on the Wednesday 6th, Thursday 7th, and Tuesday 12th
Bluebell Woods at Eaton Park on Friday 22nd.
The programme is here. It gives full details including the occasions when lunch will be available.
The Yare Valley Meadow Makers invite you to join them in improving the Yare Valley wildflower meadows. In November (weather permitting) there will be work parties on Saturday the 9th 10 – 12 am and Sunday the 17th 2– 4 pm. Join them on the UEA broad hay meadow at the picnic area by the lake W3W ///ripe.keys.vocab.
They will be doing some raking and creating bare earth patches with mattocks to prepare the meadow for the sowing of more wildflower seed shortly after.
All help will be much appreciated. They will have plenty of seed thanks to their own collections and some kind donations from High Ash farm and Norwich City Council earlier this year.
The Yare Valley Meadow Makers direct most of their efforts at improving the Strawberry Field meadow and the UEA hay meadow and the hedgerows that link them.
The view in the direction of Keswick Mill from Eaton Common and the nearby bridleway has changed dramatically in the last day or so as a result of tree felling of Cricket Bat Willow (Salix alba caerulea). After 15 years of growth the time has come to crop the trees and turn them into cricket bats.
The willows mature relatively quickly in the marshy land and there has been a commercially viable market for the wood. It is expected the plantation, which is on private land, will be quickly replanted to produce another crop in 15 or 16 years. The trees must be checked twice a year, and any side shoots removed. This keeps the main stem of the tree free from knots, and so suitable for making cricket bats.
Good work has been done at St Andrews Church in Eaton, beside the River Yare, in promoting biodiversity in its churchyard and in hosting Eco-Fairs.
John Thurman (a past chair of YVS) writes:
The churchyard makes a beautiful setting for St Andrew’s Church in Eaton. It’s a place of tranquillity, rich in history and a haven for wildlife. The entrance, through the lychgate and avenue of lime trees, which has welcomed many a wedding party, is open 24 hours every day to all members of the community. Keeping the churchyard in good condition is a year round but very rewarding task – undertaken mainly by volunteers. In autumn, the lime trees shed mountains of leaves which makes it a very busy time for our team of gardeners.
This year we want to invite anybody with an hour or so to spare to join us in the BIG AUTUMN LEAF SWEEP on Saturday November 2nd from 10AM. All are welcome, families with children included. We will provide wheelbarrows and some tools – but if you own a favourite rake, please bring that too! Teas and coffees will be available in the Church Hall, where an Autumn Fair will be taking place that morning.
So please come to help out, to have fun and meet new friends! You don’t have to be a church member – it’s sufficient just to appreciate the surroundings of St Andrew’s as the community asset it has been for many centuries.
Mark Webster writes:
We are looking to thank volunteers old and new by providing lunch for all attendees wherever convenient outlets exist near to where we are working this month, as indicated by L [in the programme] … Could be sandwiches, could be chips, but we will see that people get a decent feed to help keep out the autumn chill. …
Full details of the programme are here.