Report and Photos by Nigel Peck

Perhaps I am just getting old and sentimental, or perhaps having over a month since the last New Brighton work party, or that the forecasted raindrops held off until precisely the minute we stopped working – but Sunday’s work party seemed particularly sweet. Looking at our record, it has now been 42 full work days over 15 months – mostly in the winter and early spring months, that we have not had any appreciable amount of rain. Incredible!

New Brighton Work Days – All Without Appreciable Rain
2022
Jan 22	Jan 29	Feb 9	Feb 11	Feb 12	Feb 23	Feb 26
Mar 5	Mar 9	Mar 12	Mar 26	Apr 1	Apr 2	Apr 9
Apr 16	May 14	May 28	Aug 3	Nov 12	Nov 16	Nov 19
Nov 27	Nov 28	Dec 10	Dec 11	Dec 13
2023
Jan 22	Jan 28	Jan 30	Feb 2	Feb 5	Feb 8	Feb 15
Feb 18	Feb 22	Feb 25	Mar 1	Mar 5	Mar 6	Mar 15
Mar 19	Apr 23

Seventeen members volunteered. Linnaea, Chris, Meg and Logan were helping for the first time while us ‘others’ – Alix, Amber, Daryl, Fred, Jerome, Paul, Ros, Feb, Susan, Taryn, Vivian, and myself, were seasoned old-timers. We worked hard digging out Bull Thistle Plants along the hillock, Seb wrestling with blackberry root balls on his own, and very importantly cutting Reed Canary Grass in preparation for ‘covering, cooking and smothering’ with landscape fabric and polyethylene as soon as we have approval from the Park Board.

Working the hillock: digging up Bull Thistle after Reed Canary Grass patches.

With Park Board approval, we will cover RCG patches, hopefully only until the late fall, continue digging out the two or three thousand Bull Thistle plants coming up all over the hillock, digging and pulling up Scotch Broom and Himalayan Blackberry shoots coming up and of courses continuing to dig out blackberry root balls along the shoreline where we chopped down the thickets of cane. 

Next work day is as soon as possible – dependent on the Park Board. We will let you know.

Tea and treat break – 18 people which is our 2nd largest work party!