Buxton Heath II

I went to Buxton Heath again as another trip with the UEA conservation club. This time we needed to cut down the gorse and the small shrubs that were harmful to the habitat there.

The gorse were mixed with and sometimes hidden in other weeds, so we needed to push aside or cut down the weeds around them before we cut them down. The trunks of the gorse are usually not too thick and a lopper instead of a saw will then be more suitable for cutting them down. However, in some cases, the trunks of the gorse are thick and a saw will be used then. Needless to say, it was the first time I used a lopper. The next day after this trip, I had a hard time to push down the handle of the toilet in my room because… my arms ached from lopping (Why? when you lop, you push your arms together towards the center of your body, which is the same action when I push down the handle of the toilet).

Initially I cut down the gorse whenever I saw them. However, that was wrong. Some gorse are required to be kept there because some birds nest on them.  A gorse has many sharp thorns and I really do not understand why some birds like to nesting on them. However, the flowers of gorse are yellow in color and are pretty.

Likewise, not every tree is required to be cut down. The uncommon ones in the habitat will be kept and only the common and redundant ones are cut down. Of course, I had no way to tell which gorse or tree I should cut down. So when I was in doubt, I would either not cut it down or ask the volunteer warden.

This trip, was not as hard as last trip, because lopping required less efforts than cutting with a saw. However, I had a bad luck at this trip…

 On the way returning to the entrance after finishing the work, I stepped deep… and very deep… into the mire, so deep… my right foot was stuck… I tried to pull my foot up, at first I could not, then the second time, and then the third time, I made it… but at the same time I felt the muddy water was flooding in my right welly. You could imagine how uncomfortable it was to walk in a welly which was filled up with muddy water, heavy foot, soaked sock.

The cutting work was in the morning only. In the afternoon, the voluntary wardens took us to walk around the heath site. Before we started the walk, we went back to the van to leave the tools and utensils there. At that time, I finally had a chance to change the soaked welly with a dry one.

However, as my sock was all soaked, I could only walk in that welly bare foot without sock. This was not comfortable since there were some particles inside that welly. But that was not the biggest problem. The painful thing was that without the protection of any sock, my right ankle rubbed against the wall of that welly while I was walking and the skin of my right ankle was rubbed off. To relieve the pain and the friction, I had no choice but to make my right foot to walk on tiptoe. God, while my right foot was suffering, so much I wished the walk would come to an end immediately! Nevertheless, I had walked with right foot tiptoeing, for an hour or so.

The fortunate thing was when I was back to my residence, I did not find any blister on my right foot, although I needed at least ten basins of water to clear away the mud of my muddy sock.