Blog - Page 17 of 39 - Dirty Weekenders

14th October 2015

Hermitage of Braid, 27/9/2015

A few weeks ago Dirties ventured out to the far away land of Hermitage of Braid, a magical place of babbling brooks and green, sun-dappled meadows and DOGS! Upon meeting at the Pleasance there was already a DOG (named Alva) there to greet us, as well as a number of eager Dirties ready for a day of meadow-raking. The DOG was really what caught my eye though

We arrived at the hermitage a bit early and were introduced by Rose to a wonderful game known as “Elephant, Palm Tree, Monkey, James Bond, Toaster…” The name actually goes on forever. There were a lot of ridiculous faces and people getting very confused at somebody yelling “toaster” at them. I frequently got distracted by the many DOGS walking past and abandoned the game to go and chase them.

When the ranger arrived we headed off to the wildflower meadow we’d be raking, a project we’ve been doing for a few years now. While collecting tools a very smiley collie DOG came and jumped on me which made me very happy. The aim of the project is to get rid of all of the grass that could rot down and provide nutrients, so that the wild flowers, which prefer poor soil, have a chance to grow. Everyone started in a line at the top of the hill and raked the grass down, with some people removing the huge piles of it. This often involved Morna and a giant tarpaulin running at you at high speed.

While this was going on, I took on the very difficult job of entertaining the DOG. We played fetch and wrestled a bit and had many games of tug of war, most of which Alva won. I was completely knackered by lunch but I powered through for the DOG’s sake.

Break from DOG babysitting for lunch, lots of lovely sandwiches and cheese and odd combinations of spreads. Quite a lot of us spent quite a long time dozing in the sun, it was such a lovely day. Afterwards it was back to raking, going over the whole field for a second time to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. I spent most of my time having a nap with the DOG.

We finished pretty early and headed to the pub for a well earned pint. I got to go in the car with the DOG. The DOG fell asleep on my lap! It was the best.

DOG

Love Becky x

Dog Count: 12

Photos by Matt 🙂

8th October 2015

Roslin Glen 4/10/15

Heya,

I was instructed to do a blog post, so here you go:

Roslin Glen, the first time I escaped Edinburgh to do a dirty. Walking through a graveyard to get there was ominous but no one lost any body parts to the slashers – fearsome sounding tools for clearing undergrowth. We had two kinds of slasher, a short and heavy medieval weapon and a spatula for tall people.

Our group was meant to perform maintenance on a patch of trees that I heard the dirties had planted a few years ago, while others handled another patch and planted daffodil bulbs. I managed to grab a heavy slasher, but we were too quick at our work and by the time I’d cleared around three tree cylinders it seemed like the rest were neatly sorted and weeded.

Soon enough Alan (our keeper) had found us some more work doing the same thing to what was going to be a hedge. This kept us happy until lunch, sometimes chatting to each other, sometimes concentrating intensely on shredding weeds. There was a bread crisis at lunch so I had something more like an enormous canape than a sandwich, but it was tasty enough and later there was a free-for-all hunk of cheese. Looking at the block that was left I thought I could get away with a pretty huge slice, but someone pointed it out and whenever I saw that person during the rest of the day I felt guilty about my cheesy gluttony.

During lunch a wee boy set off a rocket and Frenchmen juggled hammers. Afterwards we lined up and did a scan of a patch of land for tree cylinders that hadn’t been tended. If there had been any missing people in that patch, we would have found them. That search led me to find my excellent stick, which I was very, very pleased with.

After some more hedge tending, I was shown what poohsticks was and supplied with a dud stick! The dirties may be lovely people but they are viciously competitive when it comes to that game. I’m sure Morna was using a non-regulation stick. After the day was done we marched back to the bus station, and the cyclists beat us again. After we’d packed the tools it was off to the Hoose, then beer, pie, natter, home. Another cracking Sunday of being outdoors, meeting new people and smashing plants. Lush.

Written by Rudi, Photos by John 🙂

24th September 2015

First Project of the Year – Gorse Clearance at Holyrood Park

19/09/2015

Fresh Air for Freshers – By Will the boat guy

As fresher’s week was drawing to a close, it seemed every new (or not quite so new) student in Edinburgh needed to evacuate all the toxins accumulated without remission during this five-day marathon. So what could be better than getting out there and dirty? (Please do not answer this rhetorical question). For a first try, it would have been sneaky, to say the least, to drag unwitting newbies all the way to what road sign designers call THE NORTH. Indeed, good trips do not always need to be long trips, and Holyrood Park was the laureate!

There was much to be done this day: to start things off smoothly, Robby the Ranger led the gang to the Park’s future wildflower meadow, which borders Queen’s Drive and Saint Margaret’s Loch. The lush grassland covering this area was soon to receive a haircut, a necessary process to make space for the new (local) species that would be planted later this year. However, the meadow was also the elected home of Teasel (Dipsacus somethingus, for plant geeks). After a happy summer of flowering on the meadow, the Teasel plants were now proudly sporting ripe seed heads, ready to feed the birds. Rather than let this resources go to waste under a huge lawnmower or as a nature morte model, these seed heads were to be gathered and tied to neighbouring trees, where birds (and squirrels, but let’s not be picky) would feed on them throughout autumn. A happy troop of Dirties caracoled in the field, here cutting seed heads, here tying them in more or less artistic bunches, under the curious eye of Japanese television. Yes, you read that right. The adventures of Ranger Robby and the Dirties will soon be live across the globe!

teasel decorations — Dipsacus somethingus

After half an hour and several takes of the same non-scripted and very bucolic scene, featuring Dirties pretending to retie knots or karate-chopping the seed heads off poor innocent Teasel plants, the job was over and the dirties needed a new challenge to keep them away from games the Health and Safety Department would frown upon with both eyebrows. It was time to head for the heart of Holyrood for some real fun.

The Park is regularly affected by wildfires of various and sometimes distasteful origins, and needs an efficient fire-breaking system to protect its vegetation from the greatest mass extinction since the Rogue Barbecue Incident of 1305 (1pm Ed.). Fire breakers are paths hacked into the gorse thickets to prevent the spreading of fire (it does what it says it does). Holy rude gorse, however, does not agree with this management policy and wants its land back. Pandemonium ensued!

spider — Arachnophiles: write in with an ID for this little critter

Dirties attacked the gorse with bow-saws, silkies (not selkies, mythical creatures don’t saw), loppers (not Laupers, singers aren’t all cutting edge), and gorse retaliated with dangerous pricks and formed an alliance with neighbouring brambles. The casualties were many amongst the gorse, as were the wounded among the Dirties. But in the end, Homo sapiens prevailed once again (hopefully not once too many), and the fire breaker was cleared.

Sandwich Zero — New Foodies (ish) first constitutional sandwich

Dirties whose hands were still functional used them to gobble up the most delicious nachos known to man, swigging water (and beer) to celebrate their victory in the name of the Queen, who owns the place but couldn’t be bothered with paid labour.

For more information on the Park, its volcano, its biodiversity and its amazing history, please visit this page (or any other with similar facts):

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/propertyoverview.htm?PropID=pl_125