Working that core
9 GoodGymers made their way to help the Bath organic group in Bath.
- Tuesday, 1st of September 2020
- Led by Sam Ollason
Welcome
A big GoodGym welcome to first-timer Flo. You picked (pun intended) a great intro mission at one our favourite locations, and we hope you enjoyed it.
Today's mission
Despite the very late listing for this mission, no less than 9 runners signed up to go apple picking at Bath Organic Group.
This was actually a number of sub-tasks involving rounding up various varieties of apple for both cider pressing and eating. We had to sort our harvest into three different groups:
- Ripe apples in prime condition, for sale as "eaters"
- Any apples which were not quite in their prime, but at least 50% edible, were good for cider
- Anything less good than that (ranging from insect-chewed, through somewhat rotten, all the way down to grossing you out just by touching them with gloved hands) were going to the compost heap!
The site has dozens of fruit trees in its orchard (I know I worked on a tree labelled #40 today) and this time we worked on a half-dozen or so whose apples had reached their maturity.
In true GoodGym fashion we started from the ground up - sifting any fallers into the 3 categories. In this case more often than not, these fell into the "gross out" quality band, but we're hardy types and soldiered on regardless!
From there we moved on to the easily pickable apples, which were naturally of a much better quality.
We picked as high as we could go, with some of us taller types doing a sterling job reaching as high as we could, before Sam once again demonstrated his leadership potential by sourcing a step ladder.
With this we made a really good job of stripping the particular tall red apples tree we'd already made good inroads into, before our host Tim played his trump card...
We had another cider apple tree which needed shaking! This is just the most fun job, and one we'd started (on this very tree!) a month or so earlier.
Again, we got a group of runners to hold out a big sheet, while one of us shook a branch as hard as we could.
Then Sam went that little bit further for GoodGym (as he usually does) and climbed up to a higher branch to shake out loads more apples.
I've really been missing my indoor climbing since lockdown, and once Sam had tired I climbed up even higher for one last shakedown!
Coming up
As nights get shorter, we'll probably struggle to get many more midweek missions in at the Organic Group, but there may be the opportunity for work there of a Saturday morning. Watch this website for updates
Report written by Jer Boon
Discuss this report
Led by Sam Ollason
Love running and volunteering!
GoodGymers helping out
-
Report Writer
Be in charge of writing the session report
Share the love
Join us on the next run
Help the volunteers at Sydney gardens!
Sunday 10:15 - 11:30
Led by
Helen Conner
Bath Sports and Leisure Centre
Become a member
with an optional monthly donation
- Run, walk, or cycle to help older people
- Access sessions across the country
- Claim your GoodGym t-shirt
Need help with a community project?
If you're a community organisation and have a physical task then we'd like to help.
Request a task
Very entertaining, thanks for writing this up Jer. “Gross-out” is probably the only way I can describe that category of apple!!
sign in to add a comment