Hard at work on the planting!

The morning began with an introduction (after a pickup at central or else self drive/ride/jog/whatever to homebush). Everyone seemed get stuck in and enjoy the weeding far more than they should have.

Weeding: fun for everyone.

It wasn’t quite “tree planting” because the habitat was for a bunch of green and golden bell frogs rather than Koalas or possums.

Green and gold frogs.. Australian colours! No, I didn't take this picture (wikipedia did!)

Had to chuckle when the guy talked about these little green buggers “hunting”. I guess they’re always presented as pretty innocent little things, unless you’re an insect of course then it’s a horrible eating mouth attached to tongue of death on springs.

Apparently they love popping up in areas like Homebush that were once industrial dumping grounds. Not so interested in living where the conditions are too easy for some reason. Maybe when the post apocalypse is over it’ll be green and gold bell frogs and cockroaches raging battles over the waste land?

It felt really good to be out and doing something more useful than sitting inside working on software for a day.

One planting done.. erm.. Hundreds to go!

It was pretty time consuming work getting rid of the weeds (and some native species of high seeding grass that would quickly take over the whole area) and planting native stuff. Apparently the frogs like to have clusters of grass together then open spaces for a few metres then cluster of grass and so on.

On the work front I think it was the first time some of the people had done any manual labour judging by the questions and the incredible amount of obvious type information given by the minders (e.g. “don’t stab yourself in the head”, “this is how you make a small hole with a tool”). Perhaps they were as bored with the instructions as I was. I guess that’s also side affect of lawsuits and our ever increasingly sedentary city based lives (particularly as I was the only male along too.. poor showing by the boys.. which further damaged the statistical likelihood that people would have done anything outdoors or used tools). Everyone seemed to have fun though and no one stabbed themselves in the head.

I think the following picture sums up the level of “hardcore” physical labour required (if you’re worried and considering doing some volunteering):

Redbacks and Blundstones have nothing on these pink bad boys one girl was wearing.

So the end result: we carted away a tonne (not literally.. but a Ute load) of weeds, planted native grasses/reeds and spread mulch/woodchips to keep it weed free for a bit longer.

My little grassy babies.. Aaw..

All in all a good day’s work.

Oh, one thing though, make sure you put sun cream on your lower back, just trust me on that one.