Balsam bashing & knotweed... gnashing? Boars Well, 10 Aug '07

Only a handfull of people joined the fight on Friday. Our BCEP trainee division was down from five to just two committed men and volunteer numbers were mysteriously low. However this elite band made huge dents in the Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam. I dunno! These foreigners! Coming over here, taking all our land and spreading their seed... Well, of course we don't try and eradicate them just 'cos they're foreign but because nothing on these shores has evolved around these plants so they are just not on the menu. With no natural control there is only us to stem their advance. Today, the discovery that pulled Himalayan Balsam makes for great javelins meant we were really on our guard. From the dense cover of the forests of balsam, huge, long stems were shooting past our ears.

BTW, message to volunteers today: Yes, the exploding seed heads of Himalyan Balsam are fun but this is considered collaboration with the enemy. I only exploded one. And it was a controlled demonstration event.

Apple Juice! Orchard, Wedn 8 Aug, 07

An open day at our West Bowling Community Orchard saw plenty of activity. A group of teenagers from the YMCA (BEES is part of YMCA Bradford) got stuck into re-woodchipping the path and a few participated in craft activities. We made bottle cap shakers and decorated them. We also helped a couple of the teenagers to produce drinks-can alcohol-stoves which was a big achievement. Once the stoves were finished they boiled a kettle over one and enjoyed a well earned cup of coffee. Lunch was a BBQ with BEES' charcoal that we made last Summer. The veggie burgers and sausages were cause for much protestation until the teenagers actually tasted them and they seemed to be converted!

The most exciting thing about the day was the inaugral outing of BEES' new apple press. It crushes apples then squeezes them so that most of the juice flows into a container. It's a fantastic olde-worldey machine and I'm sure it will have a nickname soon enough. This was a practice run for our bigger apple day event on Sat 13th October. Our apples will be ripe by then so this time round we bought in some boxes of English apples and made litres and litres of sweet and refreshing apple juice. It was very popular with our visitors from the West Bowling Youth Initiative. Come along to Apple Day in October and you'll be able to pick your own apple juice!