Yesterday, I (Brian) took our managers up on the offer to go and volunteer for a day. Wanting to do something in my own area/community, I decided to head to Charlesworth Reserve down near the estuary.

Mercifully, the weather from the weekend had broken, so it was a lovely day. Our group was composed of 50% wisened hardcore gardeners, and about 50% Deakin students who were there I think as part of their course.  Apologies for my phone camera being trash:

We spent the first part of the day pulling up grass. I didn’t know that Charlesworth Reserve is only about 2 years old. It baffled me that I hadn’t noticed it growing over the past 2 years, but it used to be farmland, so there’s a whole load of pasture grass growing rampant and choking all the natives. We had to yank up the grass and not the native plants. This looked a lot more impressive to my eyes than it will to yours 🙂

After that, we started pruning back some of the trees that were muscling out other trees and Stealing their Sunshine. I got to feel very manly sawing branches and chopping them down to size with loppers. Behold!

(This is not me but you get the idea)

I had a great time, learned a bunch about the reserve, and got to contribute to my community a bit. I’m aching today though, so I think maybe manual labour isn’t for me!

I want to encourage y’all to take the volunteering opportunity too. It’s good for the soul to give your time to help others. Post up on Counterculture and let us know what you’ve done!