Botanica ( A true quest )

Chapter 24: Fish stew Cologne!!

Chapter 24

Right your on Hedge laying today . The instruction boomed out to Hedera and Salix bringing them back to the hard reality of the morning. Thay had ridden on the cart to work in the world of fluffy clouds. The rest of the crew had been throwing derogatory remarks at them all the way but not one had registered, which was Just as well as there was a pretty good chance Salix would have clobbered one of them, especially Arv, who at one point had called him a ' Loved up la la who was no more use than a plastic pickaxe '.

Ash lead them back to the field thay had been working the day before. The culvert they had cleared had a small trickle of clear water running in it's base, it gurgled as it made it's way round the harder bed rock stones they hadn't been able to remove.

Most of the dirt had moved away and it had revealed the sparkling grey brown stone in the bed.

" Ohh that's pretty"  cooed Salix, he was still totally loved up, everything looked great to him."

Ash smiled at him remembering what he ahd been like when he first met his ' missus'  as he called her " Solid granite that lad , you won't move that without blastin' it "

They jumped the culvert and stood by the hedge.

" Right lads this is the hedge we've to lay, grab these "

He passed Hedera and Salix a wide bladed tool wth the cutting edge on the inner side of a curved end.

" The blade's on the wrong side " declared Salix

" No lad it's right, now watch me "

Ash stood and surveyed the hedge, with one strong blow he took out several branches and threw them across to the other side of the culvert.

Salix go across and make them into stakes then bring them back here. Hedera, now we've thinned out this area I'll show you the technique to lay the hedge. Just wait for Salix to bring us some stakes. Salix returned within seconds,

" Cor you don't hang about do you lad " said Ash in surprise

Ash showed them how to place the stakes down the hedge then partially cut the base of the remaining hedge branches leaving enough to eneable them to grow. They then weaved the layed branch in and out of the stakes to form a live woven fence panel.

Ash stood back proudly when the section was finished " There that will carry on growing and provide a natural habitiat for the wildlife also giving a good strong fence to keep any live stock in. Think you can get on with that yourselves now ? "

Hedera and Salix were pretty sure they could and leapt into the job with great gusto. The odd sharp edge cut them both but they didn't care , they felt they were doing something worth while,  the harder they worked the quicker lunch and the girls would come round. Progress wasn't as quick as the ditch clearing the day before, they had only gotten about a third of the way down the field by the time the lunch call echoed across the fields. This disappointed Salix immensely.

" Hey that's a grand job is that " reassured Ash, "It'll take us today and part of tomorrow to finish this one, don't put yourself down so "

Salix felt a lot better as he desperately wanted to tell Japonica all about what he had learnt that morning to impress her, at least he could tell her it was a long hard job, a man's job.

As they arrived at the lunch site the other workers were already starting to tuck in.

" Here come the lover boys " jibed Arv

" Stop it " hissed Jasmine

" Aw give me a kissy wissy " taunted Arv

Hedera saw what was going down. He was just about to run over to offer protection to Jasmine when he saw another side to her. As she carried the hot soup over to the other workers a divet caught her foot, oops the soup spilt into Arv's delicate areas.