Getting our roots done

2 GoodGym Yorkies ignored the football to help TAPTY (Therapeutic Art and Play Yorkshire) clear some weeds.

Ann from TAPTY didn't quite know what to expect from GoodGym but she'd come prepared with far more tools than three people could ever use in one session. It turns out the football had kept many of our regular missioners away from tonight's task. Even so, Craig and Leanne were confident they could get the job done.

Since no one was able to confidently identify weeds, they decided on a strategy of pulling out anything that didn't look pretty... The ground was hard and dry. There wasn't much chance of being able to dig anything out, or turn the earth over, so the initial strategy was to pull out as much as we could by hand.

Once we cleared some space, Craig picked up a fork and made a token attempt at digging out a clump of roots before declaring that the ground was too hard and dry - we needed to wait until we'd had a lot of rain to soften it up. Leanne didn't judge him, since he's relatively new to GoodGym. Instead, she picked up a fork and quietly picked around a different root bundle, looking for a bit of softer ground. As soon as she found an 'in' the roots had no chance. With success on the smaller root bundle, she went back to the one Craig had originally tried and dug that one up too.

We raked all the dry debris from the ground and while Leanne started to tidy up, Craig picked up a spade. He wandered back to the biggest root bundle of them all. Now he'd seen the power of GoodGym perseverence, he was determined not to let it beat him. In the end, he made it look easy - the roots came cleanly out of the ground and he proudly held his prize above his head in victory!.

Ann was surprised and delighted at how much we got done in less than an hour, even with a smaller crowd than expected.