Beneath the baking sun and the spire of St. Peters Church our two work parties spent time over two days clearing the litter, fallen trees and invasive weed from the channel between Herbert Street and Holly Street.

Michelle, Ronnie, Mike and Paul met up on Sunday. Here is Michelle’s account of their  work.

“This month I planned for us to work on clearing weeds just above Herbert Street bridge.  This was successfully carried out using the Aspen Weed Rake and the home-made ‘throwing’ rake.  The weed appears to be Canadian Pond weed.  There were many large blooms of the weed covering about fifty percent of the open water.  This had broken the surface of the water,  with bottles and debris caught up in the weed.  We managed to clear a significant amount of weed.  This was placed along the edge of the canal and allowed to drain and dry out.  We filled four non-refundable builders bags with dried weed and carried them down to the compost heap in the compound at the southern terminus in Pontardawe.

Meanwhile, down by the Pontardawe New Brewery (built in 1837 and one of three in Pontardawe) Mike and I hauled a large fallen tree branch across the canal to the tow path side.  We removed several of the larger branches and stacked them nearby.  The ‘trunk’ is still in the canal;  it’s removal is another job for Tuesday.

MIke tries to get the tree out.

Oda and Kevin