{"id":4360,"date":"2011-05-08T23:38:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T03:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=4360"},"modified":"2012-01-13T11:39:02","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T15:39:02","slug":"building-a-bench-in-marston-marsh-reserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2011\/05\/building-a-bench-in-marston-marsh-reserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a bench in Marston Marsh Reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our task of the day was located at the Marston Marsh Reserve, to the south of City Centre.\u00a0\u00a0 In order to get onto the reserve, Tom had to drive our van on a bumpy dirt path.\u00a0 Once we got on to the marsh, we split into two groups.\u00a0 The task of the first group was to remove rotting fence posts from the periphery of the marshland.\u00a0\u00a0 During the summer, the marsh hosts several cows that keep the level of the grass down to a manageable level.\u00a0 Because these cows are graciously loaned by surrounding farm owners, the groundskeeper of the marsh needed to ensure that they would not escape the marsh and become sad, lost cows.\u00a0 I volunteered for the second group.\u00a0 Our task was to install a bench for the park goers.\u00a0 We decided to place the bench facing a small stream that runs through the marsh.\u00a0 First, we had to remove several branches from the area in order to make the bench accessible.\u00a0 Then we determined where the columns of the bench would be placed, and began digging.<\/p>\n

Using a spade, I began digging a hole approximately one and a half feet deep.\u00a0 The layer of topsoil was easily removed and discarded to the side.\u00a0 However, the bedrock below the marsh soon proved to be extremely difficult to dig through.\u00a0 My accomplices used a spear shaped iron tool as leverage to separate the bedrock, which was heavily compressed into the soil.\u00a0 Then, I would use the spade to break up and separate the bedrock from the soil further.\u00a0 The rocks were difficult to remove using the spade, so I often had to remove and discard them by hand.\u00a0 I repeated this process several times, occasionally causing sparks from the spade hitting the bedrock.\u00a0 Des joked that I was lucky that there wasn’t much gas under the marsh.<\/p>\n

Luckily, the bedrock gave way to softer clay, and we were able to insert the columns of the bench into the ground.\u00a0\u00a0 Then, we dug two ditches that were perpendicular to the columns that had been placed into the ground.\u00a0 These were much more shallow than the depth that the columns needed, but we needed enough depth on the side of the columns so that side bars could be placed on the front and back of the bench.\u00a0 These sidebars would be buried underneath the ground, in order to make the bench too difficult to remove for any of the vandals that frequent the marsh.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A view of the ditch, and the side bars that made our bench invincible<\/p><\/div>\n

After nailing the sidebars into the column, we placed the base of the bench back into the ditch.\u00a0 A support block was placed on the inside of each column, and each block was held to the column by a large gauge bolt.\u00a0 Using a twist drill bit, we drilled a hole for the bolt through the side of the column and the support block.\u00a0 Two holes were drilled on each side of the column and block, and were attached using the bolts.\u00a0 Then, we attached the seat of the bench to the support blocks.\u00a0\u00a0 The seat comprised of two oak boards, which were secured onto the support blocks by first using a drill bit to make a hole, and then securing the oak boards to each support block using a large gauge bolt.\u00a0 After all of the bolts were secured using a washer plate and two nuts, I used a hammer to beat down the threads of each bolt, thereby preventing any thieves from removing the nuts and deconstructing the bench.\u00a0 Because the bench was constructed using only oak, and bolted instead of using nails, we were confident that any thieves attempting theft of the bench would give up out of frustration.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The finished bench<\/p><\/div>\n

My palms were fairly bruised and sore from using the spade to break the bedrock, but I was satisfied that park goers would enjoy our creation for years to come.\u00a0 I learned that a well-maintained fence must supervise cows, for fear that they escape.\u00a0 I also discovered that the landscape of a marsh may look soft and lush, but the ground beneath may be tough to break through.\u00a0\u00a0 But the most valuable lesson of the day was learning how to theft-proof a bench in a public park.<\/p>\n

Date: 3\/5\/11<\/p>\n

Time: 930 to 1330<\/p>\n

Hours: 6 \/ Total: 18<\/p>\n

Supervisor: Debbie Murray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our task of the day was located at the Marston Marsh Reserve, to the south of City Centre.\u00a0\u00a0 In order to get onto the reserve, Tom had to drive our van on a bumpy dirt path.\u00a0 Once we got on to the marsh, we split into two groups.\u00a0 The task of the first group was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6695],"tags":[15227,1868,2158],"class_list":["post-4360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-tyler","tag-btcv","tag-conservation","tag-volunteer-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}