Summer spins to Autumn

Where did all that sunshine go? Not wishing to sound British by fixating on the weather but I have been pulled into the summer weather debate. Will we ever have sunshine again? How much rain can the land take? How much mud can I take? And have I actually experienced a waterproof free week at all this year? I don't know the answer to any of these questions you'll be glad to know so let's get onto something more interesting.........
The summer has fanned out like a peacock's tail in all its glory with activities, camps, kids and much more besides. Numerous people have come here to laugh, learn, play and cry and I have been weaving my wonky way through the middle like a grandad on the dancefloor. Much energy and focus went the way of our bushcraft week, where me and 5 of my friends/colleagues designed and delivered a week long programme in our woods to 12 young teenagers making fire, building shelters, gathering water.......... We had all sorts of challenges thrown at us from minor injuries, to high winds potentially risking people's lives, to moving our entire off site camp in the gathering dusk to....you guessed it....heavy rain. Just over a week after the camp finished a large tree crashed down directly on the central area, pulling several other trees with it. This happened at 1am in the morning but it was dizzying to think that the trees' timing was either fortuitous or just plain lucky as some of us would have been sleeping under it just a week beforehand.  I add it to my list of weird one week near misses including - sailing on Pride of Free Enterprise to Zeebrugger just one week after Herald of Free Enterprise sank in the harbour mouth and missing a bombing at Be'er Sheba bus station in Israel just one week after I left the country via said bus station. Gracias to my angel and animal and spirit guardians for looking after me.
I also nearly faceplanted once on the floor and would've got trampled after leaning out the back of a horse and cart to stroke the nose of the cart horse behind us, not noticing that our cart had made a jerky start. (Thanks to the nameless adult that grabbed my coat leaving me with my arms swinging uselessly who saved me. I was only 12). Not quite the same gravitas I realise but it felt pretty scary at the time.
Other exciting events have been a storytelling festival right on my doorstep with much singing around fires and tables and a few unusual instruments in the mix. My favourite was a harp player who rehearsed with us all week, a 16 year old Steiner lad who played a mean banjo and guitar on his 16th birthday night and lovely Sophie singing her own songs with a ukelele. The build up to the festi almost outshined the event. It's incredible that we have much musical ability in all our communities, just build a fire and give it some space and off people go. It doesn't matter about being professional at it, its the heart of a person in it that counts. I also had the privelige of being the first person to hear a story someone had just journeyed to find (in a shamanic stylee) and then created. Good times.
I have added the expereince of holding a kitchen providing 60 meals for people over 3 days to my repetoire. Notable successes included the porridge, (which I had to "try" by spitting it out like a wine taster as I don't eat gluten), a 3 bean chilli and an authentic Indian evening meal helped by my wonderful friend Gazala. It was really fun and despite the odd 16 hour day was well worth it.
So now our pace is slowing a little after the summer mayhem. The calendar is still full but there's not quite the same frantic speed of people passing through and activities layering into each other. I have waved goodbye to three good friends recently whose journeys now continue elsewhere. I look forward to forging fresh friendships with them on a new level and in a different way but feel the little space they have left behind in our circle. Luckily there are several wonderful new people to fill it up so I look forward to Autumn with a vengeance. I have just made some sloe gin and am off to find elderberries soon. It's good foraging times. And surely there will be some chutney on the way too with all our green tomatoes......Oh and if I don't get back on here for a day or two..... Happy Autumn Equinox to you all.........

Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun

Ohhhhhhhhhh yeeeeesssssssssss. Even if it is for one halcyon week we have sunshine and the landscape is radiant. We have beautiful red sunsets, daily diving into the lake and general bare footery. Two days ago the orchard was mown and, having missed the smell of cut grass all summer, I heaped it into a pile and dived in to sleep, watching the stars on my back. I woke up with some raspberries growing on the fence beside me and some rather nice plums to eat too. I have harvested some meadowsweet flowers which I will turn into tea and I am downing black walnut tincture in an attempt to right the wrongs of my digestive tract. I have been virtaully alcohol free ("Virtually?!! What does that mean?!!" I hear you squeak), alright apart from some beech leaf gin and 2 cyders, for about 6 weeks now. The reason for this is not deep virtue more novelty and meaness. In fact I am unsure if I have ever been alcohol free in July as it is waist deep in the festival season. I think I am normally only around 55% aware of July generally. It's actually a pretty good month. Long too. Hmmmmm. I also do not wish the potential parasite living in my stomach to have a party down there on my cyder so I am depriving it of any fun times.
We currently have many kids here doing fun things and today I climbed a corde lisse in the woods, for the first time in about 3 years. They are putting together a small show to perform on sunday with acrobatcis and clowns and rope swinging stuff. Should be fun. Other notable events of recent times - I made my first ever rice pudding tonight for 150 it went down well, a surprise as I think its quite wrong but was forced to say I liked the soya version which I ate as I made it. I have joined the swim-before-breakfast club. Lush. I lost my car keys had a fit for four days at key replacement costs and found them. I went to Bristol Harbour Fest and danced to Sheelna-gig and got temporarily moshed saving someone's guitar sticking out floor of mosh pit. My bank is threatening me due to voluntary occupation and lack of account activity. I am off to Cornwall land of my heart in 3 days time to do some work but also partake of some hot beach action and some surfing I hope. That's all very interesting for you all I am sure. I'll shut up and water the plants.......

Where's the moor gone?

I am growing fins instead of feet. There are pauses in the watery waverings of the weather but they appear to be so far unsustained. However unlike some of the rest of the populace who will undoubtedly be bemoaning their "loss of summer" I am not much concerned for my own suntan and more standing in solidarity with our little annual plants, all soldiering on to get by in these rainforest style conditions. Things are indeed growing strangely. Things are bolting that shouldn't even know the meaning of a second year of growth and proffering their seeds aloft in a frenzy like a mother of the bride who has waited far too long to see her beloved child betrothed and nearly chucks the box along with the confetti at the happy couple. Other things such as the potatoes are trying their best not to rot and dissolve whilst slugs giggle in the wings. The trees like it and we are getting some soft fruit and well it is as it is. Living nearly entirely off what you eat is a real teacher. I hear Riverford are importing a lot and as they are not a million miles from here we can't be doing too bad.
I have my ususual small stream or drainage channel beneath my cabin, flowing merrily along. I shifted from the left to the right side of the bed, unnaturallly, to ensure my dreams didn't flow downhill overnight. I am sure it's bad ju ju to sleep over moving water. The sheep's feet are on the verge of falling apart which is really far more worrying, as there must be many others across the country in the same condition. Really our own needs of sitting on the decking aor getting to the beach re pretty minor when we can simply sit inside or just leave the country if we want. The sheep have to just squelch along and the veg just has to float. Even the earthworms are drowning poor things. I thought if you can't stop it, get amongst it........
I decided a couple of weeks back to do a wilderness quest and chose last Tuesday to strike out. It felt like the perfect time to go and it was also full moon. Undeterred by almost guaranteed rain I packed a minimal amount and struck out. I had no fixed destination and no map. A particular high point was in my mind as a mental marker and the mist was everywhere so a map would've been pretty useless anyway. Trust was my navigator. I discovered fields, woodlands, high moors, resevoirs, green lanes, old tracks and witnessed so much beautiful countryside I would never have seen with a set route. I took marker points all along in case I had to backtrack and breathed in the wonderful smells that come with rainsoaked nature. Barbed wire was jumped, gates were traversed and land was trespassed. I got offered a lift without asking (I turned it down), was given a free jar of tasty chutney, encountered an empty taxi in the middle of nowhere, again if the rain had been too much there was another opportunity to bail for me, and I trotted happily on. Seven hours later I got to my notable high point, swathed in mist, literally swirling all around it. I could see the air moving in bursts and whirls. The rocks loomed up , I almost bashed in to them. I sat up into the night in a hidden nook under a small cliff with a stream flowing, foxgloves growing and bats flitting overhead. I had found a secret spot that was perfectly out the wind, if not totally dry, then very much like paradise to me. I got my realisations throughout the day and night and finally snuggled into a bivvy bag for a couple of hours before rising to a serenade from a single robin. Unexpected in this high place. I intended to fast for the quest but chose to break this and stop in on a friend on the way back. We managed to burn time for a whole morning talking about bushcraft, knife designs, food and the state of the nation. A fine piece of gluten free cake was happily delivered with a pot of coffee to this damp and happy traveller as I hopefully knocked the door at a bright and early 9am. I'd been up since 4.40am. It was like manna. When marmite beans and unusual French wild boar chorizo followed at lunchtime I was content beyond belief. Quite a journey, the return was 6 hours. The next morning someone told me I looked like I'd done a few rounds in the ring but it was worth it.
Funnily enough the very same next morning I was due to make my acting debut; (that's not strictly true as I did play a rat in the school play. Oh and actually I was Lead Snowflake in a Christmas dance performance when I was about 5). Anyway before this play we all forage for foodstuffs in the garden with the kids and then do a story around it. I was a mean old woman who wouldn't share, living with 2 mean sisters. It was brilliant. I had a right laugh and at one point all 40 kids were totally silent, a surefire sign that we were all doing a good job.
Aside from the am-dram I also took 2 groups of kids fire making in the woods last week, using sparks and tinder and natural materials. It was really fun and they all described it at the end as "cool!" and other positive things so I was proud of my efforts as this is all new to me. Lowpoint being my volunteer help who despite having English as a second language managed to say the f word in front of all the 9 year olds when the spark didn't catch and then rounded the session nicely off with the s word when he burnt his hand. Choice. I felt their teachers stiffen in the background but I just kept talking like it hadn't happened. Challenges, challenges.
I struck out at the weekend for Totnes on Saturday and Welcombe on Sunday eating lots of cake, chatting with my mates, making a willow woven fish, spinning wool for the first time with some lovely old ladies, eating chips and sitting in the imaginary sun, not necessarily in that order. Generally having a lush time doing very simple things. Which is where I am at. Be grateful for the simple stuff around you. Your friends. Your family. Your food. Your health. Your fun times. It's the stuff that matters. Oh yessireee........

Is there really moor to come?

I hear you ask. Or am I just a literary tease? It appears that there has been a dangerously long gap in my blogging. Not as dangerous as the Darian Gap but still verging on very sketchy. If you are still out there and even vaguely interested then I will resume after the long paws.
So what has happened in these past two and a half months? Quite a bit really so I think this will be the abridged version. I think I may have got tired of the sound of my own (writing) voice and therefore had little to say. Rather than envelop myself in the mantle of a dullard I withrdrew into the corridors of my mind, a la Tricky, and took a long and rambling walk. It's amazing how far you can go when motivated. Rotivated that's how I felt. Like stuff needed to be churned for the good of the fields but that the process was a bit uncomfortable. Some of the rooms of my mind were a little dusty, some were dark and onerous and others quite frankly better left off the map. I decided to throw a few windows open too, rattle off the dust sheets and re-arrange some furniture whilst trotting about. I recognised there are too many rooms to visit and like the queen its the having them that counts, who needs to use them all anyway. Some are just for show and some are for amnesia. Some are for laughing and some are for crying. All are for exploring. Maybe.
So a spring equinox and a beltain have rattled by. For the first time in a few years I did not set intentions. I decided to jump in the 'ole river of life and see where she flowed. The winter never came to anything too harsh and despite sparkling frosty nights on occasion and many layers worn in bed, I trundled steadily through. It never felt as extreme as camp Cornwall.
The weather has now kicked back a bit by dumping ridiculous amounts of preicpitation on our heads, creating an unsettling stream running beneath my bed and puddles everywhere. Construction of the new buidling has halted as the footings have turned into a swimming pool. I told a group of 4 year olds today we were making a water park. One looked at me and said it looked like a building site. Yes indeed little one. Not even a Steiner kid. I think I am getting old.
I have been watching our birds singing and nesting and following the activities of the bees. I recently completed a natural bee keeping course and will be establishing some hives wherever I go after my time here. My bushcrafting skills are slowly improving and we spent a couplf of days recently creeping through the woods walking with deer feet, identifying trees blindfolded and using peripheral vision to sense differently. Our team of ewes have all recently lambed. We have a "lamb team" making two hourly checks and I was lucky enough to see one's waters break and then wait with two others in the wind and the rain fro it to happen. When it was slow we had to help. It turned out to be twins and I delivered the second black lamb. I felt really moved and all sorts of emotions went through me around the little guy. I rubbed his side with John, one of our volunteers, to make sure he breathed and cleared his little mouth. I heard his first bleat and then saw him struggle to his feet. It was a windy blustery day and we had to man-handle the mother into the next field with the new mums (expectant mums can try to lay claim to the new lambs). They are all now strong and well and some will end up for the table so the journey of this will need to be witnessed and explored by everyone.
I am also recently returned from an adventure with my three colleagues, we hitchiked England with no money for a week, exploring the idea of gift economy. We slept out unde the stars, got treated to fish and chips, cooked for some urban permaculturists in a community space, got a free breakfast at a roadside cafe and hitched with a man who'd spent 20 years researching 2012 and let us stay at his home. It was a real eye opener and people's generosity was astounding. Our lifts included an ex consultant surgeon, a barrister an a local councillor. Interesting conversations all around.
I've also worked with several school groups, been part of a project to design and build tables for our dining area and completed a week long self development programme. Much has changed and much has stayed the same. Just like life.

For the betrothed and the non bethrothed of this fair land......

This is your day to stoke your eternal flames and make willfull gestures of love and lust in the general direction of someone else. Or you can masturbate for peace (for full details read "365 Ways to Change the World" you'll find it in there). This book actually lives in our toilet area so if you visit then be sure to briefly browse at your leisure.
It has been quite cold here to the tune of the occasional minus 10ish in recent weeks proving that winter is still a force to be reckoned with and commands frosty respect. I recently partook of an excursion which involved a team of us serving cob oven pizzas at a little festival which was great. I wore seven layers as it snowed that morning and was so fat I needed assistance to get my coat off when I got in the mini bus. The dough kept resisting rolling due to the cold and springing back but around 150 pizzas later we were there.
My deck boots continue to slip in the mud and provide reasonably inadequate protection against the cold. That'll learn me for buying....deck boots.....Yes they are indeed designed for the high seas, perhaps my lack of sea legs and unquenchable misguided romanticism with anything nautical clouded my judgement somewhat. They are fleece lined (now flattened) and shorter so technically comfier but only seem to come into their own when on.....wet tiles.....oh that pesky and predominant terrain that I stride over perhaps never in a day. Brilliant! They also perform badly on wet wood which is perplexing unless modern ship decks are made of fomica or cheese then they are perfect. I have stuffed them with marsh grass and cardboard cut out insoles carefully constructed from my contact lens delivery packet for added insulation. Let's see if this helps at all.
The animals have been well, however we have had one lame sheep and a cat with a sore paw. I managed to find an aloe leaf from the new mediterranean zone of the polytunnel and carry said cat into my cabin for slapdash homeopathic treatment. With assistance I got it on her paw and then discouraged her from licking it off. Being a cat she humoured us for a bit and then did it anyway and after another grab and swab session the next day it appears she is doing well. In other breaking animal news the pair of Canada geese that visit in the winter are back on the lake and I have identified an unkown hedgerow bird. Neil our resident bird expert suspects it's a female chaffinch. I believe it is a rare form of south African warbler blown wildly off course. Or something. It may well be a female chaffinch.
Of course there are many other exciting things going on. I am currently writing my own job description, taking part on a four day intensive facilitation skills course, gearing up for the first school group and preparing for a week long self development programme. My brain is gradually limbering up to something just beyond steam powered, notching in somewhere between second and third gear. There is only more progress to be made. It's not always a straight road here and burn out can be an issue but I'm doing my waffling, warbling best to keep exploring and not take it all too seriously and have fun and....at the moment......I have a tin stashed of my mum's gluten free cake so the world's treating me well. Hasta luego lovers of the night. Keep those airwaves clear with eucalyptus oil.

I am still here

It's just that the weather has suddenly hit a cold snap and my brain and paws are temporarily stilled. I will imbibe some more Imbolc energy and get back to you soon.....

Early Summer

This last week has been uncommonly warm to the extent that I have twice gardened in a vest top. The usual frost and chill that we expect from January, or even the possibility of being completely snowed in,  has not materialised. It may still come, although at the moment its hard to imagine. There have been bees buzzing and birds singing their hearts out. Someone even saw a butterfly. More beds have been mulched and put to sleep for the winter (or is it summer?) and potatoes have been planted. Multiple varieties of salad leaves continue to provide in the polytunnel. Last night, with the assistance of Katie, a gluten-free apple cake was constructed which was actually really tasty and encouraged me on my future baking journeys. I am still trying to admire the sauerkraut and all its health giving properties. Several plastic buckets of salted green and red cabbage became my charges in December. They smell a little strange and have to be checked and pressed every few days before ultimately being eaten. Unsurprisingly they do not entice my digestion to wellness and as a fermented food appear to ferment for a second time on reaching my stomach, with unsociable results. Yet I persist as its good winter fayre and it is about food for everyon. Squashes, leeks and beetroot continue to dominate our seasonal diet with soups galore and the occasional risotto.
It's still quite quiet here as we are closed to the public and slowly build up to the busier times. The rams are still making ridiculous noises, presumably partly because they are still separated from the ewes and the owls are making beautiful songs at night. I may have a resident mouse or rat in the roof and I hear him chewing occasionally. My stash of cashew nuts is untouched so I think he is staying outside.
Last night I was introduced to "courageous conversation"; saying what you truly believe without fear of the consequences of the responses of others in the group. I was a courageous listener but hopefully I'll get there in time.
My friend Rob has also just achieved a new job and will become the new site manager here in March, and my friend Katie who is a fellow apprentice, will be now staying here in the long run as it is her husband. Exciting times and I am really happy for them as they are great people and will bring alot to the project. Gotta go and search for tinder for next week's bushcraft session.