All posts by anthony

Aikido, Events, General, internship, Livestock, Newsletter, Pentiddy Natural Burials, Sheep, Volunteering

Spring 2019

13th April 2019 anthony

In this blog…

Coppicing is officially finished!

Hedgelaying completed!
Regenerative Silvopasture Experiment
Sheep Update
Aikido drop-in taster day
Dying matters day
Guest spot- A request from Lee Dodg
Internship Applications
Products from Pentiddy

Coppicing is officially finished!

We’ve talked about the coppicing at Pentiddy before, so I won’t go into great details. Suffice it to say we bit off quite a large chunk this season, and we are grateful for the fact we have actually now finished it. The Chestnut is now sprouting new shoots and looking healthy. Once again we have decided not to protect against rabbits and deer, so we’ll be keeping a very close eye on progress…

Whilst the coppice was down we also took the opportunity to pollard the Alder along the southern edge of the area. These trees were planted as a nitrogen-fixing shelter belt- but they had grown so tall and had thinned out so that the wind whistled through the lower branches and the canopy was shading the coppice. By pollarding them, and hoping for them to re-grow lower down, we will be re-instating the shelter but without the shading aspect. The timber from these trees has already been split and stacked to dry and will make high quality firewood for next winter.

You might also notice walking around this area that the willow that was around the central chestnut area has been coppiced too. The rods that will re-grow from these will now be cut annually and will provide basketry and hurdle materials, or will be bundled into faggots to fire our bread oven.
All in all we will be getting a large volume of very useful products every year. Our next challenge is to find markets for these…

Hedgelaying completed

After managing to secure a grant for hedgerow restoration and hedge-laying last year, we also embarked upon a lot of hedgelaying amongst the winter work this year. Many of the hedges here were planted with this in mind and we laid them West of England style with stakes and binders supplied from the coppice. The laying itself is a pleasure to do. The more tedious bit was the removal and re-instatement of the fences on either side of the hedge. As part of the requirement of the grant we had to make sure the fences were at least 1.2metres from the centre of the hedge… it did however give us the opportunity to replace failing tanalised fence stakes with cleft chestnut ones (unfortunately not yet from our own coppice).

Regenerative Silvopasture Experiment

The ‘Ash slope’ was planted mostly as ash coppice about 12 years ago. The intention was to sustainably harvest wood for furntiture, tool handles, firewood and charcoal.
Unfortunately however, ash dieback disease (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus) is very likely to kill them all in the next two to three years. This is a problem for ash throughout Europe, for more information you can visit https://www.forestry.gov.uk/ashdieback
We are looking at this as an opportunity to experiment with silvopasture, the combination of grazing and forestry.
As a start, we have felled and extracted an area of ash near the roundhouse and planted a mix of Hazel, Oak, Whitebeam, Cherry, Willow, Poplar and Douglas Fir. We will replant the rest of the slope over the next few years with a diverse mix of trees.
As those trees grow, we will pollard many of them (cutting them at around head height) on a regular rotation like the rest of the coppice. We will harvest a mix of basketry materials, fodder and tree hay for animals, kindling, firewood, weavers for wattle hurdles and many other things from these pollards.
Underneath the pollarded trees, we will graze our sheep in a style often called “management intensive rotational grazing”, moving them little and often to benefit both the pasture and sheep.
Over time, the slope should develop more diversity of structure and species and become a more resilient, productive and beautiful part of the land here. Having just finished removing the last of many thousands of tree shelters from earlier planting, we are reluctant to put too much more polluting plastic back onto the slope. Because of this, we are experimenting with using very few tree shelters and encouraging brambles to protect the natural regeneration and replanting from rabbits and deer. If you notice that the slope looks untidy and chaotic at times, this is the reason why.
We will monitor it closely and intervene if the brash and brambles choke the trees more than they protect them during the establishment phase.

If you are interested in finding out more about our plans here you can email Tim : tim@pentiddy.co.uk

Sheep update

The sheep have just started a new regime where they are in a fairly small enclosure and being moved two or three times a day. This gives us a lot of flexibility about where they can graze, benefits the grass and the sheep, and means they become more used to human interaction which will help come shearing time and when we need to work with them in other ways.

We have been making lots of chestnut gate hurdles to make this possible, and have refined the design and now pin the timbers together with oak pegs instead of very expensive copper nails… they are incredibly versatile and beautiful too!

Milking sheep

In the next month or so we are getting two new Ewe lambs and these are a milk breed. The plan is to grow them on through the year and then put them to the Ram in the Autumn.
If all goes well they will lamb next spring, and we will start to milk them alongside them feeding their lambs.
Tim plans to practice cheese making before then so at the peak of the yield we can be making stores for the half of the year when they will not produce milk… Watch this space!

Ki Aikido drop-in taster day

Anthony has been teaching Ki-Aikido for a little over a year, and is still looking for new students.
On May 4th (no jedi jokes being used here) he will be having a free drop-in taster event to give anyone interested a chance to look at Ki-development, ki testing and Aikido.
If you are interested just pop along to the Liskerrett centre, Varley lane, Liskeard, PL14 4AP any time between 11am and 2pm to chat with Anthony (1st Dan), Mel (3rd Dan), Ian (Green belt) or Alex (White belt).
The weekly lessons are on a Wednesday evening from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at Liskerrett, cost just £7 and new students are welcome at any point- there is no requirement to start at a particular time of year as lessons are in no particular sequence.

So… what is Ki-Aikido?

Within us all is a singular point of calm. Here we find we are relaxed, clear and sharp and time seems to expand allowing considered actions to follow. In this state we are strong, resilient and flexible and can allow ourselves to invest fully in our endeavours. This place is our ‘one point’ and the result of finding it is the co-ordination of mind and body.

Ki-Aikido is a fun and compelling way to help us understand and develop the one point through specific practice and dynamic exercise. It can be practised by anyone willing to learn, of any age, size, ability or gender.

Rather than fear, violence and hate, we learn calmness, tolerance and respect.
Ki-Aikido is the Art of Peace.
For more information visit www.setsudo-ki-aikido.co.uk

Dying matters day

As part of national Dying Matters week, Pentiddy Natural Burials and Confortia are offering a Dying Matters day here at Pentiddy on Sunday 19th May 2019, 11am – 3pm.
The day will be an opportunity for us to explore together our choices around death and dying with the hope of bringing death back into the heart of our communities and empowering us to make the most of our (finite) lives. View (download and share) the poster here.

Guest spot- A request from Lee Dodge

Six years ago I spent one glorious Summer doing an apprenticeship at a bakery in the woods near Wellington in Somerset. Since then I have dreamt about building my own wood-fired oven and sharing my love of sourdough. While I have the skills to make the sourdough my building skills fall into a very different category. So I am looking for people with building skills and experience to help me convert a field shelter on my off-grid smallholding into a bakehouse along the lines of a crowdfunding campaign, I am offering all-you-can-eat sourdough in return for helping me with the build/conversion. I could also offer some training in sourdough making for any budding dough-heads.
So come on and help me make my dream into a reality.
Thanks.
Lee

Lee lives near Liskeard on his off-grid smallholding which he shares with his cat Jelly, and lots of hens and ducks. Contact him on 07563 542274 if you are interested.

Internship applications

We have been advertising as far and wide as possible the opportunity for the next internship which will start in October.
We have had a flurry of interest and have had telephone/skype interviews with some applicants already.
If you know of anyone who might be interested, or indeed have a channel to advertise this opportunity we would love to hear from you.
More information available at www.pentiddy.co.uk/internship.

Products from Pentiddy

Over the last couple of years many aspects of our project have started to show the fruits of our efforts. From this point onwards each year should see an increase in diversity of products and an increase in the quality too.

The list below should give you an idea of what we will expect from the land here. We are pretty rubbish at marketing, so this is a little start at trying to let people know what’s available. Markets for these products is our next challenge… please get in touch if you can help.

Firewood- Alder, Ash and Chestnut.
Charcoal- for those summer barbecues.
Bio-char- as a soil improver.
Hazel poles- for hurdles, beanpoles, pea sticks, benders etc.
Chestnut poles- for fence stakes, hedge stakes, furniture.
Willow rods- for basketry, living willow structures and oven faggots.
Furniture, gates and other beautifully hand-crafted items from these materials- Heartwood Creations

Community Woodland

Community Woodland March 2019 workday cancelled.

3rd March 2019 anthony

We’ve done it all!

We had a smaller volume of tasks to achieve this year, and one good solid day with a handful of volunteers has seen all the jobs we identified needing to be done finished. Hurrah!

We felled only a small number of the Ash trees in one particular area this year, and along with some bramble bashing with scythes, a gate post put in, tracks mulched with woodchip, and general tidying and smartening up this should help to continue to make the woodland a lovely place to walk this coming year.

Thanks to those of you who came out to help.

Volunteering

Internship applications open for 2019/20 season.

22nd February 2019 anthony

We are now taking applications for the next Internship season:

Please share this information as widely as possible.

INTERNSHIP AT PENTIDDY WOODS, CORNWALL
An opportunity for a fully immersive 9 months in an off-grid, land-based, regenerative community.
Learn a diverse range of skills from harvesting seaweed to baking in a wood-fired oven, from making hay with a scythe to managing a coppice.
October 2019-July 2020. 2-3 Places available. Application deadline is the end of June 2019.
www.pentiddy.co.uk/internship

Community Woodland

Community Woodland Workday Cancelled!

25th January 2019 anthony

Sorry, but we have had to make the decision to cancel this Sunday’s work day as the winds are looking like they will be too strong.

We have felled much fewer trees this year, so we may well need only one work day, and all in all it seemed prudent to make this choice.

Apologies to anyone who was planning to come and enjoy a day in the woods- hopefully we’ll see you on the 24th February.

Community Woodland, Volunteering

Work days and a request…

14th January 2019 anthony

PCW logo

Community Woodland Volunteer work days- Your chance to get involved with helping to look after your Community woodland!

Sunday 27th January
Sunday 24th February
Sunday 24th March
10am-4pm

Drinks, soup, bread and cake provided Come along and bring family and friends. This is a fun and rewarding way to give a little back to a local community project. It’s a great opportunity to meet new people, learn new skills, spend time in the woods and have fun! Those that come along and help get a share of some of the timber (once we have put aside the few loads for sale to raise funds for the years’ insurance.)

Accompanied children and dogs on leads very welcome! Bring hand tools and work gloves if you have them. Loppers, bill-hooks, bow saws. We will have a small supply available.

No experience necessary. Training given. Work to suit all abilities and ages.

Come and share some good company, wholesome and productive work and delicious food!

Please contact us if you would like to come along (so we know how much cake to make!)

Ele and Anthony Waters: 01579 363775 or 07765 103504

A request from Spencer.

Hello,

I am looking to get skills in plumbing and/or electrics, and particularly interested in those relating to renewable energy systems.

I studied Biology and Agricultural Development at university, working on social and environmental issues from a research perspective. I always had an interest in practical work and worked seasonally on farms.

I decided to change track and, since moving to Cornwall and living in a more land-based community, I have been exposed to site carpentry, joinery, green woodworking, gardening, forestry and other land-based activities and occupations, always in quite a low-skilled capacity.

Having lived in Cornwall for two years and developing a network of people living on the land and who wish to have more autonomy in the their energy supply, I would like to learn how to install renewable energy systems. This would give an opportunity for me to really specialise in a particular field and set of skills, and which I could use in helping people wishing to switch to alternative energy.

Any help or advice on how or where to gain these skills would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

If you feel you could offer Spencer some experience or training please get in touch with us and we’ll pass on his details to you…

Activism, Bread Oven, Extinction Rebellion, Newsletter, Volunteering, Wild food / foraging

Midwinter 2018

27th December 2018 anthony

In this Newsletter

Introducing the Interns

Coppicing has begun
Mushroom bounty
Extinction Rebellion
Hedgerow and Boundaries grant
Bread Oven

Introducing the new team

In October our new interns started their 9 month stint, and we thought it might be nice to introduce them as they will be playing a large part in the activities and life here at Pentiddy.

Hannan

Hello! This is a second beginning of my time at Pentiddy in a way: more experience behind me, a continually deepening holistic view of how to live closely with the Earth, and an enormous world of possibilities for the future. After first finding the world and reality of land-based living at Old Chapel Farm in mid-Wales last autumn, Pentiddy has been home and place of learning since January (I told A&E I’d be here two weeks…oops :)). In the coming cycle of seasons my biggest passion is to delve deeper into all things woodland: sustainable management of small woods, re-wilding projects, green woodwork and whatever else comes up! Also keen to gradually broaden my connections with all the non-human beings we share our lives with: deep nature connection, tracking, wild food, herbal remedies & medicines…. So much to learn, looking forward to more.

Ros

Oh, dear, how can a person sum themselves up in a few sentences?! In some respects, the way of life I’ve been exploring since I left London 2 years ago, through Buddhafield, WWOOFing, landwork, Embercombe and now Pentiddy, is quite a stretch for me. Sometimes I still crave and expect as my right unlimited hot water at the touch of a button, being totally insulated from the elements, eating exactly what I want, when I want it. And those cravings are lessening. At Pentiddy I’m finding joy and aliveness in coppicing, in seeing my food grow, hearing the ducks and being involved in their lives and deaths… Some day soon I’ll live and work on my own piece of land, and in community, strive to tread more and more lightly on the planet.

Alex

Hello, I’m Alex. Since leaving a career in Civil Engineering 4 years ago, I’ve lived briefly at Old Chapel Farm and at Tinkers Bubble, in amongst other stints of volunteering and travel in the UK and abroad. I was attracted to Pentiddy because of the connection between community and woodland, and am glad to be gaining skills that enable me to live simply with the land. I’m hoping to learn enough to be able to live in and look after a small patch of woodland, and to grow food for myself, in ways that integrate with the spiritual practises that I am exploring through Buddhism, simple living, and land connection.

Tim who has already been with us for several years has returned after a summer in Devon. He is already a well known face here…

Coppicing has begun

This winter season we are coppicing large areas of the community access woodland.

We have already made a significant start with the area of Sweet Chestnut to the South side of the area, and this will continue down to the bottom boundary. The slope to the East of the area will also be cut, as this area of Ash sadly has Ash Dieback and plans are afoot to change the use of this into something broader- maybe some form of agro-forestry which might include grazing animals under the trees. This will clearly involve fencing the area so you may see this change happening through the next few months.

Mushroom Bounty

This autumn has been an incredible fungi season. Collectively we have had some amazing finds including several kilos of Hedgehog fungus (Hydnum Repandum), a few Chanterelle (cantharellus Cibarius), lots and lots of Winter Chanterelle (Craterellus Tubaeformis), a few Ceps (Boletus Edulis) and a large Cauliflower fungus (Sparassis Crispa). Yesterday we also found a big flush of Wood Blewits (Lepista Nuda) growing in our leaf mulch bags…

It is such a nice thing to cook wild mushrooms and add them to your dishes. The flavours and textures are so lovely and it feels like a treat that we find them just doing what we do…

Extinction Rebellion

Ros, Ele, Elowen and Adeon all went up to London in November to be part of the non-violent direct action blocking 5 major London bridges to protest against the government’s inaction on climate change and to deliver the demands of the rebellion to the houses of parliament. Since then, Extinction Rebellion has grown hugely in the UK and is spreading rapidly across the globe in readiness for a week of international action in the Spring.

We have since started a local group for SE Cornwall (Facebook page here) and meet weekly to plan local actions to raise awareness amongst the general public, to support the local councils to declare a state of climate emergency, to encourage the media to start telling the truth about climate change and all institutions and individuals to start pulling together to create a completely new society where all life is valued and can be sustained. According to climate scientists across the world we are so very nearly out of time.

On January the 4^th our group is hosting a talk in the Liskerrett Centre, Varley Lane, Liskeard entitled ‘Heading for extinction and what to do about it’. The meeting will start at 7pm and everyone is welcome. Further details can be found here – It would be great to see you there!

For more general information please look on the Extinction Rebellion web site (https://rebellion.earth)

Hedgerow and Boundaries grant

Our grant from Natural England has finally been approved after a drawn-out and frustrating time with the Rural Payments Agency (Hannan has had to be somewhat tenacious!). Work will be starting on some of the hedgelaying in the new year in the (2 styles!) followed by stone bank repairs and restoration over the next 2 summers. If anyone has skills to share or would just like to come and join in the work we’d be very happy to hear from you.

Bread Oven

We have finally made a start on building the oven.

It has been in the design stage for a long time so it feels amazing to have actually found enough time to start construction. For a relatively small structure there’s a lot of interesting engineering to think about.
We have laid heavy concrete slabs as a foundation and have started building the stone support plinth.
Anthony wants to document the build process well with lots of photos and his plan is to publish a newsletter post specifically about the whole process from design thoughts through to the first pizza… keep an eye on this newsletter!

As always, we have a lengthy list of interesting activities to keep our ever-growing community busy for quite some time!

Happy New Year to you all.

Art of Mentoring / 8 Shields, Community Woodland, courses, Events, General, Heartwood Creations, Newsletter

Autumn Equinox

23rd September 2018 anthony

So, it’s the time for balance – well it’s good to have something to aspire to!! Day and night are of equal length. It’s the time to celebrate the harvest and to ooze gratitude. Becoming aware of the changing season gives us another chance to look at things anew. The seeds of ideas and hopes that we plant now will re-emerge in the Spring, strengthened and consolidated by their time in the dark and stabilized by their strong roots.

As always, there are plenty of ideas being bounced around at Pentiddy. But very much like our garden this year, we have fertile ground, we just need to decide what to plant and then try and find space to fit it all in!! To help with figuring that out, we take September off from having volunteers on site. Elowen has also now officially left home and is at college in Bristol and Adeon is back to school so there’s opportunity for some deep breaths and dreaming.

In this newsletter

The harvest – Beautiful abundance
Bright Fire – Adeon makes fire by friction!
Funding success – Natural England’s Hedge and boundaries grant
Firewood – We still have some for sale
Community Woodland – A walk and an AGM
Roundhouse – The walls are complete.
Where next? – Ideas and plans
Stool making course – Dates have changed and spaces still available
8 shields – The creation of a mosaic

The harvest

It’s the time of year for apple sponge puddings, evening craft activities, reading and the lighting the first of the indoor fires. A time for appreciation of the harvest and abundance of food. IT’s been a great year for growing (apart from the lack of water at times). We’ve had bumper crops of sun-loving crops including corn, tomatoes, squashes and beans.

Bright Fire

Adeon (meaning ‘Bright Fire) had a big moment during the Summer when he succeeded in making fire by friction on his own for the first time. So, following on from Elowen’s Menarchy ceremony last year, we feel it’s the right time to start looking at designing Adeon’s rite of passage to take place next year. Jeremy Thres, whom we know though our 8 shields involvement, has come on board to help us. With his 20 years of study and experience in the field of Initiation and Vision Quests, we feel more confident about creating something to support Adeon in becoming more of who he is at the heart.

Funding Success!

We were delighted to find out last week that we’ve been successful in our application to Natural England for a hedge and boundary grant. We have been awarded £10,000 towards work over the next 2 years repairing and restoring some of our beautiful stone hedges and laying some of the lengths of over-stood trees and shrubs on the tops. It will be really good experience for the team and it will be great to be able to pay them for their time on it. The result will be even better wildlife corridors and effective livestock-proof hedging. Congratulations to Hannan for his hard work with Ele on the application – the funders don’t make it easy!

Firewood for sale

Yes- we still have some firewood available though sales are going well. There are Ash and Alder available, or a mix. A trailer load (about 3/4 cubic metre) is £90 and we can deliver it for free in the local area. Most of this cost is fed back into the Community Woodland Charity, so purchasing it supports the continued running and management of this lovely open-access woodland.

Community Woodland AGM

In order for the Community Woodland Charity to function, it requires active community involvement which takes many forms. One of these is to join us for the AGM and have your say in the management and running of the woodland- you may even enjoy the trustees company enough to join them! The meeting will take the form of a walk around followed by tea and cake in the roundhouse. It will take place on the 7th October, 4pm-530pm. It would be lovely to see you there!

The Roundhouse

Much of the Summer has been spent refurbishing the Roundhouse. After 10 years of temporary walls it now has wattle and lime walls using the surplus poles from last year’s Hazel coppice cut and some of our neighbours’ excess lime plaster. It looks gorgeous and we’re looking forward to seeing the array of events that it’ll be used for in the next year, including a family wedding!

A big thank you goes to our extra volunteers who came along to help out numerous times and especially to Lee for providing the most beautiful hand-crafted breads and other goodies to help keep us smiling.

Where next?

Our 3 full-time Interns will be starting on October the 1^st for 9 months. We will ask them to introduce themselves in the next newsletter. We have plenty of interesting work for them to take part in over the coming seasons. The masonry stove will DEFINITELY be happening, as will the creation of the wildflower meadow on the new burial site, a Dying Matters open day in May and of course the coppice season. This year we will be doing our first cut of the Chestnut in the Community Coppice.

We’ve attended a number of meetings recently to help us clarify our ideas regarding social enterprise possibilities here and the idea of leasing the community coppice to a coppice worker/woodlander/social forester. Watch this space for progress….!

Stool making Course

The dates have changed for the woven bark seat post and rung stool making course. It is now set for the 3^rd and 4^th of November. There are only a couple of places left so have a look at the events page for details…..

A beautiful and accessible project and a lovely piece of furniture to take home…

8 shields mosaic

We’ll leave you with a photo of the mosaic that Hannan and Ele created during the Summer. It is hanging above the outdoor kitchen sink and serves as a very beautiful reminder of the 8 shields model used in the Nature Culture Regeneration work we’re becoming more involved with. Click the image to see a bigger version. To read more about Nature Culture Regeneration, the Art of Mentoring and the 8 Shields model visit http://8shields.org/

Charcoal, courses, green building, products, Volunteering

Lime, Charcoal, Seaweed and Stools

13th July 2018 anthony

After a busy few weeks and before Anthony disappears on his Aikido Summer Course we thought we’d post out a quick update on events here…

In this newsletter:

Stool making course
Lime Rendering opportunity
Seaweed harvest
Charcoal and firewood

Stool Making Course

Anthony is running a stool making course on 20th/21st October.
You will spend the first part of the weekend shaping ash and drilling mortices to make a ‘post and rung’ stool frame, then weave strips of Elm bark to make a beautiful, comfortable and durable seat. All tools and timber will be supplied.*

As before this is being offered at a variable rate depending on the number of participants- 6 places available. Weekend will cost £360, so if all six places taken each person pays £60.

*NOTE: The Elm bark seat is not included in the above cost- This product is one we have had to buy in and costs £2.25/metre, so a 350mm² stool will use approx. 16m of bark strip- so £36.

Lime Rendering Opportunity

Roundhouse Walls just waiting for render... — Roundhouse Walls just waiting for render…

The Roundhouse is in process of having it’s wattle walls rendered with lime. This is a fascinating process and, although lime has a lot of mystery surrounding its use it is fairly straightforward if one applies a few basic principles.
If you would like to come and have a go at applying some lime render we will supply all tools necessary and of course some guidance!
We are planning to do this process in two stages- the first will be to finish the first (scratch) coat on 23rd-25th July, then the second will be the second (float) coat on the 13th-15th August. This is a process which is weather and progress dependant- please keep an eye on this Calendar for regular updates on this and other events.

We will start each day at 10am and work until about 4pm

Please let us know if you are planning on coming out…

Seaweed Harvest

One of the annual food foraging highlights is a seaweed harvest.

We all took a much needed chilled day (though it was scorchingly hot!) and took off to the coast to gather some lovely sea vegetables…

We returned after the obligatory swim with a boot full of buckets each with a different seaweed. The different varieties we collected were;

Gutweed
Sweet Oarweed
Dulce
Bull Kelp
Laver
Sea Spaghetti
Sea Lettuce

After rinsing then drying them they are all now safely stored for use over the coming year. Yummy!

Charcoal and Firewood

After having various bits of our kiln replaced we have just completed our first charcoal burn for many years. You may remember in an earlier post a mountain of sweet chestnut which we cut in the winter of 2016-17? This is the timber we have used for this burn.
It took 6¾ hours from lighting to shut-down. For the first one in such a long time we are very happy with the results.

So… we have 2.25Kg bags of top quality local sustainable hardwood charcoal for sale at £6/bag. Purchasing this charcoal helps support local coppice woodlands and all of the wildlife they support. Please contact us if you would like some.

We also have loads of Ash or Alder or a mixed load of firewood for sale at £120/load. Place orders now to secure your load for the winter.

General, Water

Appreciation for rain

3rd July 2018 anthony

Appreciation for rain – Anthony…

Amongst the things that came out of the Nature Culture Regeneration weekend we attended recently was the idea of verbalising an appreciation as a way of bringing our attention to something special we notice each day.

Today it was easy to find that appreciation- the blessed rain.

In the hottest driest part of the year, when all vegetables are in constant need of water and animals, including the humans on site, all need this precious resource, we can run very low. Very low!

The last few weeks have seen us having to be incredibly frugal- using the washing-up water to irrigate the plants in the garden and washing in the pond (though obviously without soap!)

Showers have been massively rationed, even though the solar thermal panels have given us plenty of scorching hot water in the cylinder.

As of 7am this morning (Sunday) all of our stores were basically out. Other than the pond, no water but for the small amount a minute or so of pumping from the borehole produced. Then… one drop… two… and then it came down properly and whilst its not quite the same as monsoon season in drier countries, the relief and joy, the smell of water on soil, the feel of it on our skin… well you get the picture!

All our downpipes have been used to fill every receptacle we could find- and when they were full we have set up a gutter run to take the rest into the pond (which has dropped by about 5”).

I would therefore like to voice my appreciation for this precious life giving rain.

Appreciation for rain – Ele

As the gardener at Pentiddy I am acutely aware of our water situation. We have ensured that we can collect whatever falls when it falls so our storage capacity is good but when it doesn’t fall for 3 months things get a little tricky. I have been amazed however at how much easier it’s been with the garden since moving over to a no-dig-system last year. The plants’ need for extra water has been noticeably less. I have only really watered in the polytunnel and on new seedlings. The garlic didn’t swell as I would have liked but everything else has been fine. As we completely ran out I made a point of mulching around the new pea transplants so the water they got when planted wasn’t lost to evaporation in the very hot polytunnel.

Swimming pond 'reservoir'! — Swimming pond ‘reservoir’!

Knowing the pond was there as an emergency reservoir made a huge difference and what a luxury to be able to bathe in deep water during a ‘drought’. Without today’s rain I would have been filling watering cans from the pond for the polytunnel so we still actually had 50m3 (50,000litres) of water available to us but the wildlife in the pond (including the kids) might have had something to say about us draining that!!

Context: Without a mains connection we rely entirely on what we can gather here. Our ‘main’ supply which feeds the house comes from a store collected from the barn roof at the top of the site (currently 4500 litres but another 1500 litre tank being installed soon).

As well as this store we have a range of other tanks collecting rainwater and greywater from the other structures on site, notably the house (3 tanks from various downpipes/outlets totalling 3500 litres). A few other smaller water butts and excluding the pond and what small amount we can pump from the borehole that’s our total available water. About 9000 litres (with the new tank 10500 litres)

Other news…..

It’s been a very quiet couple of months here with our volunteers all off on various courses and adventures. Tim is presently helping our friend Jeremy with his cob building at Velwell and is then continuing on to look at a bit more of the outside world before deciding whether to return. The other 3 return tomorrow and we’re having a couple of concentrated weeks on charcoal making, firewood prep and liming the roundhouse. It’ll be great to have them all back again. It’s then Summer craziness until the new interns start in October. We’ll introduce them to you soon……..

So much to say but even more to do so we’ll leave it there for now.

Scything, scything and haymaking

Scything in the Burial Site has begun!

14th May 2018 anthony

We have at the last minute decided to take this weather window as an opportunity to cut some, if not all of the burial site.

Many of the flowers have finished now, and one of the advantages of mowing by hand means we can be selective, so any that are still looking nice we will leave.

The grass we cut will all be made into hay for our sheep to eat next winter.

Please contact us if you have any questions, or indeed if you would like to come out and join us in the next few days and try your hand at scything. (mail@pentiddy.co.uk)

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