In this newsletter:
February stew
Woodgas cookstove
Klaudia
Lily
Alex
Evan
Josh
Geeky technical tinkering
Community Woodland work day
We’ve just looked at the blog and realised how ridiculously long it’s been since we wrote anything! We knew it had been too long but the more we thought about it, the more we panicked because so much has happened and we didn’t know where to start. Thankfully, one of the bonuses of the recent stormy weather is that we have been unable to do quite so much work outdoors, so here we are with a bumper edition as 7 of us will be contributing!
Hannan, Ros, Alex and Tim from last year have all moved on but are still very much a part of our lives. The new crew are now all installed. It feels like they’ve been here for ever! Each of them introduce themselves in a bit…
February Stew (Ele)
I got so excited serving up 8 bowls of steaming stew last week when I realised that all of the ingredients were from Pentiddy (except for the flour in the dumplings). Feeding lots of hungry mouths day-after-day on home grown/produced food at this time of year is a challenge and something to celebrate when it’s achieved!
So, here’s the recipe for the stew:
Borlotti beans (dried last Summer then soaked and cooked in pressure cooker)
Onions (From Francis’s allotment here. Mine were not great!)
Garlic (hanging, dried, in the kitchen)
Jerusalem artichokes (still in the ground)
Yacon (still in the ground)
Parsnips (still in the ground)
Perennial greens (Daubenton kale from the forest garden)
Shitake stems (grown on logs here then dried and ground)
Mixed seaweeds (kelp and sea spaghetti harvested in the Summer, dried and ground)
Nettle and treen spinach powder (dried and ground)
Chillies (fresh from the plant over-Wintering in the kitchen)
Rosemary (fresh from the polytunnel)
Sage (fresh from the garden)
Parsely (fresh from the garden)
Thyme (fresh from the planters on the veranda)
Damson wine (last Autumn’s)
Dumplings:
Organic wholemeal flour (how I wish it was at least locally-grown!)
Lard (grated. From the pigs that Tim butchered last Summer)
…Kelp lasagne tonight with meadow waxcaps…followed by an apple and blueberry crumble with a yacon topping…
Wood Gas cook stove (Anthony)
A couple of years ago I was given a small portable wood gas cooking stove. Testing it I was impressed and realised it worked really well, but due to its size it required regular re-fuelling and a lot of attention. At this point ideas formed and designs were hastily scribbled to build a larger more useful cooking stove using the same principle.
The stove works by heating wood to release the wood gas and then igniting the gas to produce an incredibly clean and efficient burn. The principle is fairly simple- light a fire in the internal chamber, once it is hot, air is drawn up between the inner and outer skins and pre-heated before being fed into the top of the chamber where it combines with the unburnt gasses and helps them to ignite. I worked out that by using two gas cylinders of different sizes (one 13kg, one 7kg) the larger version could be made.
After removing the valves of the cylinders and purging them by filling with water, the first step was cutting the top off both bottles and the bottom off the larger one. Then came the process of drilling many holes around the top of the smaller bottle and in the base of it too. I then sat the whole thing off the ground so air could enter underneath and lit a fire inside to test it… and it worked!
My task now is to mount it on legs to put it at a better height for cooking on. I might even give it a coat of stove paint! The stove will be used as part of our outdoor kitchen, with the eventual aim of shedding the reliance on our bottled gas stove. With this we are one step closer to the goal, and I’m a happy man!
Anthony’s sketched plans are available here.
Klaudia
I have been living at Pentiddy for over a year now, joining in with some of the work and community life and also looking after a neighbour’s field. I bring some permaculture expertise and am currently teaching a design course in Plymouth, which 2 of the interns attend, as well as facilitating a design for St Ive parish for a zero carbon future. I’ve been bringing groups of permaculture students to Pentiddy to see one of the best examples i know of permaculture in action.
Lily
Hi, I’m Lily. I’ve been at Pentiddy since October as part of my placement year for my Geography with Forestry degree at Bangor Uni.
I’m particularly interested in food production and sustainable woodland management, with emphasis being on the regenerative practices of leaving the land in a better state of being.
The forest garden is the perfect opportunity for me to learn the basics as it is still in it’s developmental stages. All of this links to my dissertation subject of biochar as a pathway to regenrative culture with improved food security.
Finally, during my time here I’ve developed a keen interest in Ki-Aikido and green woodwork, both of which I plan to do a blog post about.
Currently, I am excited to get on with making my chair and willow basket under Anthony’s and Ele’s direction respectively.
Alex
I’m Alex, a gardening enthusiast from the south west! Having spent a lot of time at my allotment over the past year and dreaming of a more practical and holistic way of growing food I decided to join Pentiddy as an intern.
I’m, excited to be learning more about trees, and their management in coppice, charcoal burning and hedgelaying as well as building on my gardening knowledge with some crafty bits and bobs too. As an artist I’ll be recording some of my time through my print-works and trying to build a series of seasonal inspired prints. You can take a look at my work here www.alexgoodman.bigcartel.com
Evan
Evans the name. Life’s the game. I enjoy many things, not really having a specific area of interest – I prefer the big picture. It’s clear to me that there are many more desirable aspects of living the Pentiddy way, compared to modern (especially urban) lifestyles. So I am looking to learn as many of these ways as possible so I can apply them to my LIFE. I have a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and like to think of practical solutions to problems. I practice ashtanga vinyasa yoga and consider myself a fairly metaphysical fellow. My favourite group activities include, going to the pub, deep conversations, games and eating.
Josh
I’m Josh. I’m doing a three month internship at Pentiddy Woods. Before coming to Pentiddy, I was earning my living as a green woodworker, handcarving wooden spoons and making wooden bowls on a foot-powered pole lathe. During my time here, I’m hoping learn about coppicing and woodland management (which includes going on a chainsaw course), whilst also expanding my knowledge of greenwoodworking. Stonewoodcraft.com
Geeky Technical tinkering (Anthony)
Over the last year or so I have re-discovered my (never quite dormant) interest in electronics, computers and programming, and have ended up being absorbed (sorry Ele et al!) in two projects.
The first of these came from upgrading our solar controller to a Morningstar Tristar TS-45. Now this controller happens to have a com port and so I just had to explore connecting it to our laptop…
The upshot of this was managing to get it to talk to my Linux based system, learning a little Python programming language and eventually getting current data from the controller displayed on the desktop using a program called Conky. (I know, I know… your glazing over now aren’t you!)
The second project came from discovering a development board called an ESP32 (catchy name!)
This little board is really cheap, has wi-fi and bluetooth on board and can be programmed to do all sorts of things. I concieved the idea of building a real-time data-logger, tracking power in and out of the house, as well as temperature, humidity and pressure. This is still in process, but is working in part. I might even end up combining the previous project and get the logger to store the info from the TS-45!
I am sharing this mainly because I found it difficult to find the information I needed and I’m happy to share my findings with anyone interested.
Community Woodland work day
A brief reminder that Sunday 23rd Feb will see us back out in the community woodland for a work day. Please come and lend a hand if you can make it.