At the end of March I left Cornwall behind once more and drove back to Somerset where I spent a night with a couple that I met through my earlier Somerset WWOOF host, who want me to do a paid farm sit for them in June when they go on their annual holiday. I have been toying with the idea of doing paid farm/smallholding/house-sits as a new career, but hadn’t made a firm decision about it – looks as if Fate took a hand in the proceedings and precipitated me into it. It will be quite nice to earn money again! My first-ever WWOOF hosts, who were quite money-oriented, couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to get paid to look after other people’s places, but in those far-off days I didn’t have the confidence to believe I was competent enough.
From there I drove back to Cheltenham for a few days with my Mum and also had the lovely surprise of not only my children visiting on the Sunday, but also my brother and his little daughter who came to stay for a few days during the Easter holidays. My WWOOF hosts in Cornwall had generously given me the gift of a leg of Cornish lamb (their own) which had been wrapped in bubble wrap and newspaper so that it would be OK overnight in my car on the way back, so we had that for Sunday lunch. It was absolutely delicious, and made me realise all over again, just how much I miss being self-sufficient in meat production.
On 2nd April I sallied forth once more and headed for a new WWOOF host just outside Monmouth. Luckily she had emailed me some very comprehensive instructions on how to find her, which was just as well, as I seemed to be driving for a long time down narrow lanes with very little in the way of habitation! Eventually, I came upon a small hamlet with a cluster of houses around a tiny green complete with waterpump and a tiny church, which is now a private house. From there I had to drive a further half mile down a no through road before arriving in the farm yard. The farm dates back in part to the 16th Century and was obviously quite important at one time as it had its own mill down by the stream to which other local farmers would bring their grain for milling. It is thought that this mill was not for grinding flour for human consumption but more for milling grain for livestock feed, but very little is known for sure. However, there was evidence of several cart tracks coming from different directions to reach the mill. I spent my first day off poking about in the woods surrounding the mill and trying to make sense of the layout – behind the mill was an obvious flat channel (the mill leat) that ran for several hundred yards back from the mill ending abruptly at the stream. However, I could not make sense of this as the stream level, even allowing for the fact that the water level was low due to the dry winter and early spring, was far too low to have ever fed into the leat. Eventually, I waded across the stream and had a look on the other bank where it soon became obvious that I was standing in what had once been the mill pond, confirmed by the finding of a very well-built overspill weir in the remaining stone wall. This made no sense at all and it wasn’t until I spoke to my host that things became clearer – in the early years of the twentieth century there had been some very wet and stormy winters and it is thought that during one of these the stream, that had once flowed into and out of the mill pond, dramatically changed course and cut a much deeper bed slicing straight through between the mill pond and the mill leat and effectively making the mill redundant. It is certainly true that the records show a Miller still present in 1896 but no record of one after that date.
My host is heavily involved with the Transition Movement in Monmouth and is Chair of the Food Sub-Committee. The Transition Initiative originally started as an academic investigation at a college in Ireland, into what could be done to lessen the impact of less and more costly petroleum products after Peak Oil. It is also closely tied in with the movement combating climate change, and really took off in Totnes, in this country, before spreading worldwide. I read most of a book about the movement that Ann lent me(The Transition Handbook), and it was quite inspirational – instead of seeing the world as a worse place without cheap petrol, it is viewed as a much more community-based world with food being grown more locally and people being employed within the community, etc. It is far too complex to go into here but worthy of further investigation, if you are interested. It seems to herald a return to a slower, more community-based way of life, which existed everywhere before the middle of the 1800’s, and I, for one, would not mind that too much. Ann is already investigating the purchase of a house cow and also a pony that could be used for transportation but also as a replacement for the diesel-guzzling tractor! I think, if you know anything about the way the Amish live, this would give you a clue to how life could be after Peak Oil.
Ann is essentially self-sufficient year round in vegetables, which is an amazing achievement! However, this is the ‘Hungry Gap’ in terms of vegetable gardening in this country, when the winter veg are coming to an end and the new season’s vegetables are not quite ready. There was still some early purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, parsnips and leeks in the garden but little else, although there were a few salad leaves in the polytunnel so some vegetables did have to be bought, but not many. I was also treated to some home-reared pork and bacon which was truly delicious! Ann had just taken delivery of her next batch of weaner pigs, five Tamworth x Gloucester Old Spot, and they were settling into their new quarters out in the orchard. For the first few days they rarely moved from the area around the old chicken house that they had made Headquarters, but quite soon they were roaming all over the orchard rooting around and playing with old bits of polythene, etc. I tried not to get too distracted by their antics as my main job was to do some serious weeding and digging in the vegetable patch as Ann had a bad back and her 92-year old mother could only manage lighter weeding jobs! These two ladies were inspirational and I admired Ann tremendously for even trying to carry on the farm virtually single-handed – she could really do with a regular farm-worker but, alas, she lacks the money to pay someone. As well as the pigs and the vegetable garden, she had a small flock of sheep of whom thirteen were due to lamb starting during my second week there. They were mainly Ryeland ewes, a lowland breed, but Ann had decided to out cross them with a hardier native breed and had chosen two jet-black Hebridean rams with impressive sets of horns. We were intrigued to see how the lambs would look with such a cross, but the four that were born before I left looked just like their mothers – no black at all apart from the usual Ryeland speckling around the ears.
On another of my days off, I went for a walk starting at the mill and climbing up away from the farm on one of the old sunken cart tracks before heading off along a ridgeway. I then plunged back down another steep valley where I came across the remains of some more houses before striking back up onto another ridgeway and back around to the farm – a distance of about 4 miles. Again, the ruined houses by the stream in the wooded valley held some historical interest as the footpath that ran past them had been the original main route from Monmouth to Abergavenny and it is thought that one of the ruins was an inn and another was the old smithy where weary travellers could put up for the night and get their horses re-shod for the journey ahead. The ruin that was probably the smithy had a small stream running underneath it in a stone conduit so water was handy for quenching the redhot metal – ingenious! I sometimes wish there was such a thing as a time machine, just so that I could travel back to see what these places used to look like instead of having to imagine it and fill in the missing bits with guesswork. My knowledge of social history is abysmal – I really should make a concerted effort to rectify that at some point.
On a beautiful, sunlit Sunday morning I left the little sheltered wooded valley and meandered my way north, up the Border Counties once more, threading in and out of England and Wales so frequently that I was almost dizzy, to return to another Welsh valley, and forty-five-degree-gardening, near Oswestry.
From there I drove back to Cheltenham for a few days with my Mum and also had the lovely surprise of not only my children visiting on the Sunday, but also my brother and his little daughter who came to stay for a few days during the Easter holidays. My WWOOF hosts in Cornwall had generously given me the gift of a leg of Cornish lamb (their own) which had been wrapped in bubble wrap and newspaper so that it would be OK overnight in my car on the way back, so we had that for Sunday lunch. It was absolutely delicious, and made me realise all over again, just how much I miss being self-sufficient in meat production.
On 2nd April I sallied forth once more and headed for a new WWOOF host just outside Monmouth. Luckily she had emailed me some very comprehensive instructions on how to find her, which was just as well, as I seemed to be driving for a long time down narrow lanes with very little in the way of habitation! Eventually, I came upon a small hamlet with a cluster of houses around a tiny green complete with waterpump and a tiny church, which is now a private house. From there I had to drive a further half mile down a no through road before arriving in the farm yard. The farm dates back in part to the 16th Century and was obviously quite important at one time as it had its own mill down by the stream to which other local farmers would bring their grain for milling. It is thought that this mill was not for grinding flour for human consumption but more for milling grain for livestock feed, but very little is known for sure. However, there was evidence of several cart tracks coming from different directions to reach the mill. I spent my first day off poking about in the woods surrounding the mill and trying to make sense of the layout – behind the mill was an obvious flat channel (the mill leat) that ran for several hundred yards back from the mill ending abruptly at the stream. However, I could not make sense of this as the stream level, even allowing for the fact that the water level was low due to the dry winter and early spring, was far too low to have ever fed into the leat. Eventually, I waded across the stream and had a look on the other bank where it soon became obvious that I was standing in what had once been the mill pond, confirmed by the finding of a very well-built overspill weir in the remaining stone wall. This made no sense at all and it wasn’t until I spoke to my host that things became clearer – in the early years of the twentieth century there had been some very wet and stormy winters and it is thought that during one of these the stream, that had once flowed into and out of the mill pond, dramatically changed course and cut a much deeper bed slicing straight through between the mill pond and the mill leat and effectively making the mill redundant. It is certainly true that the records show a Miller still present in 1896 but no record of one after that date.
My host is heavily involved with the Transition Movement in Monmouth and is Chair of the Food Sub-Committee. The Transition Initiative originally started as an academic investigation at a college in Ireland, into what could be done to lessen the impact of less and more costly petroleum products after Peak Oil. It is also closely tied in with the movement combating climate change, and really took off in Totnes, in this country, before spreading worldwide. I read most of a book about the movement that Ann lent me(The Transition Handbook), and it was quite inspirational – instead of seeing the world as a worse place without cheap petrol, it is viewed as a much more community-based world with food being grown more locally and people being employed within the community, etc. It is far too complex to go into here but worthy of further investigation, if you are interested. It seems to herald a return to a slower, more community-based way of life, which existed everywhere before the middle of the 1800’s, and I, for one, would not mind that too much. Ann is already investigating the purchase of a house cow and also a pony that could be used for transportation but also as a replacement for the diesel-guzzling tractor! I think, if you know anything about the way the Amish live, this would give you a clue to how life could be after Peak Oil.
Ann is essentially self-sufficient year round in vegetables, which is an amazing achievement! However, this is the ‘Hungry Gap’ in terms of vegetable gardening in this country, when the winter veg are coming to an end and the new season’s vegetables are not quite ready. There was still some early purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, parsnips and leeks in the garden but little else, although there were a few salad leaves in the polytunnel so some vegetables did have to be bought, but not many. I was also treated to some home-reared pork and bacon which was truly delicious! Ann had just taken delivery of her next batch of weaner pigs, five Tamworth x Gloucester Old Spot, and they were settling into their new quarters out in the orchard. For the first few days they rarely moved from the area around the old chicken house that they had made Headquarters, but quite soon they were roaming all over the orchard rooting around and playing with old bits of polythene, etc. I tried not to get too distracted by their antics as my main job was to do some serious weeding and digging in the vegetable patch as Ann had a bad back and her 92-year old mother could only manage lighter weeding jobs! These two ladies were inspirational and I admired Ann tremendously for even trying to carry on the farm virtually single-handed – she could really do with a regular farm-worker but, alas, she lacks the money to pay someone. As well as the pigs and the vegetable garden, she had a small flock of sheep of whom thirteen were due to lamb starting during my second week there. They were mainly Ryeland ewes, a lowland breed, but Ann had decided to out cross them with a hardier native breed and had chosen two jet-black Hebridean rams with impressive sets of horns. We were intrigued to see how the lambs would look with such a cross, but the four that were born before I left looked just like their mothers – no black at all apart from the usual Ryeland speckling around the ears.
On another of my days off, I went for a walk starting at the mill and climbing up away from the farm on one of the old sunken cart tracks before heading off along a ridgeway. I then plunged back down another steep valley where I came across the remains of some more houses before striking back up onto another ridgeway and back around to the farm – a distance of about 4 miles. Again, the ruined houses by the stream in the wooded valley held some historical interest as the footpath that ran past them had been the original main route from Monmouth to Abergavenny and it is thought that one of the ruins was an inn and another was the old smithy where weary travellers could put up for the night and get their horses re-shod for the journey ahead. The ruin that was probably the smithy had a small stream running underneath it in a stone conduit so water was handy for quenching the redhot metal – ingenious! I sometimes wish there was such a thing as a time machine, just so that I could travel back to see what these places used to look like instead of having to imagine it and fill in the missing bits with guesswork. My knowledge of social history is abysmal – I really should make a concerted effort to rectify that at some point.
On a beautiful, sunlit Sunday morning I left the little sheltered wooded valley and meandered my way north, up the Border Counties once more, threading in and out of England and Wales so frequently that I was almost dizzy, to return to another Welsh valley, and forty-five-degree-gardening, near Oswestry.
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