The Old Chapel Farm Experience

I suddenly realised that it is nearly a month since I wrote a blog and you must all be wondering what I'm up to (or am I just fooling myself?).

I left Oswestry on 7th May and travelled back to Old Chapel Farm near Llanidloes in mid-Wales (literally slap-bang geographically in the middle of Wales) where I had spent two weeks last September. It was great to be back and see the family again and meet a whole new bunch of WWOOFers: Etiene and Julien from France; Cat, Chris and Scott from Britain and later on Susan from South Africa and Manuel and Marianna from Madrid.

During the first few days that I was here the weather was quite warm and sunny so we picked dandelions to make dandelion wine, and I discovered from the French lads that they are sometimes called pis-en-lit in France which translates as 'wet the bed' as they are a diuretic – I think I prefer Dandelions! One evening we got to sample last year's batch of Dandelion wine so that we know what ours should taste like – very light and fresh.

We also had to do some fencing as the lambs kept escaping from the fields, so I now know how to fix a strainer post and brace it either side; drive in fence posts with a manual post banger and strain and staple stock fencing and barbed wire. It was all quite physical but very rewarding when you looked at what we achieved over the course of the day (and it stopped the lambs getting out).

Fran always gets everyone to have a go at everything while they are here, which is really good, so we all got to make some dandelion wine, we all had a go at making fence strainers and braces, we all have a garden area for which we are responsible while we are here, and we all get a turn at cooking the evening meal. I was amazed at the variety of meals that were prepared from fairly basic ingredients by all the WWOOFers. It is then customary for the WWOOFer who has cooked the meal to do a small presentation about themselves or their country in the evening, and this is usually very interesting. For instance one of the French lads had spent a year in Tajikestan helping the locals build passive solar extensions to their houses to help with heating as, since the collapse of the USSR, they no longer have free coal and wood provided and there is very little woodland in the country to provide logs for heating.

There seems to have been quite a lot of sheep work to do: we have brought in all the little flocks and treated them for worms. This became a matter of some urgency as we lost two well-grown lambs to a major worm infestation that isn't treated with the usual sheep wormer. We also had to move one group of ewes and lambs to some fields about two miles away so had to spend a couple of days there repairing the fences. This week the shearer came and all the sheep were sheared and the fleeces rolled up and put in large sacks, so we all got a turn at doing that, too. I have been given a Jacobs fleece to add to my collection and I am hoping to do some spinning here as Fran has a spinning wheel, and also to continue with my peg loom rug. Somehow there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do all these things!

On the second weekend that I was here a course on Weaving and Dyeing was held here with an outside tutor. As the course was under-subscribed Cat and I were allowed to attend for a reduced fee, and we had a great time. We made dye baths with several different plants: bracken tips, nettles, dried chamomile flowers, madder, onion skins, dandelions and weld. We also used different mordants to see the difference in the colours achieved. Unfortunately, most of the best colours were achieved using chrome as a mordant, but as it is highly toxic and difficult to dispose of it is no longer recommended. However, a natural mordant is rhubarb leaves which contain Oxalic Acid, and although it gives much subtler colours and is probably not so colour fast it is more environmentally friendly. As the dyeing is a messy business and the dye baths need to be heated, we set up our workshop in 'Merlin's Café'. This is an old single decker bus that has been stripped of its seats, tables and chairs put in and an electric oven and log-burning Rayburn installed! The bus was originally the local school bus and it was always breaking down and the owner/driver always complained about it, so one of Fran's daughters offered him £50 for it and he drove it into the field and left it! It has a wooden construction erected over it which has a living roof and solar panels and extends over a patio area so that even though the weather wasn't brilliant we could do our dyeing outside but still be under cover. On the Sunday we did the weaving on small looms set up in the thatched barn – it was great fun and we all managed to finish a length of fabric using a mixture of spun yarns and raw fleece all dyed using natural dyes. I also had one of those not-so-infrequent coincidence experiences – the tutor who came from near Hereford, has a brother and sister-in-law who farm Red Devon cattle near Axbridge, and they are people that Barry has done work for occasionally over the years!

Talking of coincidences, there are also some yurts here that are rented out during the summer and one weekend a young couple came and it turns out that the girl used to work with Jeni at the Soil Association! I'm in the middle of nowhere, for goodness sake, at the end of a small Welsh lane that peters out at the farm gate! I'm just waiting for Emma Thompson to turn up again!!

Being so tucked away is great for wildlife watching, too. There are frequently red kites doing aerial displays overhead, and buzzards and ravens. There is also a pair of Canada geese that have set up home on a pond in the field and raised a family of four goslings and wild mallards that come too but rarely raise a full complement of ducklings (they are currently down to three from a starting point of about nine) as the kites pick them off as they move between the two ponds. One morning when I went out at about 7.30 to check the sheep I saw a vixen and her five cubs playing on the fringe of the wood. I know they kill chickens, lambs, etc. but it is fascinating to watch them. I've seen them several times since and have even managed to film a short video of them playing – very special.

At the beginning of June and part way through my stay here, I returned to Somerset for ten days to do my first-ever paid farm sit. This involved looking after a small flock of Jacobs sheep, two dogs, six cats, four tortoises, a rabbit and multitudinous poultry while their owners went away on a family holiday. Farm-sitting is quite a lonely experience but its OK as long as you have plenty of reading material, knitting, etc. to occupy your idle moments. I did leave the farm a couple of times – once to go over to my cottage and check out the re-decoration work that has had to be done since my last tenants moved out over a month ago, and another time to go to my hairdresser and have all my long hair cut off for charity. I felt quite nervous as I drove there, but once seated in the chair I realised that I didn't mind too much and just let Debbie lop it all off! The resultant ponytail was then wrapped tightly in cling-film and sent off to another charity that produces wigs for children and young adults. I think the most shocking thing about the whole experience was how dark my hair is where it has never seen the light of day before – I am very tempted to re-henna it just to give it some colour!

The rest of the farm sit went off without any problems and my clients duly returned bearing a hefty cheque for me and a lovely goody bag which included a woolly hat (in case my newly-shorn head was feeling the cold), chocolate and shortbread biscuits! I will definitely be keen to sit for them again. As they breed all the varieties of Sussex chickens I bought a couple of dozen fertile eggs, borrowed the incubator from Barry and brought them back to Wales to see if we can increase the poultry flock here.

In addition to the eggs and incubator, I also brought Jeni back with me for a couple of days to experience the Old Chapel WWOOFing experience for herself. I think she thoroughly enjoyed herself as she got involved with the sheep shearing and made some cheese too. She even got a lift back to Bristol with a lady who lives here who was returning to Bristol for a business meeting – so no six hour bus trips via Birmingham, which has to be good!

I have no definite plans beyond the end of June, but realise that I will have to stay here at least until the chicks hatch which is due to be the 1st or 2nd of July. If Fran can fit me in, I may extend my stay here even further, as I still haven't done any bee work or wine bottling, or cow milking or a host of other jobs, too! As you can tell, I am really enjoying my stay here and the diversity of work available.

PS Sorry for the lack of photos - I'm having problems re-sizing them to upload _ I'll try to do better next time!