My last few weeks in Wales seemed to fly by and so many of the jobs I'd set myself to do remained incomplete: I'd started clearing the grass and weeds from a lovely brick pathway outside the barn, that Fran had made based on some she had seen at the gardens at Bodnant, but I never finished it as the weather got too wet to do much work outside. I'd also decided to re-felt the tool shed roof as it leaked like a sieve and all the tools were getting rusty but, although I found the roofing felt, it was yet another job that I didn't get round to.
One Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was sitting outside my yurt – yes, I got to spend a few nights sleeping in a yurt, which was lovely – with nothing much to do, when Nelis, the young bodger, turned up. He is actually studying at Aberystwyth University but loves working in the traditional way in the woods, and spends most of his weekends there, when he can. He was off up to the woods and asked if I'd like to go too, as he could show me how to use the pole lathe. He is a very good and patient teacher and soon had me selecting a birch log and splitting it in half using an L-shaped tool called a fro. I then used an (extremely sharp) axe to roughly shape a hemisphere, which took quite a long time as I seemed unable to strike the wood in the same place twice! Once that was completed, we assembled the pole lathe and mounted the 'bowl'. I was then shown how to operate the lathe with my foot whilst holding a curved chisel against the outside edge of the bowl and carefully cutting away the excess wood to make a curved shape. I then used the same tool, held at a different angle, to hollow out most of the inside of the bowl, before finishing it off by hand using a chisel and then a spoon shaping tool. It took me several hours but at the end of it I had a bowl that I had made almost entirely by myself! I was thrilled to have finally used the lathe, and have already started looking on eBay for second-hand wood working tools – why didn't they teach woodwork at Pates' Grammar School for Girls??
Looking back over my stay in Wales, I realise how creative I have been able to be, both by attending the weaving and dyeing course, and also being able to use the facilities at the farm to 'do my own thing'. I have made some things which have really surprised me, in that I had no idea that I could do them, and it has given me a real boost and the hope that, sometime in the future, I can develop these skills a bit more.
Talking of making things, I have also been busy in the kitchen, learning how to make wine and farmhouse cheddar-type cheese, and getting back to butter-making again. It was great fun showing other WWOOFers how to make butter from the skimmed cream – I quite like doing demonstrations. Of course, it did mean that we were left with quite a lot of butter milk which is excellent for making scones so, rather than waste it, each time I made butter I also made batches of scones. Most of these got devoured by the hordes straight away, but some made it into the freezer for Fran to use at a later date. When she lets out the yurts she usually provides the 'yurtlings' with a bottle of home-made wine and a cake, but started leaving them cream teas instead using my scones. The yurts are beautiful – the ones she lets out are both actually from Mongolia, although she does have a couple that were made in Wales. They are about 18 or 19 feet in diameter and can easily sleep a family of four. They also both have log burning stoves and a couple of gas rings and tea-making equipment so that you can be quite comfortable. They are self-catering and people use Merlin's bus to cook in as it has a cooker and a log-burning Rayburn as well as all the pots, pans and crockery you would need. Nearby there is also a solar shower and a compost loo! Have a look at their website at: http://oldchapelfarm.org if you get the chance – it's really interesting.
Over the last weekend of my extended stay, Fran and Kevin hosted two courses - one was on flint knapping, as done in the Stone Age using water-rounded stones and deer antlers as tools, and the other was on bronze sword casting, as done by the people from the Bronze Age! I volunteered to help with the catering for the weekend to enable Fran to finally attend a course instead of just hosting them. I made dozens of scones the week before and froze them so that we could do cream teas each afternoon and I also made soups for the lunches on both days. My biggest problem was getting the quantities right for 25 people - in the end I made enough Carrot and Coriander soup for 50! Both courses were a huge success, and I managed to see a bit of the flint knapping where Will, the tutor, made an axe that was capable of cutting down a fair-sized tree!
A couple of weekends ago I took two of the French WWOOFers to Machynlleth to The Centre for Alternative Technology (C.A.T.), as they were very keen to go. We took the scenic mountain road and stopped at a viewpoint where we could see right the way to Snowdon as it was a beautiful clear and sunny day. We then continued on our way and got to C.A.T. at about 11.30. I hadn't been there since a family holiday in Dolgellau about twenty years ago and they have done a bit more building there since then, as they have opened a graduate school. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with it as a visitor attraction, as it is nowhere near as good as it was when we took the children. The gardens used to be all planted up with flowers and vegetables and everything carefully labelled, explaining why the plants were grown and what they were used for, but now there are hardly any labels, sometimes there are labels and no plants and it all looks a bit neglected. There was a whole covered area showing how important honey bees are in the garden, but the hives beyond the viewing window were very obviously not occupied, and the 'smallholding area' had a couple of geese and some goslings, a few chickens and nothing else! The other thing I noticed was that there are now no staff wandering around that you can ask about particular aspects of the displays – it all relies on information boards, and this also detracts from its attraction. The restaurant that we had to queue to get a seat in twenty years ago, only had about three other customers and I don't think they are really interested in being a 'visitor attraction' any more, even though they charge £8.50 per adult entry fee. I came away feeling a little sad, and it will be a long time before I am tempted to return. However, their website and information area are very useful for finding out about solar heating, wind turbines, etc.
One day, a couple of weeks ago Fran asked me to spend most of the day just checking the sheep and cows in advance of the new WWOOFers coming. All was going well until I got to the last batch – these were the sheep that usually live on the hill but had had the worst cases of New Forest eye and had been brought back to be nearer to the farm. Unfortunately for us, they prefer to be on the hill and had, mysteriously, been getting out of the field we'd put them in, in dribs an drabs, and making their way 'home'! On this particular day there were 15 in the field which meant there were 10 'elsewhere', so I crossed the stream and climbed the hill. The hill field is huge with lots of trees running down to the river, but even so, once I'd walked all round it I could only find 7 sheep and, more worryingly, there only appeared to be two cows rather than the three that should have been there! I went back to the farm and a young French WWOOFer had arrived and was keen to do something, so we went back out again. This time we found eight sheep and two cows! I even sent the young lad over into the neighbour's sheep fields to see if the other sheep were in there but there was no sign. Over the next two days we went out several times but never found the two missing sheep, however we did locate Lucy, the young black cow – she was peacefully grazing in the next field with another herd of cows and a very smug-looking bull! She had obviously come back into season and jumped the stock fence in search of a mate – there could be the patter of tiny hooves in nine month's time!
During my stay, the Canada geese have successfully raised two of their goslings to maturity and have now left the pond – hopefully they will return next year; the wild mallard raised three of her original seven ducklings; the vixen appears to have raised three of her five cubs; one of the tame ducks hid herself in the reeds and produced four little ducklings; and all of the chicks that we hatched and bought are growing really well. Also, one of the French WWOOFers who was here a few weeks ago found an 'abandoned' blackbird's nest with two young chicks in and decided to raise them herself. Her dedication to their feeding regime was impressive but, of course, she had to return to Franc before they were fledged, and made Fran promise to look after them. For their safety, they were put in the bathroom (where there are plenty of plants and other places for them to hide in) and they were still there when I left. We weaned them off their diet of hard-boiled egg and bread soaked in water, and onto live worms that I dug up from the compost heaps, but then I brought some dried meal worms from the pet shop, and they just loved them. They are now both flying and feeding themselves, so I don't think it will be long before Fran releases them back into the wild, where they will probably join the other blackbirds in eating all of the strawberries and raspberries before we get a chance to!
No comments:
Post a Comment