Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Calling Woody Women Everywhere...

Our friend Ruth Stafford sent us this:
Woody Women:
A Two Day Woodland Skills Experience for Women
  • A chance for women to try a variety of woodland activities and crafts including axe work and fire-lighting.
  • Enjoy a tree folklore walk in the beautiful setting of the Silk Wood Barn, Westonbirt Arboretum, near Bristol.
  • Join us for fun in the woods and take home your own hand-made spatula!
Dates for 2011:
22nd – 23rd June    and    25th – 26th June

28th – 29th September

1st – 2nd October
    
Led by professional coppice workers Ruth Goodfellow and Jenna Higgins.
For June courses contact Ruth: 07794 054623 rgoodf@hotmail.com
For Sept courses contact Jenna: 07921 256466 jennahiggins@ymail.com
Cost: £135, which includes camping, materials and entry to the arboretum.
Ruth talked about coppicing on Radio 4's 'Women's Hour' April 20th:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b010dq6r

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Permaculture Design at Treflach Farm May 2011

What a great bunch! I've met very few dread-locked hippy dope-heads in the Permaculture world, instead I've worked with some of the most intelligent, well-informed, caring, thoughtful people I've ever met with a broad range of practical and business experience. This course was no exception, great participants and also great people working on the various projects we visited during the course.

It's wonderful for me to be involved at the edge of exploring sustainability and I feel a sense of vindication, that it's my path. When I was living back down near Brighton I used to feel a continuous background unease, that living there was just shoring up the problems rather than looking actively for solutions.

I really enjoy working with Steve, apart from his breadth of knowledge and passion for permaculture he's always thinking about how to make the courses better and where best to put our energy generally. We included more ideas from my experience of the therapy world this time, there's a big overlap with permaculture ethics and principles. The healing journey is often a journey of inner understanding which mirrors and enhances the outward journey we are on towards regeneration of our environment and our partnership with the Earth.

There were two design briefs this time, one group worked on the project for a bunkhouse that Treflach's farmer, Ian Steele, will be building and on how to get more people involved with the farm. The other group looked at ways of developing the pigs' field into more diversity. They came up with excellent useful plans but more importantly they came to a deeper understanding of working with nature and working with each other. Well done you lot! good luck with all your projects and stay in touch.

I did these composite photos just for fun, individual photos are at:

Facebook PDC Treflach May 2011 Photo Album