New Blog: ian's eco blog 2006 - 2016...

All my new stuff's here: ian's eco blog 2006 - 2016... bringing together eco work and therapy work, Earthcare and Peoplecare.

Also new in 2016, a blog-within-a-blog about our home in the woods, "The LogCabavan Way"

I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures, all the best wherever you are!

Energy treatment and medication

This post is on my new blog: ians eco blog 2006 - 2016... 

THURSDAY LIGHTWORKERS - EARTH ENERGY IN CITIES - TREES AND US

This and all my other fresh posts are in my new blog: IANS NEW AGE HANDBOOK

New Blog: Ian Watt Therapy and Ecology

I've set up a new blog, Ian Watt Therapy and Ecology where I'll be posting up all my eco news along with stuff about my therapy and healing work, bringing the two worlds together just as I've been talking about for years... so do please check that out, I will make sure I have my head in the clouds and feet on the ground as much as possible. Here's the link again: Ian Watt Therapy and Ecology
There's so much the two worlds can learn from each other. Therapists generally focus on treating their patients, they might include their patients' relationships with other people in sessions, but how can healing not include a patient's relationship with the environment, the Earth and all life? And permaculture, sustainable living and other eco-projects most often seem to fail because of personality clashes, where people don't understand the dynamics of their behaviour and interactions with other people in their patterns and roles, where some deep therapy could really help. So that's what the new blog is all about, bringing the worlds of therapy and ecology together.

Nice weather at last...

We're appreciating the fine weather so much after all the rain last year and the long cold winter. It's such a pleasure to be living out here at the moment with the peace and quiet - save for bird song and bursts of tractor activity - with so much wild woodland about it feels like being right in the middle a forest. It's brilliant to be making progress with all the things I wanted to be involved with, living a simpler life closer to the Earth and having so much going on in the therapy/healing world too.

I heard the strangest honking bird song the other morning and thought it must be a swan but no, it was the Great Honk Bird

Wonderful blossom this year

We have the beginnings of a garden here and have been doing more on the outside of the caravan. We're determined to have a much more cosy winter than last one.

Ruth has lots of brilliant salads growing at the moment...

...and loads more stuff ready to plant out.

And lovely to have Faze with us on the farm helping out with anything and everything in between gong sessions

Energy Medicine and Healing Work - going up a level - my new energy work blog

The energy medicine/healing work I've been exploring has gone up a level recently, lots of people have been joining in with the regular session I host, the Thursday Group. It doesn't seem to matter how far away they are or how many people join in, many of them receive significant help for a wide range of concerns. Our group is just one of many springing up around the world and Energy Medicine must be one of the biggest rays of sunshine amid all the dire news of the climate and conflict.
HOW CAN ENERGY MEDICINE AND HEALING WORK HELP US?

• Through a significant boost to world health - so many people receive little or no healthcare of any kind - the network of healing energy is a good start and can be surprisingly helpful for many people, and it's free. 
• As part of living sustainably - Energy Medicine needs little or no equipment or electricity and, in the case of distant sessions, you don't even have to travel for treatment. Surely the more we can help people in this simple, low-impact way the better.
• By raising our awareness of and respect for each other: The world's problems are mostly people problems - the more we understand ourselves, what motivates us and helps us to work together the better.

More on my new site here:
IAN'S ENERGY WORK BLOG

Busy times...

So much happening here at the moment... This is Azzi who is building the new straw bale toilet and shower block with us. It's been designed with a timber frame as, wonderful as straw is as an insulator, it's not load bearing so you still need a frame of some kind to hold the roof, doors, windows and everything else together. It's been great fun working with Azzi who is a kindred spirit and fellow rebel against all the stupidity of the consumerist, corpocratic nonsense we find ourselves in. He's built himself a beautiful house at Sychpwll using straw bales with a frame of poles in the round and mostly reclaimed materials, all for less than £3,000. We were going to be holding a straw bale building course this weekend but it's been postponed because of the weather. I do hope that we don't have another wet year like 2012...

Azzi on the frame for the straw bale toilet block

Lovely to see the blossom coming out in the orchard

Up until the last week or so the weather has been wonderful here, warm and sunny, so good after the long cold, wet, muddy, challenging winter. One big plus of living and working out in the sticks is that we're getting more and more in tune with the landscape around us, and noticing the day to day changes in the trees and flowers.  There's continuous bird song too from about 4.30 am. I couldn't begin to tell you what all the birds are, yet more ancient lore to re-learn.

Ruth planting tatties in a corner of the pig field - a big first step

Ruth and I have taken over part of one of the fields for more veg growing for food for all of us on the farm, for ingredients for the farm's pie business and to help feed the pigs. It's a bigger step than it might seem, taking land that a few years ago would generally have been ploughed and cropped in modern agribiz style and starting to treat it in a permaculture, sustainable way.

Starting some no dig operations in the same field

The rest of the field has been ploughed up and sown with barley to feed the pigs - our transitional corner is to the left of the photo in the same field

Finally the yurt - it's about five years since I started making it back down in Brighton and it's mostly been stored away either at Lammas or in the barn here, so it's brilliant to see it up at last nestling amongst the trees. Having the extra space means we can at last start sorting out our stuff and begin work on getting the caravan ready for next winter, Ruth and I are determined to be better prepared this time.

DEVELOPING THE PIG FIELD - INTEGRATED FOREST FARMING...

Prototype pig feeder bed - sleepers and angle-iron

DEVELOPING THE PIG FIELD
Lots going on here at the moment, including our plans to develop the pig field for food for the pigs and for the Treflach Farm pie business. The pig field is about three acres and we are thinking in terms of four strips for veg: beans, tatties, turnips and leeks. The plan is to keep the pigs off the veg to begin with using electric fence then let them onto what’s left of the veg strips at the end of the season so they can routle up the ground ready for next season. As well as that, we are planning some pig feeder beds which will effectively be mini-forest gardens with fruit or nut trees and perennial planting so that the pigs can either eat whatever falls on the ground or grows out through the gaps. Everything has to be pretty robust to survive pig assault so we will use up a stock of old sleepers for the beds.

They need to stand up to the scratchings of enormous boars and sows too

 INTEGRATED FOREST FARMING
Watching life here on the farm over the last year, I’ve realised how the animals are an important part of the whole system. For example, the woodland that's grazed some of the time is more diverse and also pleasant than the woodland that isn't grazed nearby. The more their behaviour can be controlled, integrated and utilised within the farm the less energy and expense required. The key idea being that the forest is a sustainable system and that a few carefully controlled animals fit into that very well. The more the whole farm develops in the pattern of the forest, the more the farm becomes sustainable ie: no waste, reduced inputs, increased diversity, increased types and quantities of yields, drought/flood/pest resistance, with space for paths, clearings and human settlement.

The pig field, about three acres of some of the best land on the farm