The Maidens go exploring

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Whilst we are waiting to get stuck into the barn we have been busy – no slacking for us! With over 400 trees to plant (of local provenance) we had our work cut out. We intend to have a good supply of fuel for the future so have planted a short rotation coppice, including willow, hazel and ash all of which grow on the land already and there is evidence of previous coppicing, so we carry on a tradition. Our drive is also finished now so there should be no more vans stuck in the mud! So all in all a busy old week, and we’re still working.

Our cat is also getting used to the place – he’s been a city cat all his life and an indoor cat largely, so the big outdoors is an exciting experience for him. Initially he was so entranced by the scenery and explosion on his senses that he wouldn’t pay attention to where he was walking and fell off the deck a number of times as a consequence, much to our amusement. I wouldn’t say he’s ever going to be a truly out door cat, especially as he follows you like a dog, however he’s certainly had his horizons expanded.

Oh and our bluebells are coming out!

We’ve also been meeting some of the neighbours. Whilst planting all our trees a robust elderly man pulled up in his car and got out to introduce himself – turns out he’s the father of one of our nearest neighbours. His family have been in the area since 1780 so he has some pretty interesting stories to tell. He was able to tell us that where we were planting our hazel was known as fools corner, reason being that in during the second world war the very steep hill had to be ploughed for grain… if you have seen this hill you would understand the name.. we got the impression he thought our approach was a lot more sensible.

Also we have discovered another neighbour – a rather impressive stag who has obviously been living in our woods.

Oh yes and as a final word we really do need to thank Tamsin, who housed all three of us for 2 months for free with barely a grumble. Without her we would have had to found somewhere to rent which would have tied us in for 6 months.. in fact we would have been really very stuck… so thank you my dear – free holidays in a tent for you 😉

The first two weeks of living on site

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or how to build a fabulous temporary home


So this is our new home for the year – we have a small mobile caravan as well – however the yurt is a more pleasant alternative as it has a woodburning stove and is significantly warmer with it’s thick wool walls. Another bonus of living away from the main building site itself is that we have seen a lot of wildlife, so far the list includes a male red deer (about 6 years old with impressive antlers), red kite, green finch (and lots of other birds of which I am ignorant), have heard curlews, nightingale, cuckoo and woodpeckers.

We have been working too and in our first two weeks we have created the yurt and yurt decking, the compost loo, a rain water collection system for washing us and our plates, knocked down the brick wall which had to come down according to our planning permission and we’ve employed someone to sort out the drainage on the drive and the drive itself. The site looks different already.

After a farce with BT we are no longer bothering with a landline which is frustrating but not as frustrating as spending our lives explaining that we don’t have a house number, getting lost on the line and finally being told that we can’t have internet after all as the line is too old and BT aren’t going to invest in the work which is needed!

In short being able to live and work in this place is blissful, even with issues about communication and we are already enjoying having people dropping by, so we get to proudly show the place off again and again.

A little bit of history

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It all started about 5 years ago when two good friends, Dave and Mags, tempted us with the idea of buying an abandoned village in Spain. Sadly it was at the wrong time but it kick started something in our imaginations. We dreamt of growing our own food in a community and having our own energy generation. We then started talking about doing something in Wales with the community of friends we had made here. Unfortunately we were all at different stages, eventually we realised we needed to do something on our own.

So having had years of experience volunteering with a green building company (Rounded Developments) and Cardiff Friends of the Earth we knew we wanted to build as green as possible. We are now exploring everything from using the stream to provide some energy to solar and small wind turbines. We will be adhering closely to the philosophy of reducing first, ensuring that anything we consume is at the minimum, which shouldn’t be a problem. The house should be fairly passive as the walls are about 2-3 foot thick, it should get great solar gain and is in a very sheltered south facing spot. We are also exploring underfloor heating in order that we heat the house as evenly as possible. This year we hope to plant hazel, ash and willow plantations to provide biomass fuel for the future, and we will be coppicing some of the old hazel in Autumn after the nesting season. We will also be collecting rainwater for showers and washing etc whilst remaining on the mains for drinking water.