Hoorah! The children are back at school! We have had a busy last week to the holidays with some lovely friends from Cumbria staying for the week and giving us a hand outside in between the torrential downpours! The week before we had super wwoofer Pat with us..........a lady of mature years, age unknown but suspected to be older than most of us here she was a human dynamo! We took a load of rubbish to the dump in the stock trailer and whilst there liberated a brand new top of the range folding chair complete with its carrying case and joy of joys a roll top cast iron bath!!!!! (and a pale green one at that) Getting the bath was a dastardly deed.............the man at the recycling centre (dump) said we could not have it as it was going to be chucked in the metal recycling skip when there were enough hefty blokes to shift it..................so I pointed out that cast iron was not recyclable.......which fell on deaf ears!
So...........we argued.............and argued and I pointed out that I would be recycling it in my garden as a hot tub.........so he relented but told us he had not seen us!
So we put the trailer between bath and security cameras and Pat with the strength of several men and me with the strength of a mouse hoicked it quickly amid lots of puffing into the trailer and sped away feeling like a couple of naughty school girls!
It is perfect.......and will be made into a wood fired hot tub for next year!
Pat departed and we now have Domenic a German student who is an ace painter and we are making use of his talents on sheds and in my eco business unit!
Now back to the weather...............
Friday dawned in torrential rain and countrywide weather warnings, I drove up to the Permaculture convergence in Ilkley Yorkshire in the most terrifying conditions. On getting there we were warned that the adjoining river was about to burst and we were stuck.......I have to admit I was so relieved to be there in one piece I would have happily been flooded in for a week!
On the Friday evening there was a Ceilidh and we danced until midnight including Breton dancing......it was great and helped 300 people get to know a few others!..........helped of course by good food and good beer!
Next day I ran a pegloom workshop which was so popular it ran over into the afternoon and the following morning!.................but also had time to hear Permaculture Magazine editor and publisher Maddy Harland speak (she is very good.....I reccommend listening to her talk) and had a chat with her and husband Tim...........if you read it look out for an article by me in the future....! I also had a chance to hear Roberto Perez from Cuba speak about the Cuban experience which was amazing listening and all I can say is listen!
All in all it was the most positive experience of permaculture folks I have had and several of us met together and are working on joint projects re teaching and livestock!.............the food was superb over the weekend and the journey back complimented by seeing a pair of red kites!
Talking of permaculture I want to show you all an interesting example! Above are 2 photos taken from our raised patio of a bit of land that was used by our property for years but was owned by another neighbour but about 5 years ago was split between our property and our next door neighbour. It is about 3/4 acre in total. We made a garden, orchard, duck lawn with raised beds, and wildlife corridor with willow bed soak away from our bit which is low maintenance, but high output as its now grazed by geese, ducks or sheep, full of fruit trees, has beds of soft fruit, a willow fedge, basket making willow, etc and is a haven of productivity and biodiversity.
Our neighbours levelled theirs and mow a mono culture of grass with a ride on mower. strimmer and push mower weekly!!!..........theirs is very high input and very low output.....they don't even sit out and enjoy it!
And finally my bike! 2 weeks ago I escaped to my house in Brittany and cycled 24 glorious flat kilometres on my bike along the cycleway between Morlaix and Concarneau...........passing 1 dog walker 3 pedestrians and 2 elderly men on rickety bikes.............bliss!

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Big Chill festival as we had free tickets courtesy of having been washed out at the Sunrise Festival......see previous blog from May!.........our Sunrise tickets were exchanged for Big Chill tickets and the Sunrise held part of their festival in the other festival! Well there were 45,000 people there and it was huge!.......and more importantly very very hilly! We parked our car and headed for the camping fields....
Half an hour later we got to one and pitched on the side of a hill making staying on the lilo whilst asleep challenging!......you can see from the 'view from our tent' pic that we were overlooking the other tents! This was one of many guy rope to guy rope camping areas. It was a further walk and scramble of about 40 minutes to get from tent to main festy site first along the track, then up the hill then along another track and then the site of the main stage, pictured above unfolded below, so then down and in through the check point. Exhausted from all the lugging of stuff the excitement was just beginning, no wonder the porride with everything food stall was the first thing you came to......after all that walking sustenance was needed!
Talking of walking........once you made it to the main site it was soooooo big it took 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other.........if 1. you didn't get caught up in the crowds leaving one of the stages or 2. you didn't get distracted!
AND add to the equation my bad knees (ouch ouch) and the fact that due to the hilly ground the only people who could get a vague signal on their phone was vodaphone customers.........if you lost someone you never found them again!!!
The Sunrise end was an oasis of peace in a dizzy round of clubbing and comedy interspaced with main stage acts. Below are 'The Buzzcocks' on the second stage. While there I enjoyed some interesting music but thought it a little boring to be honest! Also I thought the amount of overt drug dealing and rubbish dropping was appaling!
Last weekend, on my return from the Permaculture teachers course we went to Beautiful Days Festival.........Foul weather but great line up including Squeeze, Gabriella Cilimi, Stiff Little Fingers, Seth Lakeman and the ever green Oysterband.........It was great, and despite leaving early and missing the Levellers and the firework finale because of extreme rain we loved it!

On yet another sad note we lost one of our Ouessant sheep today, Two days ago she was seen to be a bit quiet and on closer inspection was found to have a very acute, fast acting mastitis known as 'blue bag' This is where septicaemia happens before you even know the sheep is ill and less than 25% survive. We kept her going for 2 days following vets advice, but yesterday we took her in as an in patient at the vets.........unfortunately despite the best care she died. Luckily this is a very rare condition......but of course it was one of my best ewes and I have a very large vets bill!
Below are some very jolly drummers etc in the Sunrise field at the Big Chill

Well news update is that the felting machine has arrived and is in the unit awaiting a plug and installation! It being the summer holidays progress is slow, but we are getting there! I have been on a training of trainers course, primarily to brush up my teaching skills as I am about to embark on a lot of teaching and awareness raising about felt, wool and sustainable textiles, but secondly because it was a training course aimed at permaculture teachers and as far as I'm concerned what I'm doing is all part of permaculture......or is it?
I am beginning to dislike the 'P' word and have come back from the course reflective, sad, disillusioned and angry......yes very angry!.........not the sort of anger that is violent or aggressive but the sort that will mean I keep battling on.
You may well wonder what on earth i'm muttering on about, well I will try and explain!
I am a small farmer, a smallholder, hobby farmer, backyarder, good lifer,..........there are so many terms, some like hobby farmer rather derogatory.........I'd like to see the face of a farmer with 200 acres who works his butt off farming, but has a day job to make ends meet when he is called a 'hobby' farmer!
Most 'farmers' in developing countries have postage stamp size plots and they are called subsistance farmers.....its certainly not a hobby to them!
I digress, forgive me!
I have been this past week on a lovely little 5 acre smallholding in Dorset called Ourganics run by a lovely lady called Pat Foxwell, with the help of wwoofers and other volunteers.
I thought attending a course there would be great.....a fantastic resourse that we would be taught how to use in teaching permaculture, sustainable living etc.........how wrong can I be!
To be quite honest the wonderful setting, the local countryside was totally ignored and we were in a yurt or sitting outside on the grass, depending on the weather!
I will not go into the course itself here as that would be wrong and I will consider the feedback I will make about it to the convenors carefully.
The thing was that it felt to me as if I permaculture was a religious order! Holmgrens principles = the ten commandments, meditation to me equates with prayers, a mandela/altar, songs of permaculture = hymns, closing ritual ceremony = eeeek I want to get out of here and now!
I felt like running home and staying there!
However I am going to use one of dear old Holmgrens principles to explain...........
'Use the edges and value the marginal'
In a nutshell these are "complex interfaces between one habitat and another.......for example increasing the 'edge' between a field and a pond can increase the productivity of both"
I have been a smallholder for most of my life! I was recycling before most had heard of it......so had my dad....he kept his nails and screws in old baccy tins.....you never threw things away! I had been making my own and cooking slow food as opposed to fast food and heating my home with wood long ago!..........I however just did it, I lived it, I didn't label it! So did many of the people I knew! My love for the land and my life is integral, my friends consist of farmers, huntsmen, conservationists, butchers, smallholders, vegans, anti hunt protestors, etc etc........my life is across the divide and all encompassing! When I met my husband I was a paid up hunt supporter, he a paid up member of the league against cruel sports! I produce quality meat from my animals, he is a vegetarian. Neither of us have changed our views but we love, respect, understand and tolerate each other.............you see I am an edge! I have a foot in 2 camps I can identify with both but am neither ..........I am not a hunter, I am not a mainstream farmer, I am not a 'normal' person with a 9 - 5 job I don't quite fit there..........but neither am I a 'weirdy beardy in sandals ' type(apologies to strange folk in sandals who happen to have a beard!) nor am I a hippy, a traveller or an 'earth activist' whatever that may be ..........its a lonely road being an edge as both habitats see you as not quite belonging to them.......but its an edge that can increase the productivity of both habitats, so really I'm quite valuable.........

Permaculture is a challenge to me..............I didn't' see the permaculture light!' It didn't 'change my life'...........and I want to show and teach sustainability without props, structures, principles, functions, elements, acronyms ..............without morning circles, reviews, and bloomin spirals AND without the dreaded 'P' word

I could walk away, shake my head, tell myself that they are winding themselves into a web that alienates themselves from normal people, but what would be the point.? No I am going to hang on in there clutching hold of the shirt tails of permaculture with one hand and the collar of farming with the other, whilst yelling my head off from the edge with a vengence!
I end with a picture looking from the A37 Yeovil to Dorchester road where it crosses high along the Downs beloved of Hardy....I took the picture on the way home from the course when I stopped to look at one of my favourite views across towards Rampisham and think for a while leaning on a gate.

Addendum....just after publishing this entry I got a phone call from one of my daughters to let me know that a contempoary of theirs from their days at pony club, a nice lad at whose mothers farm i had kept my horses and loaned their old eventer Misty had committed suicide from a Dorset clifftop aged 27...................

My beautiful 1920s cotton carder that will be carding wool into webs ready to layer in the felting table!

Well its getting exciting here! I have taken posession of a fabulous carding machine which is now installed and working in my eco unit! The walls, bare wood in the pic (which is now alone in the next post due to editing probs with blogger!) are now being painted white and the felting machine has arrived in a crate from Canada and is presently in the container at Liverpool docks........can't wait for it to arrive! I have recently exchanged my little car for a van that now sports the Woolly Shepherd logo (pic of it parked by the unit) and we are applying for funding for a scouring plant to wash the wool prior to the felting process.....watch this space for news!
I have a top of the range compost toilet in the unit as do the other units and a biomass boiler so its an eco business in an eco unit!
The veg plot is starting to produce well and we have salad with everything! runner beans are looking good and so for a change is the sweetcorn.....very difficult to grow up here. We have some new livestock, two new Ouessant ewe lambs, a white one called Lulu and a little chocolate one called Fleur, they have settled in very well. We also have two young geese and two Aylesbury ducks.......all of whom have an identity crisis as they were raised together since hatching........not sure if the ducks think they are geese or visa versa!! swapped them for two of the oven ready chickens from the freezer, a good bit of bartering methinks.
Last Wednesday I joined the Transition Taunton group. For those of you who are scratching their heads and wondering what that is I can only say look at this link 'Transition Towns '
The idea is that each town, city, village, area can start thinking about what to do when the dependence we have on oil comes to an end (called 'peak oil') and measures to reduce our carbon footprint and combat climate change.....I can see myself getting very involved in this as I really think its the only option, and wonder of wonders Somerset County Council has aparently just adopted it as one of its strategies!
Yesterday and today were beautiful summer days, and we ran our first Introduction to parmaculture course here with 10 people booked.....a full course! They came from as far away as Stoke on Trent, Chepstow and Banbury and we had a fantastic time discussing design, zoning and edges and constructing a compost bin from pallets, a water harvesting roof over a 1000 litre IBC to provide water for the pigs and had a charcoal burn with the charcoal kiln. Permaculture Magazine provided free copies for participants and all went on their way happily promising to keep in touch. I hope to repeat the course in the autumn and also run a design course next year. I will post some pics of our construction efforts in the next day or two.....I have to admit to being so absorbed that I forgot to take pics of the course in progress!
Last weekend it was Buddhafield festival 500metres from our house and it is a truely green festival, very peaceful, in fact so peaceful that you could miss the fact that it was there if not for the copious AA signs pointing to it. Pete and I went up for the Friday evening, meeting up with my good friend Brigit and having a fantastic meal in the Chai Organic cafe before watching Seize the Day on the big stage.......all powered by solar and wind power.........they were awsome!

Well I'm back from France....came back early as I was feeling poorly and changed my ferry for one in a force 8 gale....nevermind! Berrien was as lovely as ever and we went to the beach in the pouring rain too!
Back to the grind stone the weeds have grown at the same pace as the veg so lots of weeding! All the spuds were lifted before I went and we have a large sack of lovely first and second earlies. The mixd salad leves are amazing this year......we can eat salad with every meal! The tomatoes are ripening, the first cucumber has been eaten, and the radishes are taking on giant proportions! We have grown so far....tomatoes 5 varieties, tomatilloes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines, chillies, spuds, parsnips, persil(a sort of cross between parsley and parsnips) carrots, kale, russian kale, cabbages , white sprouting brocolli, red cabbage, celery, round and long courgettes, 3 types of squash, sweet corn, black salsify, leeks, onions, french beans, runner beans, pumpkins and other stuff I cannot remember! Tomorrow the bed where the spuds were is being planted up with lots of new stuff!.........I love growing food! Talking of food the meat chickens were all killed this week and our freezer is stuffed! They weighed between 2 ad 2.8kg at nearly 10 weeks old. We ate a small one tonight........it fed 5 people with more for a pie tomorrow! Fabulous taste and texture!
One of the pigs went to the abattoir on Thursday morning.........C Snell is one of the last family run abattoirs in the west country and is where Hugh Frarnley Whittingstalls 'River Cottage' livestock are killed. All my sheep and pigs go there and I wish people who think abattoirs are cruel could have seen my pig sauntering down the ramp to Trevor, the head honchos encouragement of "Come on sweetheart, this way" and the nice Spanish vets words of "come along darling" ..........this to the pig....not me! She is to be made into sausages by Somersets champion sausage maker!
I want also to tell you some good news and some bad/sad news!
First the good news..........you can hear me on Farm Radio!!! follow the link!
The sad/bad news is that Yeovil market has closed after over 150 years trading on the site in the centre of Yeovil. Why is this sad? Well Taunton market and Highbridge market closed earlier in the year, both markets that were in 'Market Towns' There are only 2 livestock markets in Somerset now........the new out of town shiny new Sedgemoor livestock centre near Bridgwater and The out of town Frome livestock centre. There is a certain poingnancy about all this because this is first of all a long way for many people to travel to market but more importantly it destroys a way of life, the weekly social outing for farmers and their families, a place where frmers, who are often isolated and socially excluded can chat, moan, laugh and talk the talk with others who understand their way of life. Often while the men talked prices, bid on the beasts, bemoaned their losses or rejoiced in their meagre profits over a fry up in the market cafe, the rest of the family who had come too hit the shops to stock up on rewritable CDs, school trousers, new wellies etc as well as a trip to the hairdressers and the bank or a quick rummage in Morrisons!
At these shiny new out of town livestock centres you can buy a few things, but they are too far from the local highstreet or indeed anywhere!
Our local rag summed it up with the following quote at the end of their report.........
'It was late in the evening before an erie silence descended over the site and the market gates were padlocked for the last time. A large chunk of what had been Old England, a place of tradition and community spirit had gone for ever'
What will replace it? Apparently a housing scheme including social housing, an old peoples home and some shops are to be built as part of Yeovils regeneration scheme..........no doubt called 'The old market'?

URGENT PLEASE READ............this link.
There is a problem all over Britain with this particular chemical which has got into manure, compost etc!............I have lost 2 tomato plants in my poly tunnel and I have, as far as I know not used any contaminated compost! I bought some tomato plants from our local country market and it must have been in the compost of the person who grew them..........this is quite awful!

And what is more, and whats worse, as a person who rarely if ever uses chemicals on plants we had one of the fields we use in the village sprayed by our local environmentally conscious contractor to finally defeat the huge quantity of docks (almost more docks than grass!) that were in it that had defied our efforts at puling and topping...................and he assured us he had used a reliable, selective (thistles, stingers AND docks) dafe herbicide, judiciously so as to leave some banks of nettles for the butterflies, but dispose of the docks.........and what did he use....Forefront!!!!!!

Therefore we cannot take hay, we cannot safely graze the sheep and then use any manure they may produce on our garden!..........and though we are assured that the meat from them is safe, we will not be grazing that field due to the contamination.............Oh I am sooooo cross!
The label on the bottle aparently says 'not for use on food crops', our poor contractor didn't have a chance....and we also wouldn't have guessed...........because it was used on permenant grassland.
This is my last brush with a chemical company...............back to topping and pulling and I swear never again will I spray anything even if we think its 'safe'
I'm off to Brittany tomorrow................after this I need a break! I will not be totally relaxing however as I am looking at 2 flocks of sheep and giving management advice, updating my accounts and attending the British Pigs in France gala where I'm demonstrating peglooming! See you all on my return!

Its often said that there is no culture left in Britain....and our traditions are dying! All of you who read this blog from France will know how local traditions are still observedand enjoyed by old and young, for example the Fez Noz (or night festival) in Brittany. Well yesterday we had a scarecrow safari around the locality folowed by a barn dance in Churchinford village Hall. Churchinford is the next village up from ours.....in fact we are almost between the two! Nick and Ruth Strange of Blackdown banger (sausage) fame were hard at work on the bbq and inside the dancing progressed with great hilarity from old and young. Our youngest son....the small boy in the blue t-shirt aged 5 loved every moment!

I think it is true that this sort of thing does not happen generally....but in quiet backwaters like this special things happen!
More often unfortunately we let our traditions die........listen to the somg 'Roots' that is in my playlist. It is by 'Show of Hands' a local band well worth listening to.

And here are some of the 56 amazing creations that were dotted around the village and surroundong countryside

Meat chickens! We have 33 of them and it has been interesting this time around. Last time we had 12 SASSO chickens (SASSO is a french acronym) and after spending 4 weeks indoors under a heat lamp that was gradually reduced they went outdoors to free range. Well to my 3 black rock hens who are egg laying hybrids free range means going from the ark to the fields, up the lane, in the orchard and sitting annoyingly outside the patio doors waiting for a human to emerge who just might have an edible treat handy! In the course of a day they walk miles, eat lots and lay lots. The Sassos however walked about a maximum of 50ft if persuaded away from their hen house, sat around a lot and ate a huge quantity of food. They were killed at 12 weeks and weighed on average 5lb.......in fact we only got 8 as far as the freezer due to a fox raid!
This time I bought some Hubbard chicks......another French breed and have 3 types, white, brown and grey. I ordered 20 and ended up with 33 (with an hours notice)......which caused a bit of a headache as the meat hen house will not accommodate that number!
However as they grew and GREW they went quickly from brooder to stable (10 x 9) with their heat lamp. Now they are 6 weeks and still indoors as the picture shows AND weigh.......between 2 and 2.8kg!!!!
They eat, drink and then sit down in little social groups..........they have natural light, sunshine streams in and I give them a rack of grass and cabbage leaves which they show interest in BUT they show no inclination to want to venture out.........so they are staying where they are! I have had a lot of worry about them not being totally free range but if they are happy so am I!They will be killed quietly at a tiny poultry abattoir down the road (so small its almost unknown, its behind a garden centre and is literally one man in one room) for the freezer in a couple of weeks time. I think they have had the best life possible, they are all bright, happy birds who enjoy human company.........I am going to keep 2 or 3 to join the laying hens as Hubbards do lay well apparently!..........be interesting to see if they are prepared to walk as far!

I read a blog called 'A mouse in France' and though I have no idea who she is who writes it I can only say read it.........you will find it makes you think! This quote came from her blog.....a famous little ditty, but so so true

" Dont hurry and dont worry Enjoy the sun and the showers We are only here for such a little while Take time to smell the flowers"

I spend ages watching...my sheep, my chickens, my ducks, the veg.....the view, the flowers....its true we need to slow down and look because if we don't we may miss the important things!

And that got me thinking on my way through town today!
I had an early appointment at the hospital for the consultant to check up on my knee.....well having waited nearly an hour a locum pronounced from reading my notes that my knee should be ok given that I WAS over 40 and not heavily engaged in sport to which i replied "no not exactly but do not have a sedentary life either".....he looked at me quizically.....no he didn't have a clue....and I left it at that! Parking 10 minutes later in Taunton I got caught up in the road closure that meant walking further than i had intended.....not too sure why the road had closed, I soon saw the reason.........lots of children flanked by an army of yellow vested 'helpers' were marching down the road with drums, percussion, whistles and several chineese dragons! On enquiring exactly what it was for i was told it was ' An african carnival celebration in the spirit of the Notting Hill carnival in London'. Mmmmmm I thought and asked why? Wrong question as the bemused parent of a child taking part informed me that it was all the local primary schools learning about and celebrating our diverse culture??? I may well get shot for saying this but we are so concentrating on celebrating other parts of our diverse culture that our local West Country traditions, pastimes and occupations are slowly and sadly being allowed to die out without a care or comment...........it would never happen in Brittany where I have a little house and lots of friends because local traditions mean so much to them.....still I enjoyed watching and took some photos!
I also watched the seller of 'The big issue' dressed up in full evening dress and sporting a topper....took a photo when he wasn't watching!
I have to share a lovely picture of my new ducklings! They were hatched from my duck eggs in a friends incubator! There are 4 altogether.....indian runners

I got sunburn today............sitting in the very pretty garden of a lovely lady in Kingsbridge in Devon where I was teaching peg loom rug making to a wonderful group of enthusiastic ladies and gentlemen! The sun shone, tea flowed ( and the home made flapjacks) and everything was good in the world for that little micro moment!
On the way home I went to Totnes to have a walk up the high street, and to check out the shops! I returned with a delicious piece of cheese and some mixed salad leaves.....all grown and made locally! Even though I was working it felt like being on holiday today........would I work in an office.....NEVER!
And for all those who wanted to see our shearer at work on Saturday.....we have a picture of Jock in action!

Some nice pictures of Ouessants and Kune Kunes in the sunshine!

I have had a really interesting and busy weekend! We have a new wwoofer/helpexer! Ross has departed to France to help a friend of mine and another person has arrived! L is a local who is radically changing her lifestyle and striving to learn sustainability and how to tread lightly on this planet!........she is revamping the caravan and giving it a makeover and also helping with the growing veg garden.
So Saturday began with L arriving and settling in and then the village fete in the afternoon with my middle son aged 15 working hard on the bbq of locally produced burgers and sausages. Youngest son was 2nd in the boys aged 5-7 running race and Pete got a long handled stapler on the bric a brac stall. I chatted with lots of people and secured an order for some good hay over a Pimms!.....back to reality at 5pm with the organisation of the shearing of all the big sheep, plus the Ouessant rams and my neighbours sheep! Several trailer loads and we were ready for Jock the mega fantastic shearer who does all my big sheep! I had already vaccinated the Ouessant ewes and lambs earlier that afternoon and so did all the others as they were shorn.........once cleared up and sorted out all the wool bags were taken home and I sped off down the road to vaccinate several pet sheep belonging to a friend.........we ate dinner as the sun was sinking....about 10pm!
Today Lesley and I made lots of Lemon Curd before heading off to the Green fair and Scything festival where I was supposed to be selling woolly stuff, but had decided against going early in the morning due to a poor weather forcast..........sensible decision as they had a monsoon for about 10 minutes! Pete was there selling bags of home produced charcoal.........he had sold out by the time we arrived and the weather had improved. I had a good time browsing the stalls and came away with a knitting pattern for a baggy jumper and 2 CDs of my band of the moment 'Damh The Bard' I chatted to many friends and contacts and thouroughly enjoyed myself!

Permaculture is one of those mysterious words that many have heard of but not many are sure exactly what it means! It is a word made up from a combination of 2 others PERMAnent agriCULTURE or just CULTURE! It is a system of sustainable production that takes its cues from what is happening naturally and relies on a period of observation before rushing in and changing things irreversibly! For example there are reasons why bog plants grow in boggy areas........so rather than draining the boggy area and putting in great effort to grow something that needs dry ground it would be easier and better environmentally to grow what likes damp ground! And whats more rather than use gallons of water to irrigate bone dry ground it would be better to grow drought resistant plants!
This may seem simplistic but basically its true! Problem is everyone wants to grow the catch crop of the moment.........sustainable agriculture based on permaculture principles of which i have only just touched upon is probably the most environmentally and climate friendly option.
Industrial agriculture is not the fault of the farmer........although he or she often takes the blame in the eyes of the public..........it is the fault of the consumer demanding cheaper and cheaper food....we now pay about 10% of our income or less for our food and we expect better quality and rather than eat what is in season we demand strawberries in January. Therefore farmers have to produce more for less........a very unsustainable position!
I read the other day that in Britain we throw away four and a half million apples per day.......this is waste on a staggering scale! We also throw away 5,000 unopened whole chickens every day......that is approx 5 broiler houses full per day..........and the farmer gets paid 10p per chicken produced for Tesco and the other supermarkets to sell at £2.50/$5......makes you want to weep! I want to give you an idea of what industrial farming is like and how soul destroying it can be. Paul, a friend of Stuart who writes the Permaculture in Brittany blog keeps pigs.......indoors. Pig prices across Europe are at an all time low at the moment with many people going bust . Take a look at the short videos of Stuart driving Pauls tractor to get an idea of what it can be like! If you want cheap food the environment will pay.....and people like Paul will work for decreasing returns.
The chicken situation is an interesting one...........it costs me around £7 - 8 per bird, not including my labour, to raise the 33 meat birds I have here who are now 4 weeks old and about to go outside onto the grass.
to cheer you up after such a heavy post here is a picture of one of my wensleydale cross rasta sheep with her lamb by a suffolk ram

Pics of my veg garden showing how its growing on....and showing the brassicas....cabbages, kale and white sprouting broccoli mulched with waste hay which they really like! I have mulched the potatoes with it too and they seem better than ever....remains to be seen if there is a good crop! I have problems with creeping mint and horsetail in one raised bed so its war! I have a watering system set up with a hose coming off this huge tank, which due to the amount of rain last week easily reached its 1000litre capacity from Petes shed roof!
Also here is a nice picture of my garden before the rain of last week finished off the clematis blossom which smelled wonderful......now the jasmine and honeysuckle have taken over. The willow fedge is looking amazing and much leafier than in the picture!
Ross our current wwoofer from Australia is a gem and has done just about everything in his life (he is 68!) It turns out not only did he belong to a sheep shearing gang in his youth, but taught sheep shearing! So....I have sheared 3 Ouessants and half another and Ross sheared the rest....a master at work too!
He has also dug out every dock plant on the place.....wow!

We went to the Sunrise festival.....pictured above in someone elses slide show! It was to us a well orgainised little break, we got in Pippa a smallholding sitter to keep an eye on everything, Ross our Aussie wwoofer was keeping a gentle eye on Pippa, and the packing to get away took ages. This was to be a treat for Petes 50th birthday which was celebrated on Wednesday........however we should have known what would happen........after all it had been pouring with rain all week....!

We left in beautiful sunshine........but as we parked our car and tried to put up our tent the heavens opened and it came down in stair rods! The fields flooded, the river burst its banks, the festival was abandoned as the camping fields became waist deep in water!The flash floods caused made the national news!
We got out, aided by a fery nice tractor driver, but as the clip shows some had to wait 24 hours for rescue and partied the night away....

Butter......it is so easy to make your own I cannot believe it!........well I can as the pictures prove I have made some!
I have always wanted to have a go at making butter.....at one time long ago when I had at least 3 dairy goats producing 5-7 litres of milk per day each I was literally awash with milk and made tons of soft and hard cheese as well as feeding calves, kids, pigs and the family on it....but I never made butter! Partly the reason was that goats milk fat globules are smaller than those found in cows milk so wholst it separates it is not very easy to skim by hand and a cream separator was always out of my price league.
Well I got to thinking I would like a go, spurred on by seeing cartons of double cream marked down in the supermarket due to reaching their sell by date.
I knew Blow a company that has long gone out of business used to produce hand churns in the past and decided to look on ebay......where I discovered a whole new world of butter pats, moulds and....yes churns! So I bought a small one called a 'dazy mazy' from a seller in the USA for a very reasonable price! Now it must be remembered that most people collecting butter making paraphernalia want to display it....I wanted to use it and this has fascinated everyone!
I then purchased 2 very large pots of organic double cream from a supermarket for under £2 for the two and set to work turning the handle.....
First it went thick like whipped cream followed by thin like single cream......and just when I thought it had gone wrong chunks of golden yellow butter magically appeared and very quickly the butter was a big blob completelt separated from the buttermilk!

The buttermilk was poured off and the butter scooped out and salted, shaped and refrigerated....the buttermilk was used for scones........yummy!...........AND there was still a pot and a half of cream left for the next attempt!

Rain.....at last! I know its unpopular but after 10 days of continuous wonderful weather all the butts were running dry and I was getting a bit fed up with continually watering my seeds! I have a weed problem in one of the raised beds with creeping mint! Worse than bindweed it is and I have resorted to painting each bit that pops up with a paintbrush dipped in glyphosphate as pulling it disturbs my tiny carrot and parsnip plants and beheading it with the hoe makes it pop up 5 new ones for everyone I chop off!! I have horse tail(equisetum) in that bed too......now that is a different fight completely as it is a plant descended from the time of the dinosaurs and as you can imagine is nigh on impossible to get rid of! Both these 'weeds' have their place.....but not in my heavily mulched no dig raised bed, and certainly not in the middle of my seedlings thank you!
I have started to shear the Ouessants last evening while waiting for my regular shearer Jock to phone to tell me when he will come and see to the large sheep. Last year when presented with the Ouessants he laughed and commented on needing a magnifying glass but did a reasonable job considering they wriggle like eels! Well I have a nice set of shears I use for the odd dagging job(tidying up bottoms that are grubby) or sorting out and flystrike that occurs when it is vital that the area is sheared clean of maggots very quickly....uggh!
But I have never in all this time sheared a whole sheep......I have clipped plenty of horses in the past and just regard sheep as a rather larger woolly version when it comes to clippers.
Well I did a reasonable job on the chosen 2 that were first in the queue as they were starting to lose their wool......primitive sheep such as Ouessants 'rue' their wool which means that when it starts to get a bit warm the oils and lanolin in the wool 'rise' and the sheep gets a bit itchy and rubs and the wool breaks and falls out!..........not ideal if you want to use the wool!
The Ouessant has more wool on it per pound/kilo of sheep than any other in the world and so from under a large fleece a very small sheep emerged! The first who is a bit of a tearaway got a couple of small 'nicks' from the shears which were sprayed with some purple antiseptic and the second one got away with no nicks at all to her.....but nicked my finger top with the shears and she had blood everywhere on her.....MINE!

I am doing some work for Dorset Community Actions 'Three Rivers Partnership' at the moment called Friends and Neighbours and at the moment am meeting all the agencies involved (known as the stakeholders) before surveying the general public in the chosen case study areas. Whilst on my travels I went to Shaftesbury for a meeting and after getting a sandwhich ate it at the top of Gold Hill in the picture. I am very familiar with this area having spent most of my adult life in North Dorset and it was interesting and sad to discover how things change......you only notice when you go back to an area and I had not really been back very often for about 10 years except to visit friends....so I went to see what had happened to my good friends old farm........

They had a County Council farm on the Dorset County Council farms estate near Shaftesbury where they worked harder and harder over 25 years for an ever diminishing return! My friend (I will call her S) and her husband (R) had a dairy herd of 60, raised rare breed pigs, rented a little attached cottage as a holiday cottage, did B&B, AND S worked nights in an old folks home and R did fencing contracting. Yet everyone who met them but did not know how hard they worked commented on how lovely and relaxed it must be to live in such a beautiful place! When 3 years ago they could no longer make ends meet they were forced to give up the tenancy of the farm........the County Council decided that the farm was too small (60 acres) to be a viable unit for anyone else (?) so decided to sell the house with 12 acres as one lot, the lovely old barns as another with a few acres and give the rest to an adjoining Council farm (the only one left in that area now) Well S & R were given first refusal to buy........but having few assets except that from the sale of their cows could not dream of buying the home that they had lived in for 25 years......!! They received notice to quit with the offer of a council house on a local estate.....well they had been good council tenants for the past 25 years hadn't they? Their lovely house was sold........to the only ones who could afford it....downsizers from London. So S & R left the farm.....they have never been back although they rent a small cottage 5 miles away........its too raw for them to return even to see their old friends and neighbours.....they meet them elsewhere!
I drove slowly past remembering all the good times we had had there and drove on seeing that some of the other council farms had changed into art galleries, alpaca filled smallholdings etc, the farming community long gone. The fields I noticed were rather unkempt along with the general feel of the area and hardly a cow in sight.....sad as this is the Blackmore Vale described by Thomas Hardy as 'The vale of little dairies'........subtle changes are going on and this description will soon no longer apply as we import our milk from elsewhere whilst those who can afford to buy up the little family farms who had the little dairies.....I will say no more as it causes lumps in my throat and tears in my eyes.

I have added to my solar powered world with a solar powered oscillating fan in my polytunnel! I got all the bits from.....ebay for a good price..... and connected them all up to one of my electric fence batteries. To my amazement it works and keeps the hot air circulating rather than becoming humid and its very good! I have also connected one to the ducks fencing along with a little gate made from a pallet to get in rather than climb over the electrified netting. Itworks so well and keeps the battery topped up so well the ducks, who are prone to diving through the netting and raiding the hens food have not been near it!
I also planted my tomatoes in the polytunnel a few weeks ago and mulched them with good old waste wool and installed a 'leaky pipe' a recycked rubber hose pipe with deliberate leaks that trickle feeds the bed with water. Its great and the aubergines are now planted too. peppers and chillies will follow when big enough as will the cucumbers any day. Pete obtained a tomato planter in a job lot of bits and bobs at an auction, it is now lined with wool, filled with compost and home to 2 totem variety basket cherry tomato plants

Just before I found out I had got the funding for the felting project I went to Wonderwool in Builth Wells. I had my knee surgery 2 days before and was told not to drive for 2 weeks.....in fact the pale and pasty indoor type surgeon (who is very nice really!!) had said I wouldn't be doing much farming for a few months........what planet does he inhabit.....us self employed folks don't get sick pay and the sheep won't feed themselves!.........Anyway off I went with the most splendid person as my co conspirator....Lucie Wilby sheep artist extrodinaire!

I must explain..........when I booked my stand at Wonderwool I had a double stand including a pen for some sheep booked. I was due to exhibit the Ouessants but due to the Blue tongue movement regs could not. I had a brainwave (it occaisionally happens) that if not real sheep some pictures would be good....and the artist responsible sitting painting them too!
So Lucie and I set up our wares and retreated to an amazing b&b with the best hosts ever thouroughly shattered!
On the following morning we were back at the showground bright and early and sampled some of the foodie delights as the show was sharing with the Mid Wales Mouthful starring Anthony Worral Thompson........and yes he is very short and very plump!!!
After a very hectic busy day selling a lot more than we could have hoped for we had some dinner and followed a fellow sheep breeder (coloured sheep and Ouessants) back to her remote Welsh farm to look at some rams with a thought to buy.
Now I live in Wellies and am even seen in the supermarket in them.......but of course both Lucie and I had our glad rags and shoes.....we had not even contemplated buying sheep. So whilst Lesley sent her sheep dog over a distant mountain to find the rams we found ourselves in a boggy field being approached bu a herd of Dexter cattle intent on loving us and rubbing their heads all over us. Well I was still not to steady on my feet so rather than be knocked over by the amiable cattle we climbed a gate into the next field where we had 2 stark choices 1. go back through the cows who were convinced we were bearing gifts of food and were all looking longinly over the gate and were too tame and friendly to be shooed away or 2. ford a small stream that in our normal wellied state would be easy but was like crossing the Nile in new shoes!!
Lucie decided to do the stepping stone hop.....and promptlu slipped and got her feet soaked. I decided that as I could neither jump nor hop due to my knee a cold paddle was in order and removed socks and shoes and waded across much to the horror of the flock of sheep who were making up the spectators!
Eventually we both got to solid ground, the sheepdog found the rams and I agreed to purchase Josh a Wensleydale x Charolais x Icelandic coloured ram and I also put my name on a nice little Ouessant ram to be collected at weaning.
Sunday passed with hectic sales and Lucie and I returned home tired but happy with several purchases too! I bought some icelandic wool tops to knit and felt into bags, some dye stuffs and a skein of Colinette yarn that I took a fancy to trying out as I am having some of my wool made into slub yarn later this year. I made a cosy for my coffee pot and am making a tea cosy with the rest........as you can see I am a wool producer not a knitter!!
Thanks all for the very positive response to the felting project.........its going to be amazing and will hopefull raise the profile of wool!

STOP PRESS NEWS!!!!

The funding for the felting plant has been successful so we will be up and running by the autumn!!
The eco business unit that the project will occupy is a recycled ww2 building on an old ww2 airfield at Dunkeswell in the Devon bit of the Blackdowns! It now has a new roof, good insulation to the roof and walls, a latest technology compost toilet and a wood pellet stove that will use local wood chips!...........it is fab and I saw it today!! This felting plant will hopefully be up and running by the autumn..........more news to follow soon!