Post deleted as apology received

Now here are those lovely lamb pics I promised all taken before the lambs were 2 weeks old....in fact the white one and her black brother pictured here with their wensleydale mum were only a week old!
All the lambs were huge and all born very easily and quickly....I have concluded a Gotland x Wensleydale is a good idea!
I also want to show you some machinery.......that is very exciting!!
First take some weaving waste wool ends or old knitting wool, felt waste, insulation waste etc.....second take a chopper...thats the green machine dating from 1960 and feed in the wool and watch it shoot out of the end all chopped!
Next picture shows the chopped wool....different colour to the stuff I photographed going through the chopper....goes onto the wooden conveyor belt and is taken in through the rollers.....very well protected by a mesh guard as if you got caught in it ....you would come out in bits too....!!!
Third picture shows the other end and the beautiful web of blue it has turned into which can be made into batts for felt and insulation or tops for spinning or just fluff for blending with other wools and colours.
Final picture is a close up of the result.....amazing eh? We are the only people doing this as far as we can tell!

Get in touch quickly if you want a product made, want to make felt, want to recycle your wool, want to wash the wool from your sheep.....pics of the new solar panels powering the water for the washer next time.....

Gosh its nearly a month since I last posted.....where does time go? I have finally decided to give up livestock, so have sold all.....yes all my big sheep. Some have gone to a nice home in Gloucestershire, some are going to Hereforedshire (some of the Ouessant flock, as soon as they finish lambing but the rest are staying for the moment) some are going to Yeovil to a big flock and some have already gone to Yeovil....more in a minute and one ewe and her lamb to Devon. The pigs have gone too.....to Wales and Somerset and the 2 remaining porkers depart for piggy heaven (and my freezer) next Thursday........why? Well after 28 years I decided that it had to be my family and sanity first, business second and big pedigree sheep...a very consuming hobby....had to go. Some people have asked if I couldn't have kept a few about the place, but when its in your blood a few tend to become a few more and..... I sold some in the market, where they were bought by a farmer I know well from Yeovil who has since bought the rest privately.....It was hard taking the ewes and lambs to market, harder than I thought it would be as I often buy and sell there. But this was the last time.....the last dance....the end of an era.....and I sobbed my way through talking to friends, eating my bacon buttie in the market cafe and washing out my trailer in the washout queue. Some people dabble with smallholding for a while, its an experience they say, one we wouldn't have missed. But other of us live and breathe it.....very hard to put into words how it is....which is probably why many cannot put it into words and probably why the market is full of old ex farmers who just cannot keep away....who need their 'fix' who need to watch the cattle, prod a few sheep, talk of the old days, rue progress and the dawn of the new age of electronic ear tags and multiple choice trailer tests. At nearly 49 I am a young wipper snapper in the market and a woman to boot.....yet I am retiring from livestock......never again will I call my sheep in and watch them all run and jump across the fields in their race for the troughs and never again will I sit in the midst of them enjoying their appreciative company. But life must go on.....new beginnings and all that..... All my equipment, collected over the years is being sold, some has gone, some is even going to France!......keeping it just in case would be like placing a glass of beer in front of an alchoholic... So sad days...... But I will still be involved indirectly.....just think of the 30 tonnes of wool I will be processing this year. I took some pictures of this years lambs before they went....I will post them soon as a final reminder and then the blog will update and move on.

Woolly Waste packaging is now in production and the business has moved to a new unit!! Here are some photos of the packaging and the move..........Also some students using our facilities to create recycled felt boots have won a local 'mock' Dragons Den.........yay!!! Their product is amazing and more details will follow of 'EWE BOOTS' as soon as i have a minute!

The green macjine is our new chopper....a 1960s machine that will chop up old wool such as knitting wool, jumpers etc into bits to be recycled beck into knitting wool or felt, the other 2 pics show the new unit and things being assembled..........we have an upstairs too!

Now awaiting the solar panels that will heat all our water for scouring the wool.........and all fixtures and fittings such as sink, loo and kitchen have been bought from the local recycling centre....we are committed to this being the most ethical business possible!

Anyone wanting to buy woolly packaging please get in touch....new page on website soon........we are proud to say our packaging is made in Devon, processed in Devon, grown in The West Country (from sheep!!) and has the lowest carbon footprint possible.

My goodness its been ages since I posted! last time we were under nearly a foot of snow and now its March!
The sheep are about to lamb and are waddling about and the weather which has been rather mild since the big freeze is set to turn cold again! I have been busy so time for an update!
We managed to raise the needed finances to take on the new unit and we (Me and Taffy my lovely assistant) hopefully get the keys at the end of the week and then it all goes mad!
Machinery arrives from 'up north' for processing waste weaving wool, we have installations of a huge woodburning stove, water tanks and solar panels to organise to provide hot water for the scourer.........not to mention all the associated plumbing!
We then have to move the current machinery, build a drying room full of racks for drying wool and get up and running again.........
AND even more excitingly I have been developing wool packaging along with a local packaging company and we are about to start supplying a very well known organic box scheme! This is really cutting edge as it will be made from virgin wool and waste recycled wool all produced and processed in the West Country and will be squeekily eco as there will be no empty lorries or vans travelling around and fibre miles will be kept to the very minimum!
We are looking for a small needlefelting loom and hope to have one in situ soon meanwhile we will be working with another processor to fulfil our commitments.......This is all very very exciting!
On another topic I watched a tv programme last week about the future of farming and was struck by the inclusion of permaculture as a mainstream solution..........brilliant! I was a little troubled over the assertion that forest gardening could feed us all.....everytime I hear this in temperate climates where a holding of several acres is seen supporting a few people I feel like yelling 'how are we going to feed Birmingham?'.........people are not going to change habits and lifestyles that quickly..............more importantly we should, I feel, be addressing more pressing issues............the food programme on BBC radio 4 was hilighting that of the 130,000 deer in Britain currently culled each year to keep their very high numbers under control most of the meat (venison) is exported!!! At the same time the majority of the venison we eat in the UK is imported from New Zealand....but because it is packed here it can have the lable 'produced in the UK' stuck on it!!!! Are we missing something here?

Snow!!!...........lots of snow.....We rarely see snow in the south west and if we do its up here on the hills and usually lasts a day and then departs. The last substantial fall we had was in 2003.....well enough to make a snowman with anyway! So when we heard all this snow had fallen on Monday we were not too worried as we didn't have any whilst London was bought to a standstill!
Monday evening and it started.....Tuesday the school was closed so after feeding and checking animals we went sledging over on the hill......the sheep looking on from the nice barn where the ewes are overwintering thought we were mad by the looks on their faces as they stood in a long line observing us!
Wednesday it was still not good up here but ok and getoutable....!
Thursday they said it was going to rain in the evening and into Friday but on looking out at about 10pm it was clear the weather people had got it a bit wrong as it was snowing heavily..........and the following morning it was STILL snowing and it went right over my youngest sons wellie boot tops!!! The cars had become blobs and the 3 Ouessant rams in the field were up to their stomachs in it and were not amused at having to bound around like rabbits. The pigs had retreated indoors and refused to come out and the ducks had to be dug out to get their door open!!
An erie silence had descended as not a sigh of a snow plough had been seen and the road was blocked.
We struggled over to feed the sheep and 15 year old son walked to village to feed sheep there.
...........we then joined the crowds for snowman building, igloo making and sledging as we could not do much else as we were stuck!............and this went on until yesterday when we finally broke out .......!
Overnight it has rained and snowed again but now on Tuesday we only have 6 inches left......and hope it will go away fast as we need to work and resume normal life.....whatever that is!

All in all I can report that snow is great to look at, brilliant fun to play in but really hard work if you are trying to keep livestock fed, watered and dry!!!

The dogs loved it.....Humphrey spent ages being a doggy snowplough

Its freezing cold here....except indoors! Very slippy due to our being on a hill and I hate it!!! Its lovely looking at snow, and I even went sledging up on the hill across the road with my youngest son.........my sheep who are in the barn up there looked on with incredulity........I think it confirmed their worst fears about the human who cares for them!
On the whole though its miserable when you have to go out in it to do animals rather than have fun!
I was supposed to have a meeting this morning and backed the van off the tarmaced slush of the vertical drive/lane at the side of the house and got stuck.....missed the meeting and had irritated man on phone who was waiting for me at the unit!......Apologies said I managed to remove van from lane but parked up and retreated indoors as he couldn't wait!.............

I was musing recently on how our children always know best and it got me thinking! My older children have a slightly patronising attitude towards parents....poor old things! They always know best! We middle aged folks tand to do the same to our elders too.....it must be a parent child thing! But I was also thinking how it has affected history easpecially farming and food production.......
In the 50s it was the bright young things that laughed at the older generation and bought in machine milking, higher yeilding varieties from cattle to wheat, pulled out the hedgerows to fit in modern machinery and bought in the chemicals to make sure we grew more efficiently!
Old methods were laughed at, everyone wanted the latest, the shiniest, the quickest etc......and so it goes on.........no wonder we now have the global economy on its knees and an average of 3.5 worlds needed to support western lifestyles!
I heard yesterday that China was running out of water to irrigate its crops so was starting to rent land in South Africa to grow cereals, South Korea too and Saudi Arabia also are doing this as they havent got enogh water.....and as if Africa has?????
Perhaps it will be our children who take the lead in teaching us parents to save water, to be more sustainable, to use small and slow solutions, to save humanity from the crisis which inevitably has started?

Busy weekend with a hedgelaying course at Ourganics in Dorset and a lambing course at Beech Hayes Farm just down the road!
Pete set off with 2 of the hedgelaying contingent who had arrived on Friday night to lay a very prickly hedge with 5 others who met him there whilst I met the lambers, and introduced them to Ruth and each other before rushing home to prepare a lunch of vegetable and lentil soup, home made bread rolls and home produced sausages to which they were all invited. Then rushed down to the hedgelaying to grab a portion of Pat Bowcocks fantastic stew followed by crumble and local cream.......diet forgotten today!
Did some hedgelaying and arranged 2 more courses for the 1st and 15th Feb.....do come if you can £50 for a day of fantastic training by Pete complete with fantastic hot meal and cake!! (and a chance to see Ourganics which was featured on the BBC programme 'The One Show' on Friday!)
Absolutely shattered by the evening and couldn't keep my eyes open!
Back to the money fight tomorrow.........the little cartoon is rather topical!
The lovely friend who came down for a stay this week is one of the only people I know who understands the stress of being dedicated to something huge that is really 'ethical' and her stresses are so much more than mine at the end of the day because the end result affects so many people.........she is a real tough cookie with a soft centre who is the genuine article and really cares....she has a charity called The Big Green Idea....visit the site, its going to become something amazing!

Frustration is the only way to sum up my week....interspersed with a visit from a lovely friend!
I am trying to raise the finance to go ahead with my expansion plans.....
The good old British Gov have bailed and bailed out the banks and this week announced help for small businesses by underwriting the risks of banks lending them money..........sounded great, looks great.....in theory!
However they would not play ball as they would only lend 30% of the finance needed and then only if I put in 70%.....but the whole point of borrowing is because you do not have the reddies.....is it not?!
So we have decided to do a remortgage on our house to raise the bit needed to invest and take the business forward.....not a huge risk to us as we only wanted a small amount.....
Fine said the morgage lender to our shock.....but urmm well oh.....oh well actually eventually NO!
Back to the drawing board.....
Mortgage brokers say......don't worry we will find you a mortgage!......and they did.....and I found a great unit and said yes to it.....and the paperwork for the mortgage arrived and I thought yipee.....
And then the phone went and the mortgage company said.....no....apparently there was a problem....I keep sheep!!!!! 8-o
WHAT the bleep bleep bleep has that got to do with it I ask dumbfounded?
Ah umm well that means you are a farm and we don't do agricultural mortgages!
No.....we are residential, we are and all ways have been residential......we just have 9 acres.
But you keep sheep AND pigs......so you ARE a farm........
NO we are residential......this property is NOT a registered farm business!
Oh yes you are oh no we are not.......it was sounding like a pantomime!
But urmm you have a countryside management business there too.....perhaps you are commercial premesis......where do you keep your heavy plant?

At this point i was beginning to think it was surreal......how did they know I had sheep.....and how many AND the fact that I'd just imported one from France AND that Pete has a tree surgery arm to his countryside management business???? And more worrying were mentioning pictures of me dyeing wool in horror of horrors my kitchen!
FROM THIS BLOG!!!! and my and Petes websites!!!

Big brother is certainly watching! I had no idea that underwriters spent hours investigating their mortgage application clients websites to try and 'catch' them lying!!!
I am horrified!

So eventually it was decided we apparently were not residential because our garden was more than 60% of our total plot, we were not agricultural because we just kept sheep for pleasure and were not commercial as we did not have either heavy plant on the premesis not was my kitchen a dye factory.....that point we ran out of options and became unique!
So we are still trying.....
AND for the benefit of any underwriters reading this I have contacted the BBC and they are very interested in your activities!

I have a very interesting dilemma at the moment! We are expanding the felt business! We are going to start processing waste wool into recycled felt and knitting wool and start making house insulation from the early summer when we have a needle felter.........if all goes according to plan! We are also going to be moving to a bigger building where we hope to put in wood and solar powered water heating for the wool washer and other environmentally friendly options! Wool is at last being taken seriously!
The dilemma.......the variety of buildings we are being offered and that are becoming available! I am seeing 2 on Monday and one is within cycling distance of home!!! (less than 2 miles...... my cycling distance that is!!!)...all very exciting and amazing! I am also dyeing fabric for a top London designer which is also very exciting!
It is still freezing here but that is preferable to pouring rain even if it means lots of hot water shifting to thaw out the pigs water trough twice a day! All the sheep are fat and happy munching on racks of haylage in their fields and now we just await Merinos blood test results (for blue tongue) though with current temps the chances of him having been bitten anytime recently by a midge should be zero!
We also have bookings for the next litters of piglets due areound the end of April which is very encouraging! Here is a picture of one of the last litter....we are rearing 3 for pork and sausages!

Please watch this video if you care about what is happening in Gaza.............Also this blog written by a medic in Gaza.
I cannot add anything.....let it speak for itself

Happy new year everyone!.........good grief, where did the last one go!
2009 is exciting and terrifying at the same time, huge opportunities if we take them and make the most of them .........and lots of unknowns that make it similar to being in a minefield!.......but hey life is like that and thats what makes it exciting!

Woolly Waste is just about to expand into another business unit.....with more machinery as it becomes clear that our existing unit is just too small to operate in.........and we have some wicked ideas for using waste wool.....just watch as the year unfolds!

On the home front its been a cold winter holidays with Hoar frost for days on end with crunch frozen ground and frosted sheep.............shows just how well insulated they are when black sheep walk around all day with a covering of frost, yet if caught and felt, feel as warm as toast next to the skin! Just look at this frosty picture taken from the bathroom window at 2pm on New years day!
Merinos is very settled and here is a pic of him too, with a frosty beard enjoying life in southern England!

I have had the kids home at various times over the holidays.........my daughters....pictured here at Glastonbury festival in the summer came laden with goodies and returned home laden with different ones! It was nice to see them and their partners.....and dog!!....a lovely pointer called Ottie who belongs to my eldest daughter and gets on very well with our dogs!
My eldest son also returned for Christmas, he now works for the National Trust and resides in N Devon.
He does estate work and is a careership warden and spends most of his time chopping trees up, enjoying the countryside whilst doing various jobs and helping with the estates flock of Jacob sheep and Ruby red Devon cattle.
One thing struck me over the holidays and that was the optimistic arrogance of the young.........as my son who works with a young woman on the estate keeps telling me when I question him about what they are doing with their livestock.......' you might have an opinion mum but she knows you know....she was born on a farm.....!' mmm one wonders how being born on a farm can give authority.......obviously a lifetime of experience farming counts for nought in the eyes of ones children!!!.....more of that next time......He is however a great kid and I'm very proud of his achievements and the fact he is doing exactly what he has always wanted to do!

Happy Christmas and a Fantastic 2009 to all!!!
I have been channel hopping recently.........no not the TV sort but across the English Channel to France!
I went over 2 weeks before Christmas to see some friends and check out the work I have had done on my little French house........which incidently you can hire out for a very reasonable fee!
I have had the pointing redone at the side and back and a bit of work done inside...it looks great! I am borrowing a small field down the road of about an acre from a friend so we have somewhere to store our logs, have a bbq and relax!
After arriving at Berrien where my house is I left early the next day, in the dark and frost, to drive to my friend Celias house on the Normandy border.......Now I am getting a bit long sighted and when driving alone have to keep stopping, find my glasses, take a look at the map, drive a few miles and then do it all over again! SOOOOO.....I have bought a sat nav.....or sat nag depending on how its behaving!
Its wonderful.....I eventually get to my destination often with quite a tour of very small (it really CANNOT be that way, can it?) roads and lanes, and the odd farmyard where it tells me to carry on for 3 miles blissfully unaware that carrying on will take me through a barn full of cows!!!
Occaisionally I will follow a signpost down a new bypass and it gets all confused and appears to be travelling off road!......saying to itself recalculating, recalculating!!!
However I have managed to get to my destinations!
Having had a great time in nearly Normandy including a lovely Christmas concert attended in company with Blu of blucamels blog I returned to Berrien to put up a door curtain and chill.
Returning home a few days later with some wool to felt for a friend and a woodburner that was for sale and I couldn't resist a bargain......I had a few days and got back on the ferry!

Why.....???

Well the reason was the fantastic Ouessant ram Merinos des Lutins de Montana who won the Champion white ram 2008 at the Ouessant breed show in Argol in September!
He travelled home in a large crate and is now enjoying being a celebrity and learning to baa in English!

I have been tagged for this green meme by Willow

These are the rules:

1. Link to Green Meme Bloggers

2. Link to whoever tagged you

3. Include meme number

4. Include these guidelines in your post

5. Answer questions

6. Tag 3 other green bloggers.

I have to answer ten questions.

1. Name two motivations for being green

I always have been!.......I was 'green' before I knew that was the term for being a person who lives lightly!
I have a highly developed moral conscience .........probably due to being bought up by god fearing evangelical relatives!!!!!...................I am not religious but want everyone to have a fair shair and no more.

2. Name 2 eco-unfriendly items you refuse to give up

I have to have a car as there is no public transport......
I have a house in France and use ferries.....

3. Are you at peace with, or do you feel guilty about no.2?

Partly guilty about both car and house but.....

Car...

I have a van that runs on deisel and bio deisel and do average mileage.....I need it to get to my work place and generally get around. I also have a 4x4 which is old and used for pulling the sheep trailer and heavy jobs it was designed to do.....it does under 2,000 miles a year

My French house....
It is my pension as I havent got one and is my bolt hole for when I need a break. It was derelict before I owned it for 40 years so it lives again! Everything in and about the house is second hand or home made! Even the kitchenis made of recycled wood. It is 30 mins from Roscoff and can be got to by bike.

4. What are you willing to change but feel unable to/stuck with/unsure how to go about it?

Would love to be carless.................but would have to live in town and therefore could not do my woolly job!...........dilemma!

5. Do you know your carbon footprint for your home? If so, is it larger/smaller than your national average?

We are well below!

6.What's eco-frustrating and/or eco-fantastic about where you live?

'We have the wrong kind of wind' for a wind turbine and too much shade for a solar panel!!!
But living here means I can keep sheep, harvest our own wood and grow loads of veg etc!

7. Do you eat local/organic/vegetarian/forage/grow you own?

We grow lots of our own veg, grow all our own meat and source everything else locally

8. What do you personally find the most challenging in being green?

Don't find it particularly difficult as thats how I am!!

9. Do you have a green confession?

I drive my bike to the canal to go for a bike ride.....but I do try to combine it with other things!!

10. Do you have the support of family and/or friends?

Oh yes............we are all in it together

I now tag these 4 bloggers, notaproperfarmer , Blu at Blucamels
Compost woman , and Tpals place

Sorry to all those who are regular readers, I have been sooooo tired that blogging has been a bit neglected!
Our pigs are now relieved of their offspring and mighty relieved they were too! 3 gilts went to their new homes last weekend where they will be breeding sows eventually. I now have 6 boars that will be going in our freezer or sold as pork and sausages if there are no takers for them. If anyone reading this would like to buy a pair for raising for pork and bacon let me know! Mums and dad now have their pig paddocks back to themselves and are enjoying not being pestered by lots of children!

The sheep are very well and the coloured Wensleydales and Dorset x Wensleydales are running with my new Gotland ram Fred and 3 pedigree Gotland ewes. We should have some very pretty coloured wiggly woolled lambs next year!

The Ouessants are all running with my French Ouessant ram that I imported last December, called Sarkozy in honour of the French president (ie small & randy!!) I hope to be importing the French white Ouessant champion of 2008 in a few weeks time.

The wool washing machine is now awaiting a new hot tank and will be ready to wash by the end of the year and the new picker is having a picker box built......all will soon be revealed! If you require your wool washed, carded or felted please book your slot now or send for a price list.

AND......what every woman needs......a big spanner...........just look at the size of this one (used to adjust the feet on the felter if you were wondering!)........thats a large teaspoon for scale!

Well I have not had much time to blog recently! Why? Because I have been spending every waking hour surrounded by wool and machinery! The feltmaker is amazing and lots and lots have been made by myself and my new employee called Taffy!
The wool washing machine has arrived from Ludlow and is awaiting a plumber and a new hot tank to supply it, but will be functional in December. The picker is a wonderful machine with nasty looking teeth that open and blend fibre ready for carding! This is having a blower box fitted in the next 2 weeks..........all very exciting!
We have a few other large bits of machinery on order and we need another unit as we are outgrowing the one we have!!!................more news soon!
On my one day off we went cycling along the Taunton - Bridgwater canal..........reccommended!

The Natoinal Hedgelaying Championships were held this year at Sandringham........yes the Queens estate in Norfolk.........and Pete by virtue of having won a class at the Blackdown Hills hedge event in March was eligible to compete (you have to have either won a competition or have attended a certified course run by the NHLS I believe....but don't quote me!)
So off to Norfolk we went on Friday.........and I can confirm that its a bloomin long way with no direct route as in Britain all roads seem to go from north to south or east to west and we wanted to go from southwest to north east!.............6 hours later we arrived at the b&b and collapsed exhausted.
Next morning we arrived at the hedgelaying competition that also had a ploughing match attached to it....a real country day out and having met all the other people who had travelled up from the southwest for the Devon & Somerset Style class the draw for which bit of hedge was whose was made.
Now to those who have no idea what hedgelaying is I will let the pictures speak for themselves save to say its a way of turning a row of small trees into a stockproof barrier with different styles from different parts of the country.
Pete had a decent bit of hedge to lay and they all had 5 hours to complete their sections. One of our local Blackdown Hills hedgelayers called Roger Parris who is a real charecter had a Japaneese film crew following him all day!
Pete did not win anything because the standard was amazing, but gave a very good account of himself as would be expected of a man who hedgelays as part of his business. The standard in the Devon & Somerset section in which he was competing was in fact so high that the supreme champion hedge was Terry Coombes from the Blackdowns!!! To go all the way to Norfolk and win was a terrific achievement for our area and style of laying!

The top 2 pictures show a Welsh style and Yorkshire style which has a fence built in it! The next one shows Roger Parris laying his hedge, the one with the car wizzing in the background is thw Champion hedge of Terry Coombes and the last id of Pete making the finishing touches to his hedge with an enormous pile of 'brash' or waste cut from the hedge behind him!

We left as it was getting dark and arrived home at midnight, tired but happy after a brilliant day

I have had a very busy time recently and it shows no sign of easing up! The felting is going well and it is possible to make fantastic bits of felt so here goes mulch mats, hanging basket liners, slippers, bags etc....its limitless! I am going up to Wales on a a trip to look at insulation machinery in the next few weeks....exciting!
The piglets are growing like mad, and spend their days exploring the fields with their doting mums who dig small holes for them to rummage in! Unfortunatly we lost one that had been attacked by we think, a fox! There were canine teeth marks in its head and under its jaw so now we have a humane fox trap leant by the local hunt set next to the chicken run........we have had 2 broad daylight fox attacks on the hens in the last 2 weeks too grrr!
We have a long stay Wwoofer called Duncan a graduate from Bristol uni who is here until mid December and is making a real impression on the place! He is concreting the unfinished bit of the pigs yard at the moment and this will deserve a report all of its own when finished....its looking so good.
The sheep are all in big fields of lush grass and are looking well and happy. I have some new Gotland sheep that are beautiful and the ram called Fred will be tupping the coloured Wensleydales (the rasta sheep) and the 2 big white Dorset Down cross Wensleydales I have.
Sarkozy my French Ouessant ram will join all the Ouessant girls in early November.
I have recently lost the use of a nice field I often use to graze the sheep on in the winter in trying circumstances but as my limited french would say c'est la vie, ne ce que pas?
Anyway here is a selection of nice pics I took when in Brittany recently of some amazing trees....old oak pollards, and of course the old railway line that I'm continuing to explore.....its so so quiet on that old line the silence is almost deafening!.......And the amazing calvary in Pleyben....the best in Brittany I'm told

We have piglets and very cute they are too, all 10 of them! Here they are at10 days old. They are growing very quickly and are for sale......ready in late November.

Felting!!..........we are up and running with the first felting training morning for those who want to learn how to use the machinery set for the morning of the 15th October. This will be FREE!!!
In the pics you can see we now have guards around the carder as there are lots of running parts that could be dangerous un guarded.............no h&s when it was built! Felting courses will follow with the first being on the 16th when participants will be able to take home a huge bit of felt of their own design.

The felting table is wonderful and big rectangles are very quick to make.................approx 30 minutes in total! The whole kit is available for hire from £50 per day depending what you need and a couple of entrepreneurs could easily base a new micro enterprise around the unit making hats or handbags etc.

Finally our other amazing find has been a 1940s mangle which is just perfect for remooving all the water from the felt and whats more you can just see our biomass boiler down the end of the unit to keep us all snug and the state of the are compost loo.