Wednesday 31 May 2017

April with Simone, Lawrence and Sebastien

 
Simone, Lawrence and Sebastien, a dynamic, inseparable and talented trio, had great fun and got involved in all sorts of projects:


Simone, a biology graduate from Germany,
 began her stay by grouting the stones of
one of the terrace keyholes using lime and sand ....
 
Lawrence and Simone worked together to prepare
the edible beds around the terrace ...
 
Sebastien, a children's 'animateur' worked with
Simone on the second keyhole - they secured the
edges with clay earth and grouted with lime and
sand in between the stones.
 
The trio working together on the edible terrace ...




A little artistic break ...

 
 
Simone and Lawrence creating planting areas
around a keyhole ....
 

Simone the warrior queen ...

Lawrence and Simone bringing over logs to edge
the yoga lawn area ...



Simone helped to level the 'yoga lawn'
 




We'll seed it to create a level lawn area
for yoga/meditation or just hanging out ...


Creating with found objects ...
... appreciating the beauty of the flora and fauna ...
 
Simone and Lawrence researching projects ... Simone
read and made notes on how to create an edible
wildlife pond while Lawrence read up about
herb spirals ....
Scything the vegetation before starting to dig out
the pond ...
 
Using the broadfork to loosen the
soil before digging out ...
Voila!! A cleared area for the pond project ..
.
A stretching break ...
Lots of singing and drawing ....

Thank you so much for all your enthusiasm, good humour, laughter, debates, energy, creative cooking and artistic input .... à la prochaine ...

Sunday 21 May 2017

Janvier Fevrier Mars 2017

 
We welcomed Alex the architect in January, Amandine the vegan animal rights activist in February and March and Christopher the esoteric builder in late March ... some images:

Alex is an architecture graduate with a fascination
with tiny houses.  He spent some time designing
a tiny house on his computer with the idea of using
the materials here on the land - old beams, terracota
roof tiles .... we visited off-grid John to get some
ideas for how to link rainwater and solar elements
to the main house design ....

 
He also helped to do some earth rendering in the house ...
 
Amandine did some too ...
 
Amandine and Christopher took up where
Alex left of with lining the
roofspace with pine wood ...
 
Totally in sync ...
 
... and again ...
 
They did some earth rendering ...
 
Christopher putting landscape
membrane down before laying
stones for a keyhole from the
terrace ...



... laying the stones
for the terrace keyhole ..
 
 
The dynamic duo on the terrace ...

 

Amandine became interested in
learning about perennial
vegetables ...
 
The many facets of Christopher ;..
ever the builder with his pencil
behind his ear and paint stained
work trousers ....  the beard
and bandana reflect his esoteric
interests ... but always a foot
in the modern world with instant
access to the internet with his hi tech 
phone ....

 
Chris fixed some of the holes in the greenhouse ..
 
... and put in some shelving ...
 
A man not afraid to wear marigolds ...
and with many talents including being
a competent cook ... here creating
with leaves from the garden ...

 
Amandine and I went to collect
some wild edible plants from
the surrounding area to put
in the garden ....
 
Amandine and Chris preparing
to go exploring for the weekend ...
 
Their last day ... new horizons to
explore



 
Thanks everyone for all your help ... for the food, the laughter, the debates ... the music ... à la prochaine ... bon voyage!!

White cat enjoys the herb spiral

The finished herb spiral
 
Walk on by ... has she noticed it?


 
uhm .... what's this?

 
Definitely worth a closer look ...
 
An inspection from above ...
 
Oh yes this looks interesting ...

 
Hum .....
 
Time to play ....
 


Lawrence and the herb spiral


Lawrence, an English workaway volunteer, arrived a few weeks ago fresh from a motorbike trip around South America.  It wasn't until after a few weeks here that he casually slipped into the conversation that he had a first class art degree from one of the most prestigious art schools in the UK and that he was a straight A star student .... anyway he put his evident talents to use here and decided to create a sculptural herb spiral using stones recuperated from the old falling down barn on the land here ....
To start with ... a bit of internet research ... a video
by Bill Mollison (the father of permaculture) showing
how he starts with a conical pile of rubble ... various
articles showing which direction the spiral should go
in depending on if you are in the north or south
hemisphere ... images of different styles and materials
used ....


 

The idea is to try to use recycled materials where
possible .... so we decided to use the stones from
the floor of the old torchis barn that is falling down.
Lawrence brought a whole load of them up ...



Preparing the base ...
 

 
 
The conical pile of rubble ....



Placing the first stones ...


Much contemplation ....





White cat inspects the work ....


... as does Workaway volunteer Simone ...
 

It's coming on ...



 


A well deserved maté break ...

Et voila

A beautiful contribution to the project - thank you Lawrence for your motivation, enthusiasm energy and artistic input ...