Land Girls - Domini and Briege in the month of May

Domini and Briege .... just found your photos - so a belated blog post.

All those years of yoga have paid off .... supporting
the edge of the stone terrace with a mixture of clay
and earth ...
 

Domini loved the feel of the clay ...
 

Briege preparing to grout the terrace stones with
a dry mix of lime and sand ... so that it can 'breathe'
 

Adding woodchip to the paths ...
 

Woodchip from a local sawmill for
the garden paths.
 

Working in the pumpkin garden ...
 

Earthing up potatoes ...
 

Harvesting from the garden ...
 

Harvesting mountain orach ...
 

Using the block planter to sow seeds into trays ...
 

Some creative moments in the kitchen ...
 

Thank you Domini and Briege.  It was fun.  Good luck with your many projects .... à la prochaine!!

A busy June

We've achieved a lot this month and have had quite a few visitors:

In the garden:

Creating raised beds


Maxence is studying sustainable business in Sweden
and stayed with us a few weeks to learn about
permaculture.  Here scything the long grass in
front of the house.
 

Ambre, a student of environmental law helping to
clear the space ...
 

Nick, a student of political science from the US and
Fabio, a permaculture enthusiast created six raised
beds using logs from the land in the cleared space.


 

Nick made wooden pegs to hold the logs in place.

Daisy in the garden
 

Hello Daisy!! What a perfect name
for a horticulture student!!



Daisy potted on some Agastache
foeniculum ....

 Other stuff going on in the garden ...



Tejal, a UK philosophy student works with Amber
to construct an artistic trellis using materials
from the land.
 

 

 

Nick scythed some nettles to mulch the garden beds.





We went on a girls trip to get
manure for the garden.  Thinking
about trying to generate onsite
fertility instead with green
manures ... to research.




Fabio decided to make a worm
composter with the little red worms
we found in the manure ...

Some purdy flowers and plants from the garden



We've got lots of borage flowers to use in salads.



We harvested some chamomile flowers for tea.
 



There is more and more comfrey in the garden  -
a great mineral accumulator.  It can be cut
three times a year and the leaves used as a mulch
on the garden beds ...

Digging out the pond




After much research we worked out the shape and
dimensions of the pond and starting digging.

 



Levelling the edges

 

Sieving sand and lime rendering in the house

Ambre and Julia from the US sieving the local
sand to be mixed with calcic lime for lime
rendering in the house.
 

Phil and Fabio mixing the lime and sand.
 

Phil showed Amber how to render ....
 

She got the hang of it pretty quickly ...
justa lika icing a cake!! (Am)ber
is an Italian chef)

 

Fabio had a go too ....


 

 

Creating in the kitchen

Ambre and Maxence making flatbreads

 

Daisy preparing cabbage ...
 

Justa lika my muma useda make ... Amber
professional chef creating with fresh garden
produce ....
 

She loved the flowery salads ..
 

The group creation of a vegan chocolate cake ..
 

... and many fun delicious meals ...

Cheers everyone ... thank you for all your help and for the fun and creativity.



 

Andrea in the month of May

 

 

 

Andrea, a young yoga enthusiast from Portland California gets a post to herself as she was here on her own with Kevin and I for a few weeks .... she got involved in so many different projects here ... with great enthusiasm ..


Andrea started by helping to create the 'yoga
lawn' - she dug earth from the pond area to
level this piece of land.  Here she is compacting
the soil in preparation for sowing the lawn seed.
 

Sieving the local 'sable de Bayeux'
to be used for lime rendering
in the house.
 

She had a go at lime rendering
with calcic lime with the expert
help of Phil - a local English
builder and experienced renderer
who gives us a hand from time to
time ....
 

She loved the feel of the lime ... and
felt inspired to build her own home -
a tiny house ...
 

Mixing lime on the palette ..





To get the right texture ...
 


 

We went to collect sawdust for the dry toilet
 and woodchip for the garden paths from a local
sawmill ...
 

Oh so Californian - she went a step beyond tree
hugging. A new concept - wood chip hugging!!
 

The mountain girl transplanting mountain
orach ... one of my favourite plants.  It self
seeds freely now in the round garden and
provides leaves for salads and cooking and
it's real purdy!!



 

She researched and made compost using manure,
nettles scythed from the land, grass cuttings and
kitchen waste ...
 

Scything the nettles that conveniently grow next
to the compost bays
.

 

Treading damp straw which will
help to activate the composting
process ...
 

I'm looking forward to your next visit Andrea.  Thanks for your help, your company, the laughter, your enthusiasm and for sharing your love and sensitivity for the natural world.   Good luck with your yoga and tiny house projects .....