March 2002

The birth of a little heifer calf at the beginning of March was announced by her mum Patsy with loud bellowing and much snorting. Patsy is a cow with a great deal of opinion about life. She calls a spade a spade and isn't one to pander to anyone's sensitivity. She's an experienced mum and she gave birth early one morning. The little one was still lying in the straw when we arrived for our morning rounds. Beside the other calves, this little one did look very small indeed! And what else could Patsy's calf be called than Saffron (apparently anyone who watches Ab Fab would know that!). It is a delightful scene to behold the little ones (and not so little ones - it's amazing how fast they grow!) tearing around the yard kicking their heels up, skidding to a halt, checking out the lie of the land and then rushing off again.

We had a full and active helping hands weekend. Now here's a thing... we have a friend who does Reiki and she was quite convinced that sending Reiki to the weather would ensure a sunny weekend with a little rain to water in the wildflower seeds we were planning to scatter. The forecast continually stated "getting colder during the week culminating in cloud and rain with a cold wind at the weekend". This theme got more and more precise as the week progressed but then on Friday the forecaster announced, "Well, we've made a mistake with the weather... tomorrow will be bright and sunny and the weekend will be clear although not bone dry"... And so it was! We became a possee of flower fairies with handfuls of seed which we scattered on an area of dock in the summer field. The idea is that the wildflowers will grow rapidly and crowd out the dock which will save spraying with chemicals or backbreaking work pulling them up. We figured this was worth a shot.

Our community here is blessed with many skills which are generously shared. Two of our friends, Jules and Mhairi are in the process of changing their lives to do more of what they want and so they offered "tasters" during the weekend. Mhairi gave several people relaxing aromatherapy massages and has blended an absolutely delicious and soothing hand lotion which she's called Helping Hands! See her web site www.equiessence.co.uk. Jules gave a delightful horsemanship demonstration and gave some people an opportunity to ride Mr Jones, including an ex-cavalry man who said afterwards, "I never knew horse riding could be this subtle!" Her web site is well worth a visit too, www.laughinghorses.co.uk.

The weekend was one of great gentleness mixed with the spirit of giving and receiving, even the house was taken care of with the taking up of brooms and mops!

As for progress with the farm, this too continues to unfold and show us next steps. We are making plans to plant woodland. Many farms are doing this and the cheapest way to do it apparently is to kill the grass off by spraying with "roundup" (what a mint this company must be making as it's recommended all over the place), then drill the holes with a machine on the back of a tractor, then drop the saplings into the holes and hey presto, one woodland. That's OK I guess if you don't mind using chemicals and want your trees in uniform spacing along straight rows, but guess what... we don't! We're looking at something more "natural" with walnut groves, hazel coppice and many different tree species. It would be great if we could include some open space for rest, meditation and just "being". Apparently we can use wool mats to mulch round the trees and suppress the grass whilst they establish themselves, expensive, but possibly worth it. Trees will probably need to be dug in and planted by hand because of the random pattern we prefer. Well, here's another learning curve! So, watch out for the helping hands weekends in October/November, we are likely to be tree planting!

And finally we are exploring the field of biodynamic agriculture. Many people have heard of organic produce and whilst we farm without the use of chemicals, we have resisted conversion and certification for two main reasons:

1. It is very costly
2. It doesn't mean what many people think it means

However, in our continued search for knowledge and inspiration about the nature of life and the universe, we discovered that biodynamic principles are holistic in their approach, sometimes to the extent of appearing a little kooky (but we're OK with that!). There are some herbal and homoeopathic style preparations that can be used on land, grass and manure heaps at various times of the year to facilitate balance, fertility and growth and this is what we are looking into right now.

Next helping hands weekend is April 20/21st - please call to pre-book your massage or riding taster session (01793 852115)...

We hope your life is filled with as much delight and gratitude as ours is right now.