Learning From The Land

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:54:00 +0000

Very excited to be working toward two new ends this year - one is working with Charlotte and Roy on a programme that uses hands-on practical stuff like making rocket stoves to get people engaged in change and sustainability. The second is our relationship with Bovey Woods, our potential new partner near Waterrow, where we hope to hold this year's courses. They will have camping eventually and the atmosphere in the woods will be great - as well as offering a range of woodland courses for us.

Watch this campfire space...

All things Cob

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:57:00 +0000

These guys are making it all look very easy, but it was towards the
end of a recent busy day learning all about the fundamentals of cob
(mud, straw, sawdust and sometimes - but not this time - cow poo).
Frank was in his element as he is just obsessed with all things muddy
and is only too happy to spend the rest of his life convincing others
of its beauty...

You can see the cob blocks in the background - all hand made by the
course participants and now stacked in the shed ready for a great
creative masterpiece. Suggestions on a postcard please.

Just thought you might like to see a course in action, with no posing
for the camera - I just had to duck and dive between them and I don't
even think they noticed me.

A week of compost loos

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:50:00 +0000

Can't believe it's been so long since my last post. Time is surely flying in Somserset. Partly this is because I have recently taken over a local wool insulation company called The Woolly Shepherd from the amazing Val Grainger and it fun, furious and fast. I love that rush you get when you start a new business - addictive and exhausting and exhilarating.

Learning From The land meanwhile is positively BOOMING with George now taken over at the helm and Frank out there giving it large with the cob. He taught a new course last week in cob fundamentals and it went well - participants loved it, everyone covered in mud, the usual thing. I now have a line of beautiful cob blocks to step over every time I walk through the greenhouse...and next week is one compost loo after another, with a weekend at T he Woodland Play Centre in Crowcombe, then at the Neroche Forest Woodland Centre, then over to Cannington for our first course partnering with Rodway Farm. So if anyone out there wants to learn about building a compost loo - NOW IS THE TIME!!

Can you all get raindancing please...

Seeing the Wood for the Trees

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:45:00 +0000

Another struggle session with the hedge outside Secret Meadow, which I am attempting to lay with the help of wonderful Nick and today only, wonderful Tony. We got to a bald bit where all we have is a lot of brambles and my billhook is not as sharp as it could be. Nick says I need to "take the shoulder off it" which sounds technical and quite violent at the same time. I am going to beg Hughie at the sawmill to do it for me as I have had a go by hand and all I did was cover my sharpening stone with horrible grey stuff - some sort of paint the bald is covered with.

Here is the only hedge pic I have so far but will take some more as soon as George brings my camera back - that was a hint George! Why when I type George does it always become Geroge?

Advisory Board

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Last week we ventured into the world of the "advisory board" and it was a pleasant surprise. We had approached a small number (5) of individuals who we thought might be interested, able to contribute to our aims and with whom we thought we could get on well - and it worked! We had a great 2-hour meeting full of honesty, quite a few laughs and loads of helpful advise as to what we might do next.

I have been involved with an advisory board for a co-op before and felt that it was more of a reporting place or a talking shop full of funders; this was different - a real collaboration of peers. So, thanks to each of them and a recommendation to other small organisations to try it out. You might find it revitalises and refreshes!

Meetings not being what you thought they were going to be..

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:20:00 +0000

Today the board of Learning From The Land (me, George and Frank) met at a secret secure location (the sofas in the Genesis Centre cafe) to plan our next few months of global strategy and world domination. Frank brought pastries so that became top of the agenda, then we had one no-show and a misunderstanding, meaning that we had no one to meet.

However, if you sit around in one place long enough laughing, eating and having ideas, people turn up. So we met two other very interesting people and still have the no-shows left to meet in the future.

Plus we came up with some ideas for Power of Water (March 2011) and Power of Food (June 2011), including naked chocolate strawberry dunking and waterboarding for beginners. Sorry I am having trouble reading my notes - that should have been wild food foraging and how to make a water filter. Honestly, the things some people will do to get found by google!

The Power of Fire last weekend was our best open day yet with Frank firing up his wood-fired kiln so that it looked like it was about to take off - it was red hot with a 2-ft flame coming out of the top. Philip's charcoal burner was promising (thanks Dean for making the drum) until he opened it before it has cooled down, oxygen rushed in and ignited the contents, burning our tiny charcoal sticks to smithereens. What a great word that is. George made pizzas and raved about rocket stoves and Daniel made a dipping candle, which is a soothing and drug-free way to get over a serious hangover, apparently.

By the way, I have been asked to write a guest blog by Jan our locally grown flower guru, who can be found at JW Blooms. She grows the most stunning flowers on her field in Hillcommon, Somerset, and makes gorgeous wreaths and bouquets and dangly ball things in an apparently effortless manner. Particularly amazing was a wreath she made for a funeral, where everything was edible by the birds and was made to biodegrade naturally. Give it a whirl.

Autumn blues, news and shoes

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:19:00 +0000

It's definitely autumn now and almost all the leaves are off the trees around the Secret Meadow after some spectacular bursts of colour. The mud is also taking over thanks to the contracters who harvested the maize in fields around us, building a vast silage heap after several thousands tractor movements (of GIANT tractors) up and down the field edges...the field edges are now like slurry and I do hope they are not being paid for those 3m margins as all the plants that struggled to grow back after this year's total wipeout spraying have now gone completely. Plus the cow muck they used to weigh down the tarpaulins has leached into the drainage ditches and killed everything there too.

Enough gloom. It's welly time again and I would like to sing the praises of the good old dunlop welly - which now seems a bit longer than when I was a kid, or have my legs become shorter? - as I have reverted to the cheapo versions after a brief fling with the designer welly. I was bought a beautiful pair as a gift, which promptly acquired a tiny hole and a strange wheezy sound before developing into a fully fledged leak. Wets socks means new wellies as far as I am concerned!

Last Saturday we held a How to Build a Cob Pizza Oven course at Learning From The Land, attended by a bunch of brave souls who went home a great deal muddier and more exhausted than they arrived. Frank the dragonslayer Blaker took the young innocents through the basics of oven building before letting them loose on a heap of seriously sticky clay, straw and sawdust. The resulting construction is a work of art and I look forward to eating many a fine pizza from it in due course. For those of you who faffed about too long, flaked or failed to sign up, you missed a fabulous day. Ha ha.

By the way, congratulations to the Olive Shed restaurant in Bristol, whose owners were on the course - they have just won a runner up prize in the Observer's Best Restaurant competition, which is a feather in their cap indeed. It's down on the waterfront by the old steam crane - try it out.

Other news...George Aykroyd's rocket stove pizza machine was cranking out the FINEST pizzas on Sunday night here. There are rumours he is going to organise a film night with pizzas too; this is a man who has a serious addiction to pizzas. We are just trying to help.

Coming up is the Power of Fire open day on November 28th with rocket stoves, wood-fired kilns, yes - you guessed it - pizza ovens, woodfuelled stoves and even a good old fashioned bonfire...FREE entry, 2-5pm at TA4 1QE. Look on our website for directions and details.

Learning From The Land lift off

noreply@blogger.com (Saunter Along) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:58:00 +0000

So after years of trying to avoid blogging, I have finally succumbed. It may be a good way to spread the word about Learning From The Land, a social enterprise (which means a company that gives its profit back to the cause it works for) dedicated to getting more people in Somerset thinking about sustainable living for themselves and learning skills that will help them to get there. We run courses, open days, do activities in schools and anything else legal that will help promote living a little more lightly on this gorgeous planet of ours.

This all sounds very glam but it is mostly me, George and Frank messing about with mud, trying to build things using no money, scrounging materials and trying to convince other people that they can do the same. However, despite a strong showing with our compost loo course and How to Point a Wall for Beginners, we are finding it hard to fill our public course places with enough people to pay a decent tutor.

At the moment, our school projects are going well - we have done some fab building of pizza ovens made of cob in Bridgwater and Taunton, and hope to be doing one in Wiveliscombe maybe...We are also helping out at a big ECO event at the Genesis Centre in Taunton frm 8-9 October. Entry is free and there will be our Power of Mud roadshow, plus pizza making in a cob oven, making a greenhouse out of plastic water bottles, and lots of other stuff inside run by people who actually get paid for a living - PV manufacturers, heat pump makers - all sorts of green technology info.

All ideas welcome - have a look at www.learningfromtheland.co.uk and see what you think.