Late Autumn into Christmas

And after that small advertisement here's an update on the last six or so weeks.

We've planted up our orchard now and have a number of local and old varieties. These include

Pig yr Wydd - which translates as the Head of the Goose, it's an old local variety of cooking apple (early season)

Tin yr Wydd - which translates as Arse of the Goose! and is reference to the fact that this is a later cooking apple.

Marged Nicolas - are "Mature standard trees of this dual purpose variety, with their characteristic fountain shaped habit, grow in several farm orchards in Dinefwr. The yellow apples, speckled with russet markings, are ripe in late October and will keep until early Spring. The variety is hardy and disease resistant." (Dinefwr is where my offices are, just 15 minutes down the road)

Ashmeads Kernel - is "an old English winter russet, medium size, golden-brown skin with a crisp nutty snap, exploding with champagne-sherbet juice infused with a lingering scent of orange blossom. Flesh is dense, sugary and aromatic with intense flavor." Many of the descriptions say it's like pear drops - which is vaguely perverse in an apple.

Stoke Red - "is a traditional West Country medium bittersharp cider apple." (Yes we have ambitions to make cider.)

Yarlington Mill - is a traditional Somerset cider apple producing a medium bittersweet cider. (Lots of cider)

We have plums, pears and cherry as well - so we are looking forward to an excess of fruit in a few autumns time. One of our friends has very kindly contributed to the orchard, which is a lovely present thank you Julian, and for Christmas I know we are getting some native plants and trees to plant up our "shrrrubbbbbery!" from other friends and family, so thank you in anticipation.

The exciting news is that we have planning permission for the additions on the barn, which is great, and we have a builder. Yes we have a builder!! He is keen to work with us to do the lime rendering, flooring, working with Welsh sheeps wool insulation, he has worked with Ty Mawr before and I have been involved with them through Rounded Developments. Work should start at the beginning of Feb and we will be rolling up our sleeves and getting on with some building work (which also means we should be putting up some photos of the barn in various states of change which will be exciting).

It will also be a continuous list of questions, we have already changed our mind a couple of times about the underfloor heating. We have met some other neighbours who have got us back onto the underfloor heating now because we have witnessed theirs in action. These neighbours are the people whose house is on the hill in direct line of sight from the yurt. They were kind enough to offer us a shower as when they were building their place they used to bath out in the front garden! They said they couldn't see anyone else go through that. However when we did go up go for a shower the other week the wine came out, and they are generous hosts! We finally left at 2 in the morning and staggered down the hill after a lovely and funny evening.

Anyhow the last month has been a beautiful one, the weather has been spectacular and created some very magical sights. Perfect for the yurt and the range we have bought! However we have seen the inside of the yurt a little too much over the last few days, we have both had this bug, for those of you who have had it.. how horrible was that!? James is still in bed, we're missing Christmas eve at one set of parents, hopefully I will be able to put enough whisky down him so he doesn't care tomorrow.

So finally - we wish you a happy Christmas / Nadolig Llawen from our yurt in the corner of a field in Carmarthenshire. Hope you all have a fabulous one and thank you for all your cards.

New Business

James has established a new business to enable him to continue working from home. It's called Seren-IT, which is a name that works in English and Welsh and on a number of levels.

Seren-IT designs and distributes funky email newsletters, creates websites, and produces documents for printing, amongst other things.

Check out the new website: www.seren-it.co.uk

James's brother, Tim, has also recently set up a business. He's just received his first delivery of sofas to sell: www.door2doorsofas.com

A chilly start to November

I love frosty cold mornings and we have had some beautiful ones. James and I have to get up very early for work sometimes, however the last couple of weeks I really haven't minded. When driving down to the village we have watched the sun rise over the snow covered Carmarthen Fans and enjoyed the hoar frosts. Beautiful!




So a quick wildlife update. The stag has been staking out his territory over the last couple of weeks, the roars have been heard up and down the valley (I am not sure he's had any competition). The swallows left last month - amazing they simply went, not a goodbye, no last chirrup beforehand. The local tawny owls have also been staking out their territory, two tussled for the tree next to the yurt, one outyelled the other and so we now have a shouty owl in residence. I love hearing them, especially when they start calling up and down the valley, I often wonder what they are telling each other... "nice voles over here".. "Get out of my tree".. who knows? We also spotted fish jumping up the weir, we couldn't tell what they were it seems a bit early for salmon. No more otter sightings of late (but I haven't been down there as early as that particular day).

And an update on the land; we have put in a pond.. or mini lake, we really want to attract as much wildlife as possible and as we saw a lot of dragonflies over the summer, we are excited to be able to provide them with somewhere to breed. We also want to plant it up with local species and then extend the planting out into the boggier areas. This particular spot had very few plants other than reeds, however on some of the other boggy areas around we have seen flag iris, marsh marigold, cuckoo flowers and ragged robin so we hope that some of them will move into the bog as well as anything else we plant. We have also started the orchard, we went to an apple day at the Botanic Gardens and got the details of a local man who knows everything about apples.. and pears.. and cherries etc. He is getting us trees that have been grown locally for hundreds of years so we know that they should do well here.


The chucks seem to be doing ok, they are providing a steady supply of eggs and are enjoying a varied diet of scraps, corn and layer pellets. They make particularly contented noises when they find a piece of bread (and even more contented if one finds it ahead of the others!)

On the building front the full plans are in and we are starting to talk to builders. We have found some potential carpenters and Dave has found us a possible person to do the underfloor heating, linking into a wood burner. The same company do grey water systems and solar panels for water, so it could be that we can get one company to fit the whole system. So the next couple of weeks will see a number of visits from a variety of people and hopefully we will find some people to take the build forward.

And finally it's the one year anniversary of finding the place. What a mad twelve months!

Autumnal developments

Well apologies all - I haven't updated this in a while, and in fact thought no one was reading it until I received a few complaints that we were still in August, the shame! So we had some good weather and both of us have been busy with work which is my excuse for not doing anything on this.

Autumn has arrived and with it some lovely weather, a real season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The trees are starting to turn, the berries are getting riper now, the pumpkins are looking good and the air smells of autumn.

We have some positive news on the planning now. We chased up our preplanning submission as it had been six weeks since we put it in, it turns out that it had been lost. So after some cursing we got a new application in, the planner was extremely apologetic, after two weeks we felt we needed to check what was happening. Dave kindly phoned for us this time and it turns out that the person it had been handed over to had gone off to work on something else. This has been a bit frustrating, however the end result is that the planner looked at it the same afternoon and has said that he is supportive of the changes we are putting forward. So now we have to put in a full planning application which Dave is working on at the moment. I am so glad that we have a comfortable yurt to live in and a brand new 7 kilowatt stove to heat us and cook on!

So now the world is going into economic meltdown we are thinking about starting the build! Strange times indeed. Unfortunately James is down to two days a week for work, that's the joy of working in the voluntary sector. On a positive he seems to have been turned into the god of newsletters as more and more organisations are keen to get him to compile theirs, I know I am biassed but he is very good. Plus he has been doing a report of civil engagement in the democratic process, all of which has helped a bit. James is going to put a bit more time on the build as it starts, which should save money for us and of course many builders are struggling at the moment so we may be able to find a competitive rate.

We continue to work on the land, the drive is fixed after the incident with the lorry, we have also increased the width of the car parking area to make absolutely sure no one does it again.

We walk the land most days which has allowed us to spot many of the errant balsalm plants. We shall see how many seeds germinate next year but I feel confident that we have broken the back of it. The two areas pictured below were absolutely full of the stuff, so that's hundreds of thousands of plants less for next year! Also the woodland plants are starting to show themselves now which would have been suppressed by the balsalm over the years. We have been busy on the tractor, it's been great having it, moving stones, moving wood, moving grass, cutting the grass and so on. Without it we really would have struggled. It's fun to drive unless you hit deep ruts and then it's more like being on a bucking bronco... you are left holding on and praying to any passing deity.

On the subject of wildlife we have put up a few birdfeeders now, along with a few more nest boxes and we are getting a huge variety of birds visiting: Woodpeckers; Chaffinches; Wrens; Long Tailed Tits; Great Tits; Willow Tits; Blue Tits etc etc. It can be a bit distracting when we are working in the caravan, especially when the Nuthatch comes to visit as he is a complete vandal and thrashes the seed holders, emptying most of the contents onto the floor.

The other morning James and I were walking around the land and as we were walking back up the river I noticed a great cufuffle in the water. I stopped and could see a Brown Trout throwing itself about and then a beautiful Otter swam down the river and swooshed back up in pursuit of the fish. I knew we had an Otter living on the river but this was the first time we had actually seen him so it was a very special moment. Next month the Salmon will be coming up the river to spawn and the Otter is meant to become extremely active, I will be sat by the river with my camera until I get a good photo of him!


Another time when we were walking down in the hollow we noticed the deer footprints and an area of ground which had been gouged and scraped. We initially were very confused and then we realised that it's rutting season and deer decorate their antlers with moss and grass... to make them look hard presumably!!?

We did a bit more exploring on James' birthday. We found a lovely walk which takes you up to the largest iron age fort in Wales, it's stunning and it's just across the valley from us. Garn Goch is a very special place and yet so few people have heard of it. In a very agricultural valley you can stand on a wild blasted hill and look into the past at this astonishing and massive human creation. Whilst we were up there we met the farmer who looks after the place for Brecon Beacons National Park, Nick Somerfield and he is a fantastic individual. Very chatty and enthusiastic to share information about the place. What was odd is that after a long chat with him it turns out that he knows one of our closest friends in Cardiff as Nick had been very active in the anti GM campaign and is a keen supporter of the green movement.

Finally we went to the village show, realised we should have entered the tallest nettle competition as we would have won easily, got drunk in the pub with a few people we have met here (and a few new people) and James, under the influence of cwrw, ended up on the cricket team. The fact he hasn't played since he was 16 was swept aside as an irrelevance, so next season I look forward to bringing you pictures in his whites playing for Llansadwrn cricket team. Everyone round here has been so friendly, people seem to be very relaxed and welcoming, we are constantly amazed about how long it takes us to do things, if you bump into someone who knows you vaguely or has even just heard of you, you end up in a conversation which can last a good long time. Anyhow I had better get off and do some digging and I'll try to make it less than a month next time.

So that was the summer

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Now playing: Brett Dennen - Billie Jean
via FoxyTunes

Well what a damp old summer that was! Amusingly our cat is insistent on going out, even in the worst of it. Looking back I said he would never become a true country cat, well I retract that completely, sadly he is catching everything from field mice to moles and romping in puddles with the best of them.





Thankfully the yurt has stood up to all the weather that the Atlantic could throw at it and to ensure that we have a cosy and dry Autumn we have indulgently bought a Nordica/Brosley Rosa woodburning range... plenty of room for roasting veg, yorkshire puds, James' homemade pizzas.

With respect to the barn we have submitted preplanning documents and await to hear whether the council are happy with them, whilst we have outline planning permission we want to green it up a little. We are also going on the advice of our structural engineer who recommends that, as it's an old cruck barn, the walls were not made to carry the full weight of a roof. Now that it does carry the weight of a rodf it's pushed the walls out slightly, the current planning stipulates that there has to be a concrete ring around the top, we have come across a better approach where the weight of the roof is taken by a frame inside removing the need to put any weight on the structure at all. We shall see.

We also took a little bit of a break. One weekend was spent going to the fabulous Small Nations Festival just up the lane in Cilycwm, a stunning place for a festival and a great event if you are ever in the area. We got to do a few walks, had friends and family visit and went the National Botanic Gardens just down the road. Friends also came to visit us and managed to time it perfectly on the weather front, it seems that when people come to see us the sun comes out...

James' mom and I cleared out the old garden which was very satisfying and our friend Ian and James cleared out the old orchard.. discovering two cars in the process! James' dad built lots of things and James' brother came down and chopped up lots of wood for us.. Hoorah for friends and family.

We have also had fun with our new tractor.. yes we ended up buying a tractor because it was becoming an impossible task to keep on top of everything. It's a suitably sized one, in other words it's quite dinky. Unfortunately the lorry driver who delivered it also drove off the edge of the drive and did a significant amount of damage to it trying to get it out... the air was somewhat blue around me! However the tractor has been a fantastic addition and we are able to do more tasks as a consequence.

Brambles, Balsalm, Bracken and Building Regs

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Listening to: Son Of Dave - Leave Without Runnin'
via FoxyTunes
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Listening to: Ludovico Einaudi & Ballaké Sissoko - Chameaux
via FoxyTunes
Well another month has just flown past, sometimes it scares me how quickly the year is slipping by. As usual we have been busy, poor James has cleared about an acre of Himalayan balsalm - and that is no mean feat!












It's hard! The plant itself is feeble, or so it seems. The wretched thing can be hanging on by a thread, it looks dead at the cut and then you look up, healthy leaves and an enthusiastic flower bud. Now I hear you cry what do you have against Himalayan Balsalm? It's pretty, it's great for bees and the seed pods are fun to burst! Well it takes over, everything! Of course it's used to a more challenging environment, you can get that from the name, so it has an exuberant seed strategy. It produces a lot! Each plant can produce 800 seeds! So the bottom valley is full of the stuff, we knew it was bad, but as the year has gone on we have realised how much this problem has been neglected.

We have a lot of bracken and brambles down there as well and whilst both are good local plants you don't want them taking over. Bracken is phenomenal, it has so many tricks up it's sleeve it's amazing that the whole planet is not covered in the stuff. It releases a toxin from it's roots which kills off other competing plants, it's carconogenic to grazing animals, it's spores have been implicated as being carconogenic, it releases a sugary substance at it's base which guarantees it an ant army who will fight any insects trying to attack the plant and you can see why it's very succesful. So whilst we want some we don't want 2 or 3 acres. Onto the brambles, well I love them in many respects, free autumn food for me and the birds, but it's also extremely invasive and is a bit of a pioneer species for woodlands. Now I also love woodlands but I think a mix of habitats is important, so we will be managing the brambles to acceptable levels.


With regards to the barn, our poor architect was broken into and all his stuff was stolen, so poor Dave was left with a massive headache of sorting out insurance claims, computers etc, he has still managed to provide us with drawings which are the precursors for our building reg application. He's also going to be speaking to some builders for us so we will hopefully be able to report some progress on the barn in the coming months.


We have moved on in the luxury stakes, we have a solar panel on our yurt which will be able to power a lamp, a laptop, our radio and more to boot! We're also on the grid at the caravan which means we have a fridge, we've managed ok till now but moving on into the summer months (however chilly they feel at the moment) is proving more of a challenge. We also have water in the yurt! Yes the tap in the sink works...

Our meadow also continues to develop - as James and I try to fathom out how to manage it in the best possible way. Meadows are very complex habitats which have developed over thousands of years, starting out as clearings in a wood man has developed them, woodlands eventually turning into the field margins of hedgerows, the plants that develop in the clearing have a very complicated relationship. As 98% of meadows have been lost since the 2nd world war we are keen to ensure we preserve this one.

Water, polytunnel, chickens and foxes!

Well it has been a non stop few weeks since we last updated the blog! Every waking minute of when we aren't working has pretty much been spent on putting up our polytunnel. The plastic is now on and we have 3 lovely large beds to work with, much to the relief of our seedlings which had been suffering terribly with just being in pots and shoved in sheds!

We also had (and please note the had) some lovely hens, they were the most friendly and ridiculous creatures who followed you round the whole time. We had just started to see them all laying eggs at about 1 each a day when sadly all apart from 1 were taken by a fox. Unfortunately it is that time of year when foxes have cubs and so are that little bit braver - 1 hen was taken about 20 yards from our yurt and I was sat out side at the time! I can't be angry at the fox for doing something natural we are just both angry at ourselves for not taking better precautions with them. Anyhow we start again, we were left with the 1 lonesome chuck and we asked a neighbour for a companion which they happily helped with. With the addition of 2 Black stars as well we are rebuilding our flock.

We have water - we feel ludicrously posh at the moment - live for four months without running water and you get used to it! Now we have a tap which gushes forth very enthusiastically and we can even have lovely solar showers in this hot weather.

Our meadow is developing, we have found common spotted orchids, oxeye daisies, yellow rattle (good sign of an older meadow) and possibly some whorled caraway (which is quite rare and needs to be confirmed).



We have even found the time to do a bit of adventuring out in the area, we drove up to Llyn Brianne the other evening. The views on the way up are really beautiful and the countryside just begs to be explored.

The actual barn and a bit of an update on the goings on

So of course this is all about the barn, not just our lives here. Our fantastic friend Dave is our architect (DW Enterprises Splott Road Cardiff) and as both Mags and he are so special the design work is our house warming present, there is probably no way we can thank them enough! We have the final designs and Dave is now working them up so that we can go to building regs to get all the final agreements. We are going to ask for a couple of small additions through planning permission but hopefully nothing that will freak the planners out. Inside is beautiful with the downstairs middle room open to the roof and a fantastic bridge between the two upstairs bedrooms. It's becoming easier to visualise the whole place as time goes on.

I also have my dream of having a larder included in the design. When I was a little girl my nan from Yorkshire had a pantry, she was such a fantastic cook and she really inspired me to enjoy eating and cooking good food. So I want a cool larder where I can store all our home grown produce.

Talking of which we have also been busy digging beds and preparing the ground for a polytunnel whilst at the same time desperately trying to keep hundreds of seedlings alive!

The land is all coming to life around us and it's such a different place now, all the different greens are quite breathtaking and exciting.

We have also met our other neighbours across the river and again we are so lucky to have such nice people living here. They have very kindly offered their shower and as they have it set up downstairs in their lobby we can use it whenever we need it. John and Pat have lived here 20 years and so have a fantastic understanding of the local wildlife. They have seen over their time here, an otter every autumn who follows the salmon up when they do their run up the river, dippers nest all along the river, pied fly catchers swoop up and down the valley and will nest in boxes put up for them, woodpeckers thrive as does the local gosshawk (especially on the local chickens!)

Finally on the matter of chickens we have 12 new inhabitants who are getting to live in our barn before us.. and I am already getting a sense that they are very naughty.. After escaping the one area we hoped to confine them to one managed to kick over a paint pot, she is now called Blue Foot.. still haven't found out how you get paint off chickens!

The Maidens go exploring

Whilst we are waiting to get stuck into the barn we have been busy - no slacking for us! With over 400 trees to plant (of local provenance) we had our work cut out. We intend to have a good supply of fuel for the future so have planted a short rotation coppice, including willow, hazel and ash all of which grow on the land already and there is evidence of previous coppicing, so we carry on a tradition. Our drive is also finished now so there should be no more vans stuck in the mud! So all in all a busy old week, and we're still working.

Our cat is also getting used to the place - he's been a city cat all his life and an indoor cat largely, so the big outdoors is an exciting experience for him. Initially he was so entranced by the scenery and explosion on his senses that he wouldn't pay attention to where he was walking and fell off the deck a number of times as a consequence, much to our amusement. I wouldn't say he's ever going to be a truly out door cat, especially as he follows you like a dog, however he's certainly had his horizons expanded.


Oh and our bluebells are coming out!


We've also been meeting some of the neighbours. Whilst planting all our trees a robust elderly man pulled up in his car and got out to introduce himself - turns out he's the father of one of our nearest neighbours. His family have been in the area since 1780 so he has some pretty interesting stories to tell. He was able to tell us that where we were planting our hazel was known as fools corner, reason being that in during the second world war the very steep hill had to be ploughed for grain... if you have seen this hill you would understand the name.. we got the impression he thought our approach was a lot more sensible.

Also we have discovered another neighbour - a rather impressive stag who has obviously been living in our woods.







Oh yes and as a final word we really do need to thank Tamsin, who housed all three of us for 2 months for free with barely a grumble. Without her we would have had to found somewhere to rent which would have tied us in for 6 months.. in fact we would have been really very stuck... so thank you my dear - free holidays in a tent for you ;-)

The first two weeks of living on site

or how to build a fabulous temporary home

So this is our new home for the year - we have a small mobile caravan as well - however the yurt is a more pleasant alternative as it has a woodburning stove and is significantly warmer with it's thick wool walls. Another bonus of living away from the main building site itself is that we have seen a lot of wildlife, so far the list includes a male red deer (about 6 years old with impressive antlers), red kite, green finch (and lots of other birds of which I am ignorant), have heard curlews, nightingale, cuckoo and woodpeckers.

We have been working too and in our first two weeks we have created the yurt and yurt decking, the compost loo, a rain water collection system for washing us and our plates, knocked down the brick wall which had to come down according to our planning permission and we've employed someone to sort out the drainage on the drive and the drive itself. The site looks different already.

After a farce with BT we are no longer bothering with a landline which is frustrating but not as frustrating as spending our lives explaining that we don't have a house number, getting lost on the line and finally being told that we can't have internet after all as the line is too old and BT aren't going to invest in the work which is needed!

In short being able to live and work in this place is blissful, even with issues about communication and we are already enjoying having people dropping by, so we get to proudly show the place off again and again.

A little bit of history

It all started about 5 years ago when two good friends, Dave and Mags, tempted us with the idea of buying an abandoned village in Spain. Sadly it was at the wrong time but it kick started something in our imaginations. We dreamt of growing our own food in a community and having our own energy generation. We then started talking about doing something in Wales with the community of friends we had made here. Unfortunately we were all at different stages, eventually we realised we needed to do something on our own.

So having had years of experience volunteering with a green building company (Rounded Developments) and Cardiff Friends of the Earth we knew we wanted to build as green as possible. We are now exploring everything from using the stream to provide some energy to solar and small wind turbines. We will be adhering closely to the philosophy of reducing first, ensuring that anything we consume is at the minimum, which shouldn't be a problem. The house should be fairly passive as the walls are about 2-3 foot thick, it should get great solar gain and is in a very sheltered south facing spot. We are also exploring underfloor heating in order that we heat the house as evenly as possible. This year we hope to plant hazel, ash and willow plantations to provide biomass fuel for the future, and we will be coppicing some of the old hazel in Autumn after the nesting season. We will also be collecting rainwater for showers and washing etc whilst remaining on the mains for drinking water.

The first week of owning a pile of stones and a beautiful piece of land.

This is a bit of a blog for all our family and friends to keep you up to date with what we have been up to over the last 6 months, why we have been out of touch at times and what we will be doing for the next... who knows how long!

So anyway about 4 months ago we had accepted an offer on our house in Cardiff and were looking for a place to rent in west Wales. We had seen a lovely house in Llandeilo and in the afternoon went to casually look at a piece of land a bit further up the valley. It was out of our price range but was intriguing so we couldn't resist looking. The owner had decided, however, that she would drop the price by enough for it to suddenly be in our price range. By the end of the day we had resolved to put in an offer and buy it. The last few months have therefore been a bit madcap! James was finishing his PhD and so the leap into this may have seemed more than a bit daft.

Our kind friends and family have helped us in many ways, from putting up with us and our mad cat in their houses, to storing our furniture and ridiculous amount of books and records. Our friends, Clayton and Dana who came over from America to go to our parents wedding anniversary party, even became our willing slaves for a week on the land!

Without them all this would all be even madder we're sure!

So on the 29th of Feb we finally bought the place. A total of 9 acres of mixed land which has not really been touched in the last 40 years or so, a stream or few, about 5 acres of very rich, slightly clayey (is there such a word?), south facing field, the remaining 4 acres being a mix of woodland and open steep sloping meadow.

It's a little piece of heaven!

We have been fortunate enough to be able to see the land go from the dark of December into the sunshine and snow of March. We have found bluebells, daffodils, snowdrops, foxgloves and unfortunately Japanese knotweed! The land is bordered on all sides by streams, but rises away from them, the barn is thankfully out of flood range by a good long way! The last week has been spent: climbing around in the brambles; exploring the range of the land; creating the platform for our yurt which we will be living in for the forseeable future; and getting the caravan up a crazy lane and track.

We will try to portray all of this in pictures as much as possible here.