Category Archives: Uncategorized

Walking Ned, through beautiful hay fields on summer solstice. The first time we have left the house without waterproof trousers and rubber boots. We had forgotten what blue sky looked like.

It’s been a while since I last sat down and wrote on this blog. I remember being very anxious about getting the caravan finished for April 15th when the wonderful Hanne was due to come and live in it, and work with us. It looked like this at the beginning of March. Then I gotContinue reading

This Norway maple, English Oak and Radiata Pine were planted from seed in March last year. At the moment these little sweeties are having to share their home with Larch Wood Timber, who have put a framing bed in there to make a round wood frame for their latest build. Poor little trees. It’s almostContinue reading “Sharing the polytunnel”

So for the past few weeks I have slowly been building shelving for the polytunnel. My friend, the very talented Richard T, helped start me off, my sister kept me going and now I am on my own. It is slow, not because I’m a novice carpenter, and now that I have this little beauty,Continue reading “Peel, Shoots and leaves”

I realised, too late, that some people found my last blog post a bit sad, and were concerned that I was feeling negative about our life here. Sometimes it does feel as though we move two steps forward and then go three steps back…. but I guess that’s just life. Then, however, you get aContinue reading “Sun and sparkles”

So many people tell me how lucky we are and how amazing it must be living how we do. I don’t want to dispute this nor disabuse anyone who holds on to a fantasy of living off grid. We live completely off grid, with solar panels for electricity, a bore hole to provide our ownContinue reading “Living the Dream”

The sunrises and sunsets have been really incredible for the past month or so at Heydon Hill, at least incredible on the days when we have actually seen the sun. Most of December felt like living in a tupper ware box with the lid on and we didn’t see alot of the wood for daysContinue reading “Winter”

At last the unbelievably huge tunnel is up and skinned. It is as amazing and we were working against the clock all last week to get the frame up so it could be skinned. If it hadn’t been for our amazing Woofer, Hanne, who worked above and beyond, it might not have ever got finishedContinue reading “The new polytunnel”

We have just bagged up our first lot of biochar ready for Wivey Farmer’sMarket. Biochar is high quality charcoal that has been finely ground. We make it in our ring kilns, and it is produced in the same way as our barbecue charcoal, from wood produced as a result of sustainable woodland management. It canContinue reading “Biochar”

We had a really successful burn, which was just as well as we had loads of orders to go out before the weekend. Charcoal burning is a mixture of alchemy, pure science and dare I say luck. It is awaiting game. So much effort in processing the wood and loading the kiln. So much timeContinue reading “No smoke without fire”