We've had a great summer with wall to wall sunshine (the joys of living in East Anglia - luckily we don't have a garden as such), two new barn owl chicks fledged and ringed and the millwheel reinstated in the existing pit in front of the cottage.  It should generate some electricity for both the cottage and the workshop where the courses are held.  The pond had a dreadful infestation of blanket weed but, thanks to a new product called Viresco, it has virtually disappeared.  Many thanks to the Forest School Campers who valiantly battled with it on two occasions.

The new pig-keeping course for beginners proved to be very popular, with five people waiting for places at the end.  We shall run another on Sunday 3 October 2010 - early booking is advisable!

The morning was spent indoors with tutor Kevin Blundell focussing on traditional free-range pig-keeping.  Students learnt about legal requirements, the differences between the various breeds, housing and feeding, illnesses, slaughter and butchery.

Simon is keen to offer existing beekeepers (we have had over 200 on the courses so far) the chance to take their skills to a higher level.

Thanks to the Dedham Vale AONB and Stour Valley Project's "Managing a Masterpiece" project, we are able to offer (subject to funding approval) an extremely special rate on the basket-making (2-4 July) and willow-weaving (22/23 May) courses.  Click on OUR COURSES to see more and book as soon as possible.

It would be good to create more of a link between the courses and the holiday cottage so here is the offer: 10% off any course for those booking the cottage. You can book it to arrive on Friday afternoon and leave on Monday morning. Contact Mark Scott on 01787 211115 or mark@grove-cottages.co.uk. The Grove Cottages website has good pictures of the inside.

The new waterwheel has arrived!

The Mosaic weekend went well, as it always does.  The leader, Anne Schwegmann-Fielding, and I are keen to do a day In September 2010 on creating mosaic panels in seashells.  Anne has been working on the National Trust Shell House in Hatfield Forest, in Essex, which was created in the 18th century.  We thought it would be a great thing to do with all those shells that people collect on their summer holidays.  We are also talking about the possibility of creating a Sculpture Park here in the future.  New courses for next year are Pig-Keeping - keeping a few pigs in yo

A team from Thames Talkback came here at the end of July to film a programme about making coracles (ancient portable boats).  Denise, the presenter, and I started to make one out of hazel rods on the grass alongside the millpond.  The boat is made upside down, so we pushed the rods into the earth at regular intervals to form an oval, and then we bent them over, working on opposite sides, and tied them roughly in the middle with baler twine until the frame was made.  Luckily someone from the last course had left their coracle behind, so we were both able to go out and I was ab

Another amazingly popular beekeeping course.  Simon Cousins, the tutor, manages to make what could be a very dry subject funny.  He has to cover everything you would need to know about beekeeping in a day, so it's quite a tall order.   On another day, he met six students in the pub at Wormingford, near to where he keeps most of his bees, for a look inside the hives, suitably kitted up of course.

June 2009

Just after midsummer day, two barn owl chicks were found in the strawbale owl tower, built last year. And three kestrel young were found in the other barn owl box on a pole nearby. Next week someone will be coming to ring them, so that we might know where they move to eventually. Let's hope there isn't a long period of wet weather in the near future, which will prevent the parents from finding enough food for them.