Tag Archives: woodland

What’s been happening this Spring?

Lots of fun, creativity and learning on the Farm!

We’ve run several very successful workshops and courses on the farm this spring, as well as some lovely free family activites during the Easter Holidays.

The Woodland Skills course took place on Mondays earlier in the year. This has been great fun and the participants have been learning lots of interesting and traditional skills, including basket making, firelighting and shelter building. They also carried out important work maintaining and improving the woodland.

Kerry ran a peg loom weaving workshop where people learnt to weave a simple wool rug using raw fleece from our own Jacob sheep. These little rugs can be very useful, providing a warm, waterproof seat anywhere – so ideal to take on walks and camping.

The Spring Tonics and Superfoods workshop was blessed with fantastic sunny weather. Participants were taken on a short walk around the farm, looking at everyday plants that are full of nutrients and healing, learning about their history and modern uses. Many of these plants were then tried as teas. They then made a herbal vinegar to take home.

In the Easter Holidays we had our Family Fun Day, with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. There were lots of great activities in the Water Vole Woodland, including mud prints, nest building and clay bird making.

[Show thumbnails]

The Get Growing afternoon was extremely popular, with lots of people planting seeds and decorating pots. The legendary Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Saturday was as busy as ever with people hunting for clues all around the farm.

All in all a very busy spring! In the coming months we can look forward to Spoon Making, Fire Lighting, Leaf Printing, Herbal First Aid, and new sessions of Talking Tables, Introduction to Volunteering and Herbs for Health. Our Gardening Club, Walking Group and Farm Tots run all year round. Please see our website or Facebook page for more details.

What’s been happening this summer on the Farm

There has been a great deal of focus in the media recently, on the widespread problem of isolation and loneliness and how this can also effect our health. It has also been widely reported that being outside in nature can dramatically improve our mood and wellbeing.  The Farm always aims to address both these pressing issues within our community.  Simply coming down and having a walk around, or volunteering for a morning a week,can really help with these issues.

Over the last few months we have been running several exciting activities at the farm – Talking Tables, a Walking Group and Woodland Skills. These are all focused on the tremendous health and wellbeing benefits of doing things together with other people, and being outside in nature.

Talking Tables is funded by Bristol Aging Better and organised by LinkAge Network. It is a city wide project taking place with 3 of the city farms, St Werburghs, Windmill Hill and us. It takes place in the café and is an opportunity for people over 50 to get together and share cooking ideas, techniques and recipies.  This project is aimed at people who perhaps would like to boost their confidence around cooking, or who enjoy the sociability of cooking and eating together.  Cooking and eating with people is one of the fundamental pleasures of life, and there is always a great deal of laughter and fun at a Talking Tables session. 

The Walking Group has been running on Wednesday afternoons since the beginning of the summer.  Anyone can come along and enjoy a social walk around the farm and surrounding land.  This area is a surprisingly rich wildlife habitat with lots of interesting plants and birds.  It has been really brilliant to watch the changing of the seasons as they have unfolded, every walk has new delights.

Woodland Skills is a successful course that has been run several times in the tranquil Watervole Woodland. Funded by Learning Communities Team, this course provides a safe space for people to learn hands on skills in a supportive and relaxed environment. Working together in a group outdoors greatly improves people’s wellbeing and mood.  Tactile skills such as weaving and using tools are a great counterbalance to the screen based lives many of us have today. It has been shown that creating something with our hands is very good for our mental health and reduces stress and anxiety.

    

 

Summer Fun!

We had a lovely summer here on the farm.  The weather (for the most part) was sunny, and we had lots of fun activities. It was so great to see so many of you!

What was your favourite activity?

Volunteering Stories

Ben has been volunteering with us since last autumn.  He started coming to Green Woodworking on a Monday, and subsequently became interested in volunteering for the Farm.  Ben works in the woodland, and also with the animals. He has worked in the orchard strimming the grass.

He is also doing the John Muir Award. The John Muir Award is an environmental award scheme focused on wild places. It encourages awareness and responsibility for the natural environment, in a spirit of fun, adventure and exploration. As part of the award Ben is identifying flowering plants in Water Vole Woodland.  He feels that it is important to learn to identify plants as we can then ‘understand the world we live in better.’  He also thinks that ‘in this commercial world it is good to know where things come from’ for example wood and the plants that medicines are derived from. Ben is going going to share his growing knowledge with other people  through posts on Facebook, a chart in the volunteer cabin and maybe some leafeltes or an information board.

Ben likes working on the Farm and feels more confident than he used to as he can help with things. He thinks that it is good to deal with food production and animals as these things are ‘the basics of life.’

Ben also feels like he is helping with his local community and has met lots of new people in a friendly atmosphere.  He really enjoys volunteering.

 

 

Ancient Woodland Crafts Day

It was a brilliant day on the Farm on Saturday with all kinds of ancient woodland crafts being demonstrated in Watervole Woodland.

There was charcoal making in the central fire.  Charcoal is partially burnt wood and was once a major fuel source.  Producing it provided a livehood for wood colliers (charcoal makers).  Although we now only tend to think of it for barbeques, it has been used for thousands of years to smelt metal ore.  On Saturday however, we made brilliant drawings with it.

‘It was a fun activity.’  Louise aged 7

We also had hurdle making  – weaving willow withies between posts or rods traditionally made of hazel.  These trees would have been coppiced, to ensure a steady supply of wood and withies. Coppicing is where the tree has been cut down to a stump and new growth emerges as useful regular sized poles and was an essential part of ancient woodland managment, ensuring a steady supply of wood. Hurdles were used as temporary, moveable fencing.  A visitor commented that they liked the willow and seeing how the hurdles were made.

IMG_20140712_143438

There was also the opportunity to try out some green woodworking techniques – a way of creating beautiful, useful objects, from unseasoned wood.                                                                         IMG_20140712_141326

We also made a well known drink, the old fashioned way.   Dandelion and burdock roots were scrubbed, and then crushed in a pestle and mortar for the first stages in making this delicious cordial.  People had the opportunity to try some that we’d made earlier in the week.

Crushing the roots in a pestal and mortar

Crushing the roots in a pestal and mortar

Someone asked about a family workshop to learn about spinning wool – so watch this space!