Not spring

Learning From The Land is unfurling after the winter's hibernation and we are stretching out legs, digging out the wellies and looking forward to the spring.

Courses are on the backburner, as everyone and their badger are now running courses...so we are working directly with schools, community groups and anyone else who will have us to build compost loos, pizza ovens and the like.

Contact us via the website if you are interested

Meanwhile, it's time to plant those veggies and prune the fruit trees (a bit late I know)...

Rocket Stoves from Scrapwood

A ROCKET STOVE ABLE TO BOIL A LITRE OF WATER IN SIX MINUTES MADE FROM A SCRAP OF DRY WOOD. 

This stove made from scrapwood has four nails at the top to hold the kettle in place and allow burning gases to pass around it, an L shaped hole through the timber block and a stable base. Made by students from Heathfield School on their Rocket Day. Our scenario was " how do you make water safe in a refugee camp when all that is available are hand tools, old palettes used to deliver supplies and the packing you would find round UNESCO medical aid etc .

We set out to learn by doing, not talking. A safety talk, repeated during the day with our teaching points, didn't stop the atmosphere being one of self guided intense activity.

The second picture shows how students demonstrated that the rocket principal applied to fibre board scraps and old palette nails gives a clean, efficient burn making the most of the limited fuel supply and giving the least harmfull pollution. Brick rubble from our imagined war zone and some background information about the importance of boiled drinking water, hot food and smokeless cooking facilities made the day have meaning as well as fun learning.

In both cases the fuel was also the insulation that allowed the intense heat a rocket stove gives.

Our new, developing, site in Bovey Woods allowed a full and active day despite the heavy rain. Reclaimed materials including old tin cans, sawdust, palettes and some tools were gathered under a high open barn roof. Ample parking and the added benefit of lovely woodland views.

Mark College Cob Oven

Three pictures showing day three of the complete package - the oven tempering day.

We burnt out the cardboard former used to support the chimney while the clay was wet. This shows a good rainproof roof as well as a good waterproof plinth, both essential to any cob structure be it a house or a wee little oven. It also shows how cob is immensely fire proof and able to sustain huge thermal shock despite not being included in permitted materials under building regs since all the timber and straw houses of London burnt down in the Great Fire of London.

The pictures also show how a bowsaw, newspaper, axe and dry pine are used to prepare good fuel for the oven; a swift burning and well oxygenated fire make for efficient fuel usage, with maximum heat energy for minimum outlay.

burning out the cardboard former in the chimney

 

everything you need to make good fuel for an oven

 

smoke gets in youre eye

 

Nicky Saunter

saunteralong@googlemail.com

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

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

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

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

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?