Author: stuart

  • Dandelion Lawn? = Dandelion Syrup!!

    The little critters are up everywhere, but before mowing them into oblivion or digging them out, try dandelion syrup. Take as many heads as are out, add the juice of one lemon and a pint of water per 200 – 300 heads.   Adjust as your lawns proliferation of dandelions allows.  Boil, simmer for two…

  • Chalkies Cheese

    The ‘hiraeth’ was running strong today as we sampled some suspicious looking cheese from Pen Llyn.  The cheese looked and smelled like an old acquaintance, the taste tantalisingly familiar.  Here, ten years on was the matured spirit of ‘chalkies cheese’  John and his wife kept goats, Daphne made the cheese, it sold phenomenally well.  In…

  • There goes a First in Human Ecology

    Well who knows what the young lad will be when he is older, yet already old beyond his years with his perspective on animal and human life. A risk assessment, boring by anyone’s standards, made bearable by doing it with the children before gardening! Q. What are the hazards? A. Animals, we don’t want to…

  • Ffynnongroyw progress

    Ffynnongroyw progress

    Two days gardening after each other? Is there a better way to spend ones springtime? Today we planted a small willow coppice (about 80 whips went in) the hedge went in last week.  That should give us enough willow for building structures and craft work in years to come, and soak up plenty of the…

  • On being mistaken for the gardener

    I’ve written before about ‘just gardening’ – and I have been at it again, this time clearing a much neglected patch beside the church ready for the children to come and plant an edible hedge and wheat.  Many of the conversations had over the phone, at the church door or whilst wearing ‘clericals’ seem to…

  • March

    … is almost over again …  but there are many chillies, broad beans and potatoes happily growing …

  • Willow

    I know it’s lent, but a whole morning spent on hands and knees in a field near Kinmel bay is a bit much even for Lent. Coppicing willow however is a much better way to spend one’s time. These lovely bundles are destined for the community garden at Ffynnongroyw…

  • One year – new study

    To celebrate one year in this current job, I decided to move my study, (oh and have a pint of Guinness of course)

  • Cerdd Dant, Jazz and improvisation

    I’ve been learning a new skill, well, trying to bluff through it at the very least.  There are rules for everything these days and twice as many for Cerdd Dant it seems.  For the uninitiated, it’s a poem set to music sung over an air on a Harp.  They had always sounded so appropriate listening…

  • Candlemass

    Half-way out of the dark?  So The Doctor proclaimed on Christmas day, now we are half way out of the dark, Candlemass marking the halfway point towards the spring equinox.  Always a time for celebration and an appropriate time to make a promise for the year,  much better than at the turn of the year…