Yurt making
3-day Yurt making course in August
The three day yurt making course is definitely one of our most popular courses, the mix of practical work and new skills and the relaxed chatty atmosphere of doing the work makes for a great experience. We are trying to reach out a but more and work with new partners all the time and in the spirit of solidarity and spreading the good will we are planning our next course to be held at a lovely place, not far from Leek in north Staffs, called Farm2Grow.
The owners Helen and Ian came on our Permaculture Design Course last Autumn, as a way to develop their plans and ideas of how to develop their 10 acre plot, which they have the vision of developing as a care/ theraputic farm. A place for people to connect with nature, convalesce perhaps and they also work with all sorts of differently abled and special needs types groups I understand.
Rhian at the roundhouse near Rhaeadr
We run all our courses in the spirit of permaculture design ethics and principles. The idea to create beneficial links and to strengthen our community of artisan, teahcers and gardeners working for sustainability on personal and community levels. So its all about working together as best we can, to reinforce our wider goals and aspirations. So it is a great pleasure to be working with Pike at Farm2 grow…
I have also been very busy working on the Pikea website, my green wood working friends who I run this course with. We want to build a shop for products from people from the region here.. from baskets to musical instrument, Yurts to doors and windows. We are developing more course ideas with Pikea and trying to build comissions for their original work onto some of the projects we are working with. I am keen to use greenwood benches and as well as the timber frame round house on the Cwm Harry project. I want everything we use as far as possible to embody our principles of working with sustainable, natural local materials and skills to both demonstrate what is possible and hopefully inspire people to realise how easy it can be to make this kind of stuff oneself.
Round house roof detail
I was really inspired to see the traditional round house they are building near Rhaeadr, as part of woodland project they are running there, building space for kids and adults to connect with woodland work
Roundhouse wall detail
The visit has given me lots of ideas for what we might build at the project in Newtown I am working on – more fantastic green wood working ideas. We want to buld a shelter at Cwm Harry for the communty garden project to create a space for people and store our tools etc. I also want to create something striking that will stand out on the industrial estate there and get us noticed. weare working with Youth Offenders adn ohter special interest groups there and I am hoping it will generate useful interesting work for volunteers to engage in that will be genuinely inspiring for them to do and can really take pride in.
