Tree planting, Basketry, Knitting & The Great Turning! - an update

HellooOoo!

My first blog post in MONTHS! It's been a turbulent time but a positive one. Thank you everybody for your emails. Thank you xxxx


The Land

Soooo... I'm working on a grant with the Forestry Commission to plant upwards of 6000 trees on our Exmoor land. That's around 4 hectares! It'll be on this piece of our land below, which is just crying out for it...


The regeneration area.

We need to think of a name for it, which is fun! Any ideas appreciated! Lots of work to be done but oh soooo satisfying. The Forestry Commission chap I've been dealing with is a top bloke, really helpful and positive. As are the Woodland Trust who are also helping us through the process.

All the trees will be native not only to Britain but to Exmoor. So It will be predominately Oak, with nursery trees like Birch and Devonian Aspen (hopefully!), Cherry and Ash. There will also be lots of shrubbage, Hawthorn (my fav!), hazel, Rowan and other bits and bobs. I also want to sprinkle wild flower seed, but that might not be possible or even necessary. So ridiculously excited about this!!



Baskets

I'm working on a basketry tutorial for someone elses blog! It's taking me an age because I'm keen to make it so that it can actually be followed. I decided to make the basket out of foraged materials from the land. I can't tell you how whole it made me feel. Do you remember the first time you sowed some seeds, grew some veg & then made a meal out of the harvest? Well, it was like that! Full circle, a dream come true!


My favourite basket so far. A Willow and Holly basket, made from foraged materials from our land in Exmoor. Woohooo!

Here's a Linen basket I made with a honeysuckle handle on it...


My second favourite basket so far. It was a sod to make though! :)



Music

I've got back into creating music in a big way. I can't believe I stopped singing for so long, if there's one thing I am it's a singer. So I'm putting up some of the bits I record on to MySpace. My page is: www.myspace.com/henweaves It's mostly covers but it's all just me mucking about!




Crafts

I've also been practising my knitting and I'm pleased to say I've knitted a proper hat, thats round and that fits my head!


The wool is handspun and naturally dyed. (not by me!)

I've also knitted a strawberry hat! It's only little though!


It might be little, but it's still a hat! :)





Twitter

I know Twitter isn't for everyone but I love it and have made strong bonds with lots of people I would never normally have met. I know most of you will love it too, especially those of you that use forums! My tweets are protected so you have to send me a request to see my tweets. If you're on twitter let me know and I'll pay you a visit! I'm @hen4!




Spiritual/Deep Ecology Stuff

I'm still studying Joanna Macy's work on The Great Turning. In order that I can run courses on the land to help us to remember what it means to be human.

There's nothing more important to me than to reconnect our awareness to our interconnection with all life. An awareness that is within all of us and that our mind already gives us flashes of insight to.

'I cannot be healed unless you are healed' Joanna Macy. We're in this together and I want to enable us to find our happiness together.

To give you an idea of what that means to me, have a look at this movie clip:

Joanna Macy from Chris Landry on Vimeo.

Well, there's so much more to fit into this blog post but I think I'll leave it at that! Suffice to say that life is as it should be & I'm working hard toward my dream.

Warmest hugs!

hen
xx