The changing of the seasons
With any garden and growing space winter is the quiet time compared to the abundance of the growing happening in the other seasons. At the Dutch farm the bees are surviving by staying in their hive, reducing their numbers hugely and living off the stores of honey they have collected the rest of the year.
The birds that are around and not flown south have to show considerable tenacity to survive the long winter nights. Us humans that have tended to the activity above ground throughout the year have also appreciated the warmth of the indoor spaces. Here we have prepared and shared hot meals, been making handicraft activities such as wreath making, chutney making, knitting and candle making with wax collected from the honey extraction.
We have also been chatting about the year ahead too and making some plans, for what to grow but also to make the site itself be even more welcoming. We have included volunteers and staff from the Wellbeing Centres and likewise from the other PSS project on site Making Days.
The plans will include a repeat of the successful collaboration with Making Days last summer with an activity day of song, food and conversation open for friends family and our neighbours as well as our own Abundance Day. We will very soon be improving the the raised beds to chair height allowing for greater accessibility for those wishing to look after the vegetables.
And now for some exciting news. At PSS there is a Great Ideas Strategy which means that any service can bid for funding for, you guessed it, great ideas. Our volunteers were asked for ideas to develop what we do at Dutch Barn and thanks to their great ideas, this strategy and the funding that's come from our bid, we now have a bbq and pizza oven for any and all outdoor events that we hope to organise! Hooray! And we'll share more about new developments at the Barn thanks to this funding in future posts.
Making Days has enlisted the help of a ‘environmental consultant’ to help with some longer term developments on the site such as a raspberry hedge and compostable toilet so much food for thought.
Meanwhile we can report that our pond is teaming with life as the frogs have returned again this year to create masses of frogspawn. 22 pairs of mating frogs were spotted one day in a non-stop week of activity. And here is some of the result!
We've never seen anything like it - well done to all involved!
The pond is already teeming with tadpoles...
and will soon be teeming with these -
