We met up with one of the long term volunteers first thing this morning – I do know his name but he is Polish and while I can just about say it I wouldn’t even know which letters to start using to spell it so I won’t try! We went round with him and fed all the animals, letting the chickens out and gathering eggs, taking Benji the goat round to the field, feeding the pigs Little Gertie and Pigasus and the four sheep; Rambo Lamboghini, Skywalker, Moonwalker and Blueberry, fighting off Silver the pony who wanted both the sheep and pigs food and then reporting to Tanya for some work for the day.
Tanya and Michael (the farm managers) were off for the day to play at a Spring Equinox celebration at Wells so she left us with a choice of various tasks we could choose some or all of to do along with an invite to follow them to Wells for the music instead if we wanted. We don’t seem to be being fed much but the expectation on us is very small so it all balances out.
From the list we chose to do some wood chopping and sawing and some brash burning with D&S doing the fire lighting for that. At 1130 four teens from the local school who are excluded or in need of some special measures arrived with their teacher so we joined them for some forest school type stuff where they get to drive the tractor and trailer (we had to leap on the back while it was moving, great fun 🙂 ), load the trailer up with wood from the woodland, build and start a fire to burn some brash and so on. To be honest none of them were remotely interested in any of it, they skived off to the toilet for about 15 minutes of their alloted hour, skulked around and refused to gather firewood or carry logs and all produced a lighter each when it came to firelighting time.
There was another woman there who we assumed was another teacher but she then said actually no she was part of the local beekeeping association who have some hives on the land here. She said to me ‘I’ve seen you here before’ and looked very confused when I said no, we’d only arrived on Sunday then asked where we were from. When I said Worthing she then said that was where she knew me from and asked what school I went to. It turned out she’d been the year above me right through infant, middle and senior school from 5 to 16! I remembered her name but couldn’t picture a face to go with it but she remembered both my name (once I’d said it) and my face. I guess my hair colour makes me memorable. Small world 🙂
We stayed round the fire for a hot chocolate and sausage cooked over the fire and then decided to head into Glastonbury so changed shoes and gathered rucksacks incase we bought anything. It’s about a 20 minute walk but up the hill and then down again so tough on the knees, especially recovering from Steward Wood hill knees like ours ;). Glastonbury High Street is like no other high street I’ve ever been to with only Boots the Chemist in terms of chains of stores. All the rest are crystals, tarot, healing, alternative stuff, clothing, health food and so on. We trawled the charity shops hoping for some alternative type stuff second hand but aside from a couple of cool t shirts for Tarly we found nothing and the actual clothes shops although gorgeous were out of our budget. We got a cake from the bakers to eat and then wandered back to the farm again very slowly, pausing to sit awhile on a bench and ponder bird language.
Back at the farm we tackled the last job on the list of taking down a section of fence and then Ady and I had baths before I put the kids tea on. We went round and fed and put away all the animals including taking Benji back to his yard which Davies and Scarlett are proving very good at – they have fallen in love and goat is currently topping their wish list of pets :). We were offered dinner but already had it sorted for tonight.
Tanya came to visit us to check we were okay and said we can have some of the farm sausages tomorrow for tea :). It’s a Volunteer Day tomorrow so more people will be around taking on bigger group tasks and catering is laid on.
We watched a film in the van til the laptop battery died, had dinner and now my laptop battery is about to die too so that is it for tonight. Another good day, more stuff learnt and another place we’ve never visited before ticked off our list :).
I bet Scarlett is loving the animals there 🙂 Sounds lovely and after the last 2 weeks of loads of work, a bit of a lighter load will no doubt be a welcome relief!
Comment by Kirsty — 23 March 2011 @ 5:07 pm
Imagining your knees groaning when you saw that Tor!
Love Pigasus. Must tell C.
Comment by michelle — 25 March 2011 @ 1:59 pm