Horses, Hedges and Hideaways… and naked chickens

The weather is upon us, and no mistake. Today has actually provided a brief sunny respite from driving rain, but the sky-water is due to return tomorrow, and it will mostly rain for the next week or two (or month or six, this being Wales...) We managed to get some good preparation in for winter...

Arrivals and Departures

Last time I posted, summer was coming in, and the meadows were full of flowers. Now it's fading, and the flowers are giving way to berries, though not quite the glorious crop we had last year. We've seen our indefatigable volunteer, Ieuan, establish himself almost overnight as a kind of French-speaking, tea-making sweary farm installation,...

Another (Long) Overdue Update

Those of you who follow us on Twitter (@Meddwl_Coed) or on Facebook know we never really went away, but this site has been neglected. I guess Jo did get distracted, as did we all. Setting up a smallholding continues to be a busy process, as we lurch from one project to another, frequently tripping over...

Impatience and Distraction

These are my two big failings as a gardener, and I was thinking about them today as I realised we'd lost the redcurrants after harvesting only a handful of early ones. A few days ago, the main redcurrant tree was full of lovely redcurrants. Now it is empty. And the reason it's empty is because...

Great Escapes Updated – On Board the Pony Access Express!

Brilliant news - thanks to some very generous donations we have already raised over £200 to put towards funding our Pony Access carts! *dances around with glee, scares the ducks* So we've decide to expand the fundraising target to £700 - you can donate any amount, big or small, on https://ko-fi.com/nantymeillion . We will be...

Great Escapes!

We have two new ponies at Nantymeillion and yesterday they precipitated a mass horse breakout. Followed, as soon as we had fixed the gate Mal had kicked down (yes, we know it was Mal, even if he is Heather's golden boy), by another mass breakout. Followed almost as soon as we had rounded them up...

An Overdue Update – What’s Been Going On at Nantymeillion?

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. After I promised faithfully to blog more I promptly dropped off the face of the Internet. Partly this is due to connection problems at the Meddwl Coed house which have since been resolved, and partly because I've been just too darn tired with all the fresh...

Meet Ed!

This is Ed. Ed is our first farm animal if you don't count The Ungardeners and their "help". He's a small draft cob with great big feet like Pan from Pan's Labyrinth, and he will be helping is with harrowing and mowing and general pulling things about the farm. As we're trying to avoid using...

On The Move!

Good news, everyone! We are moving from our current base in Bristol next Thursday - that's a week today (eek!). We will be moving to Ammanford, only a ten minute drive from our lovely Nantymeillion, so we will be able to be up there every day planting and building and creating our long-awaited future. It...

A Chilly Weekend at Nant-y-Meillion – Picture Post *

We camped out at Nant-y-Meillion last Sunday night. We were intending to stay Monday night as well, but as the temperatures plummeted from a positively balmy -1 down to a rather nippy -6 and we began trying to work out if we could sledge all the way from field 5 to Richard's farm further down...