Plas Nant

I feel that I need to write more about the WWOOF hosts Tom and I visited on our trip, and the experiences we had from it. One of my favourites was Plas Nant in Abergywngregyn, North Wales. Plas Nant was also to be our last WWOOF placement so I have a separate attachment to it for this reason. On the surface Plas Nant is just a 2 acre garden with chickens and a veg plot but what proves to be is an up and coming forest garden with an established permaculture infrastructure, all done on a steep north facing slope overlooking the sea. It has a bleakness about it which I really enjoy but in a balmy may it was a wonderland of the old and new of ideas. It was an encouraging place to be.

I had seen permaculture projects on a few occasions by this point but on a larger scale. I had not seen it in action on the small scale. Here the water was taken out of the stream that ran past the house to the sea, filtered to make it drinkable. A compost toilet nestled in the corner of the shed. A real want to learn about how the land worked and the utilisation of this in vegetable production. The use of local resources such as leaf mould from the adjacent ancient oak woodland and forest garden. Johnny the garden's main keeper was thoroughly excited by his new polyculture bed in which the seeds were yet to germinate.

With an extra 1.5 acres of land above the house which is rented from his neighbour, Johnny has been able to extend his experiments further up the mountain and into more sunlight. Here he is replanting the hedgerows, cultivating a larger forest garden as well as maintaining the wildness and the wisdom of this land.

It was here that Tom and I got to learn one of the more exciting skills that WWOOFing can offer, dry stone walling. The jobs leading up this is point were classic WWOOF jobs, clearing brambles, shifting wood and mulching along side some building work like raspberry cane frames, a herb spiral and steps leading up to a bridge.

Being that Plas Nant is situated is on the edge of Snowdonia it is surround by farms that are still divided up by the stone walls that have been in place for hundreds of years. A couple of sections of the wall on this rented land had started to fall down and we were given the job of rebuilding one of these sections led by Johnny who gave us instruction.

We removed the stones that were fallen all around into size order so that one, we could see at a glance what stones we had and two, we had clear access to the wall. To build a stone wall its strength, as with most things, lies in having a good foundation. Massive stones are laid whilst others are placed on top as the stones, seemingly effortlessly, bridge any gaps and lock in with each other.

It amazed and amazes me still that every stone you pick up will some how fit into the right place. you may just need to change or adapt the original plan for that one stone. Some advice that was given to me from Pete at Trigonos is that with 'every stone you pick up, you put it on the wall'. Don't put it to one side thinking that it would be better somewhere else. Just place it somewhere and it will just work. Once Tom and I had sorted out a strong foundation which some gigantic stones the whole wall just seemed to build itself.

At Plas Nant I really felt strong, strong in my body, lifting lumps from granite around was a good indication of this, strong in my confidence in the skills i had gained. Confident in my knowledge and strong in my socialbility - going to live with a different person every other week is a sometime daunting process for me, thoughts of ' what if they are freaks' often entered my head but that lessened considerabley when I learnt that I could deal and more importantly enjoy most freaks being somewhat freakish myself.

Johnny and Jo were brilliant hosts, we stayed in a little dedicated WWOOFer 'hut' at the bottom of the garden, they cooked good food and a lot of it, had a warm and inviting home a wonderful dog, swings that swing out to beautiful North Walian sunsets and a beautiful ethos on life it was a delightful stay.

Jo, Tom and I had a rare experience together when we were out in an ancient oak woodland waiting for badgers. This oak woodland, adjacent to their house is unfortunately grazed by sheep which means that a lot of flora and fauna is munched away before it gets a chance at life. Sheep don't eat bluebells though and between the slender dancing trees lay a thick carpet of them.

To spot badgers in the wild you need to be quiet, still and down wind of them for them to even venture out of their setts. They come out at dusk to hunt and this is the best time to see them. I think that we must have been too smelly and with the wind blowing our scent straight into the sett that they didn't poke their noses out of the sett. Whilst we stood in our motionless silence we heard a patter of what sounded like raindrops on the leaves above but the blazing sun had just set after a bright, clear day, there is no way that the sound was rain. It had to have been the bluebells closing up their petals for the night.