Woody hits 550 for 3

A sceptic silenced

Born in 1951, in Sheffield, left in a field in Silves for the last two years, filled accidentally with sand, soaked in acid, Woody has had a hard life. Woody is a Rayburn that was brought over from England and used for a winter then left outside.
Owl bewailed that I actually handed over money for it. Two weeks taking sand out of it (someone accidentally tipped 4 cubic metres over it), removing the plates and dipping them into acid, scrubbing the outside, it was time to fire it up.
Spluttering into life with smoke everywhere, Owl left with a frown and a shake of her head.


My secretarial team enjoying the new office heating


Two hours later and three small logs, the oven gauge was moving quickly. Up and up to 550 f. (old English speak for nearly 400 celcius!!). All the cast iron bonded together to stop any leaks and yours truly sat in front with a smile.

Three loaves and bean burgers later, the royal sceptic apologised!!

Busy Bees

Lighting the Match

The real meaning of climate change is that Mother Nature is ready to rid the world of carbon burning humans and we must defend ourselves with smart weapons, harmless tools. This means amongst other things embracing genetically modified foods and even nuclear power.

With seven billion people on this world, are we are now the monoculture? Growing one mass crop in the same place eventually fails - take the Irish potato famine or increasingly virelent orange tree diseases as examples. Imagine this if it crosses over to our increasing cattle class population. Like the dieing palm trees in the Algarve, will humans have to walk around with a permanent anti biotic drip attached to our arms?

But heck, cheer up. As usual Stuart has the solution. Breath deeply, walk lightly, speak kindly and love deeply, oh yes and build a green house.



Last week a shade area, this week the front bows of Noah's Ark


Filled with tomatoes, onions, lettuce, beetroot, nabo, we are ready for our journey through winter and the worst economic depression this century.


Another part of our Ark. Two new compost loos, more rainfall catchment and a look out point for the western boundaries. Thanks to Joe and Nattai for lots of hard work.



JNs new garden and shade area. A carbon neutral landscape

And lighting the match? Fusion power, generating power by fusing atoms together, rather than splitting them, would be totally green, cheap and infinite, if it worked. America is ready to test the first model. This is called laser confinement fusion. If they get ignition by firing a laser at a fuel pellet, then the surface of the pellet will be blown off sending a shockwave inwards that will fuse its atoms and emit a pulse of energy.
We may be a monoculture, but a darm smart one.

Winter arrives

Finally we have to escape from the tipi as the nights sink to 15 degrees. Warm days and windy nights, shorter days and spicier food, firewood to stack and thick hearty soups and stews to make........ agghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! Roll on summer but roll off heat, sleepless nights and moon bathing.



Preparing for the annual burning of the tipi



Wild guns. Two new helpers, Joe and Nattai are racing ahead with the new two compost heap three solar shower bird gallery





Not a quick job, but the back wall we will use as a competition zone