On Saturday we celebrated National Tree Week by planting an orchard with the help of the Smile Project. Despite the dreadful forecast we were blessed with a rain-free day, and as such were able to plant the majority of our new orchard, as well as doing other wood-related activities. Thanks to the Tree Council, and…
We are looking forward to celebrating National Tree Week on November 24th by welcoming the Smile project back to Manna. We have been generously given funding by the Tree Council to plant an orchard, so the Smile families are returning to help us plant the trees. We have a day of fun planned including craft…
We are harvesting the bountiful crops this hot summer has blessed us with. We have had absolutely mountains of tomatoes thanks to the months of sunshine, and are now frantically processing them into pasta for winter soups. We are also in the midst of spinning out and potting up honey which looks to be a…
Leah our shy ewe successfully gave birth to 2 beautiful boys last weekend. However, early issues with feeding meant some human intervention involving James milking a sheep at 2am into a syringe and playing daddy!
So we have 4 lambs from last year and hopefully more on the way in 6 weeks time. While trying to behave like pretend farmers it seems we have failed on the not-getting-to-attached front. This particular lamb is a gannet and will do anything for food including taking on horned adult males, and accepting hugs…
We have been given a beautiful spinning wheel from a lovely elderly neighbour which for weeks has just been a pleasure to look at. But this weekend marked the beginning of our Jacob fleece being turned into real wool ready for knitting. Admittedly the first attempt led to something I can only describe as furry…
We have spent the past couple of weeks cutting down lots of willow whips in part to encourage more to grow next year, but really so we could create some interesting things from them. The dome will hopefully take root and be covered in foliage next year, and with a seat will offer a space…
Following the success of the Smile Project visiting Manna the Bournemouth Echo have published a half page spread all about the day, thanks to photographer Ruth Argles who submitted an excellent report and photo. To have such early publicity is amazing and we are really grateful to all involved in making this happen.
We have been busy this week with learning how to create a ‘living hedge’. 3 years ago we planted a number of willow whips which grew into willow trees. And these have been transformed into a willow hedge thanks to some very energetic help from one of our volunteers.