Hello Internet! We are, again, well overdue a Tinkers update, so here we finally are. Depending on your perspective, much has changed since the last update, or very little has. Tinkers has a way of remaining very much its’ own thing despite the various human comings-and-goings and shifts to our routines. Winter arrives in the way it always does, and we’ve comfortably dropped in to the cosyness of a quiet volunteer-free January after our traditional Christmas/Solstice community meal and jigsaw, and trips away to various families and the Oxford Real Farming Conference. We are now all back on the land, re-gathering ourselves and our energy, with a sense of a fairly successful year behind us and a good foundation as we start to look ahead to seed-sowing and summer plans.
We’ve had a full-feeling community over the last few months, with a good group of long-termers joining for winter. Since October, this has been the most well and nicely active Tinkers has felt since I arrived here 4 years ago, with the comfortable bustle that happens once we get up to 10+ people, with volunteers and guests added in on top. Tasks get distributed more easily, with more hands and more interests, and various stresses disappear that were more present over the summer and in previous years, when fewer of us were living here. But the ease that comes from that shift also brings other dynamics, including the cultural changes that come with an influx of new energy, and the need to build new relationships. We’re in a healthy place with that at the moment, with a good collective attitude to community dynamics, decision-making, and communication. It strikes me when I visit other communities and talk to folks involved in these projects that Tinkers is in a remarkable good phase at the moment, enjoying a time of relative ease and positive energy. In my engagement with the Communities Conference I have conversations with members of various different communities, and many of the strains that can make these spaces stressful to live in are refreshingly absent here at the moment. Of course, not everyone here would agree with that all the time, so I’ll leave it to them to write the next update!
Despite my positivity, the wellness can feel fairly flimsy. Bobby and I are both leaving in April, Bobby for a 6-month sabbatical and me for an attempt at a PhD at the University of Sheffield (currently depending on funding). This leaves just Nina, Richard and Kamran as the long-term committed residents, although Ree, Ged and 6-year-old Orchid (plus horses and chickens) have now been involved on-and-off for over a year and are likely to be around for much of the foreseeable future. All our current long-termers are considering staying on, and we will soon be welcoming Gill (previously a veg grower at the community on Erraid) for the growing season. There is plenty of support and fresh energy in this potential new wave of residents, but longer-term responsibilities for the place, including the administrative burdens, management decisions, and deeply significant blog posts, land on only a few. I’ve been holding some of those responsibilities for the last few years and feel confident that they will be in good hands after I leave, but it is easier to feel that way whilst shedding the workload, and leaving others to lean into the strain!
A significant change of routine has been the arrival of our steam engine after four years of absence. It is now re-installed in its’ previous home, within a newly built hand-hewn timber framed house. The sawbench has been running again, and Ree and Ged have been extracting timber from the woods with their horses. It feels important to have this part of our work back alive. It integrates well with how we manage our mature Douglas Fir woodland, it provides us with an income, and with building material. As we get our milling skills honed again, we’ll be producing fence posts and waney-edged board to allow us to repair the various rotting and leaking structures that have suffered from the engine’s absence. We’ll also have stock available for sale, so get in touch if that is of interest.
Another change in our lifestyle has been the absence of dairy animals for the first time in six years. With Meg, our main dairywoman, leaving back in the spring, Nina and I felt that we’d rather focus on growing vegetables and free ourselves from the routine of milking. In hindsight this was a good decision, with a tricky growing season impacted by various unusual weather dynamics and gardens that produced more slugs than vegetables. In the meantime our milk is delivered twice a week by local dairyman Pete, who has a herd of forty cattle. This has felt to me to be a good compromise between the attitudes of self-sufficiency and local relationship. There have been wonderings about the possibility of getting goats again, and pigs were talked about briefly in the summer, but for now our livestock is just chickens and Ree and Ged’s three horses.
We’ve hosted our usual mix of events, including monthly summer volunteer afternoons, two residential gardening weekends, and our annual open day. This year we also took part in the Somerset Arts Week - Meg, Nina, and Kamran all created pieces that were displayed on the land. Artistic creativity has often felt blocked here, amidst the mud and pressures of land-work. Although various crafts have been produced by many over the years, this more artistic flourishing can feel out of reach. To create and host as a community like this has been a significant step into something more generative and collectively expressive, and has allowed us to explore a different facet of the way that we relate to the land, building on some of our residents' creative background.
Amidst these annual considerations, we’ve also been talking more about what we will do in the woodland and orchards to set up the management cycles that will impact Tinkers in decades to come. Last winter we planted around 400 oak and chestnut trees, and have dealt with a lot of older trees compromised by disease. With the sawmill and horse-logging operating again, this winter will be more focussed on felling commercial-grade softwood, and managing the areas of re-plant and coppice that we already have.
That’s it for news! If you’re interested in visiting us over the coming year then keep an eye on the events page on our website. We’ll probably plan various summer volunteering opportunities and have these publicised there in the spring. We’ll also be involved with the Green Scythe Fair and the UK Communities Conference. In the meantime I’ll be handing over blogging responsibilities to others, and hope to have one final post reflecting on my stay here before I leave in April.
コメント