A
Celebration Planting for the Millennium,
or a Forest Festival?
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Hope you enjoy the festival!
November
1996 to April 1997
The celebration at Taliesin was a
brilliant success, thanks to immense voluntary
input.
Godfrey leads the list, but unnumbered others
contributed handsomely.
I reckon 2 dozen
or more put in at least a day (not counting those who came from afar)
in just the build-up
probably more than a dozen put in at least 3 days effort at hard
labour, laying
paths of bark chippings, stripping 150 poles, setting
up six
22-foot tipis
and a 50-foot longhouse,
a green woodwork shelter, a mini-tipi box office, a trapeze setup for
Tim & Karen, etc.
2nd to 5th April, 1997
John Currie came and put up his painted twelve-foot genuine indian tipi, filled it with artifacts, dressed a young lady in full costume, and charmed young and old alike with traditional storytelling. He made the tipi and travelled with his wife, visiting reservations all over North America starting 40 years ago.
People brought tents and built benders, many stayed in the tipis, 13 in mine one night. The place was alive with kids, day and night. A large gang roaming one newmoon starnight found foxfire, the phosphorescent fungus, glowing in the dark woods and ran about bursting into adult fireside gatherings to share and show off their discovery: "Ed, Ed, I've got a stick that glows in the dark! Here, let me put my coat over your head so you can see it glowing!" They soon had found enough so all had a bit. The largest were fist-sized on rotting hazel butts.
On the 1000th night before the
millennium (new moon or thereabouts), Comet Hale/Bopp and countless
stars conspired with tipis lit by firelight within to produce what
must surely be a prize-winning photograph from Simon and the most
enduring image
of the event.
There was music every night, though only programmed
for Wednesday (Treebeard) &Thursday (Two Left Feet). Smoky
longhouse barkchip floor for reel & willowstrip ceilidh.
Other music from Trevor, Karen, Blackie, Blue, Pete, Marco, Andy&Sarah, Mike, Tony, & many others. The last evening was like a family gathering round the kitchen fire, soft music mostly, and a memorable rendition of 'before the deluge' from our landlord & host, Tony (right). "Pay attention to the open sky," and, looking up, there was our guardian comet smiling in the northern starscape.
A number of local folk, previously unconnected with SCW, of whom Ann Goddard shall be representative, just showed up, brought their kids and contributed food, snacks, hard labour, routine tasks, enthusiasm, joy, - everything! Distant folk from London, Stroud, Wales, Tayside, Glasgow/Edinburgh, even. New friends and members, but more important, folk from Stranraer, Lockerbie, Lochmaben, Dumfries. Folk from the heart of Galloway: Glenkens, Urrdale, Gatehouse, Laurieston, Auchencairn, Gelston, Corsock, KPD, CD and Craigmath!
The catering
was a major success, supervised by Sam
& Monty with over 700 meals served, 120
at lunch on the Thursday. This is without counting innumerable
snacks, dishes washed up, coffee, tea and cocoa on at most hours.
There was bread from two magnificent ovens & Monty had kids
queueing for hours with their pitta bread and cheese pasties.
Reinhart &
Sophie's clay oven built on an inverted willow
catenary form worked a treat, and Jason
built a stone oven
clagged with clay & cowdung and turfed
over. Both gave excellent service including bread in many forms,
baked tatties, baked onions, apple crumble for thirty, and a haunch
of venison. On top of that, campfire chips & apple fritters and
the kitchen tipi's output, there was tarjeen cookery from Michael
Mosse with chicken, fish and veggie dishes, all output in sufficient
quantities to have leftovers (sometimes, some things) Loaves
and fishes, the miracle constantly repeated.
Jon Barrett was brilliant at providing access to green woodworking techniques for dozens of kids and Stuart Morrison did two days as well. Charcoal John (Rippon) was up off and on through two nights after single-handedly chainsawing and splitting the whole kilnfull. We had the best cooking fuel available for the second half of the celebrations.
Mike
Gardener (and collaborators) built a corragh about twelve foot by
five out of hazel
and calico coated with bitumen (as were many helpful young hands!)
The maiden voyage on the pond had Mike at helm with an arkfull of
kids and rough oars.
A huge gang of adults & other kids lined
the shore, pushing them back out when the breeze blew them ashore. In
all, there were many
boatfulls of kids, the last with Godfrey at helm late on the
final day.
Trevor
& Lizzie built a most beautiful willow
form shelter with thatched roof and living walls, to remain and
grow into its place by the burn.
There were classes
in basketmaking, young folks made charcoal in the campfires and then
used it for drawing, the kids' final long monoprints turning into
eight foot paper totem poles.
Andy Hirst brought his portable
sawmill and produced beautiful slabs for bench seating among other
work and demonstration of what locally added value can mean. We were
given a lot of good wholesome food, a lorry load of bark chippings
from Howie's and help from John Baird, with two tractors to
distribute the bark around the site and re-inforce the pond dam. Very
sincere thanks are due to Vanessa
Morris, who contributed her skills and contacts as Crafts
Development Officer to support many of the activities and her
physical self for general labour as well. Thanks to ERDF/DGC/DGE for
funding her post.
Ironically, no trees (or very few) were planted. Forest Authority and ESA rules seem to be in conflict and timeous approval was not agreed. We are planning to plant in the autumn, possibly October Holidays, subject to Beaurocratic OK. Also, due mostly to bureaucratic delays, we have yet to secure our Millennium Forest funding, but are assured it is imminent. This is also partly down to delays on our part in plan preparation and presentation. Too busy doing things to do plans? Perhaps one more meeting...?
6th April until ..
We might have anticipated difficulty in clearing up, but on the day after, a squad of fifteen or more exhausted folk made a brave effort, dismantling most of the structures, re-locating the kitchen tipi to a semi-permanent site with the potential of gravity-fed spring water, and most agreed to meet in a week to finish. A week later, a full turnout, minus the long-haul folk finished removing unwanted paths, stacking poles and general tidying, leaving Taliesin very much alive in the Springtime, Sam in temporary residence to keep an eye on things. The bog myrtle is flowering after a real showing from the old wych elm, bluebells leafing, tadpoles wriggling, herons drooling, foxes patrolling, among the many other really wild folk. What a lot of community spirit!
Some deer damage evident on existing
young trees, but not fatal. Amazing there are no rabbits! Traveller
John's dog catches some in the farm fields further up, but he says he
ain't seen any at Taliesin, more worried about adders. Maybe rabbits
don't like bracken?
Of the peanuts & sunflower seeds I
put out in one of the beeches a fortnight ago, the peanuts were gone,
but not until after a week. New peanuts & some seeds put out
today Only saw one red squirrel myself the whole time. John says
there is one dead on a forestry track. Buzzards common. Coal tits,
others. A large area of FE Potterland, overlooking Taliesin seems to
be a naturally regenerating mix of larch and birch, about 3:1 larch.
The large former hazel coppice area at the bottom is almost dead of
conifer shade. Thanks for the firewood.
copyright (c) Ed
Iglehart, for SCWT 16/04/97
"Pay attention to the open sky,
Let the buildings keep our children dry,
Let Creation reveal
its secrets,
Bye and bye,"
Jackson Browne, 'Before the Deluge'
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