Our lonely pig Octavia has found herself suddenly kicked out of her palatial home and grounds, and into a smaller field with makeshift arc, to make way for a herd of 8 new pigs. They're a very rowdy bunch and full of lice and worms (and God knows what else) and are very malnourished. The renegade 8 were found abandoned in a nearby car park last week by our neighbour farmer John,but with no ear tags, it was impossible to trace where they came from. John had no room on his farm so we decided to home them. Judging by the state of them (I've never seen protruding spines, ribs and hip bones on pigs) I guess whoever had them didn't know what was involved in keeping them or just didn't care. I think they are actually mico-pigs. Not the cute ones everyone imagines mico-pigs to be, but the things they grow into. They are smaller than most pigs but still above knee high and pretty ugly! They are 'micro-pigs' because they breed runts with runts, ie. the unhealthiest in the litter of any breed. You can see in these ones bits of Tamworth, Saddleback and maybe a bit of Berkshire or Large Black. It could be that someone stole a couple, thinking they could breed them and make a ton of money. A rare breed pig like our British Lop, bought as a weaner, costs about £60. Mico-pigs cost about £600! However, unless you have registered the pigs and have them ear tagged, you can't sell them on or take them to slaughter. You can't even legally move them without the right paper work. The animal welfare people at DEFRA have let us register these pigs with our own herd mark so we can legally move them and take them to slaughter when the time comes (if I can get them healthy enough).

In the mean time, the BBC are coming up to Lawson Park with their cameras, so who knows, maybe someone watching will identify the rogue owner!

Wolmsley Cricket Pavilion - for real

A recent dinner in Norwich with my favourite nature guru Richard Mabey brought to my attention a utopian cricket ground that could influence our own endeavours to revision the home of cricket in our local village of Coniston: Sir Paul Getty's 'cottage ornee' cricket pavilion set in the heart of the woods of the Chilterns (that's the bit soon to be changed by high-speed rail).

We won't quite have Getty's budget but we may well have his gumption.

The annual seminar organised by Tate was hosted by Grizedale Arts throughout Coniston using the Coniston Institute, St Andrews Church, Brantwood, the Waterhead Hotel, Coniston launch and our headquarters at Lawson Park farm.

On the Wednesday evening the main hall of the Coniston Institute provided the backdrop for a grand dinner of 34 people comprising the directors of the Plus Tate group and the local “villager elders” who have been consistently volunteering over the last year towards the restoration of the historic Institute.

The dispersed nature of the seminar, was used to demonstrate the concept of the Village as Institution using what might be termed the Civic Framework, people and all, as the site for the conference. This is turn works to build a collective, social resource rather than a simple venue hire or site visit – using the village like one might use a work of art.

Throughout the three days the delegates ate menus that were made entirely from local produce and artists projects including local venison, Lawson Park pork, St James’ and Ruskin Blue cheese, wild grouse, Kathrin Bohm’s sauerkraut and Lawson Park grown vegetables and so on. Particularly popular were the dessert contributions of trifle, chocolate cake and lemon meringue pie created especially for the Tate by the village.

This project is about bringing coppice workers and contemporary designers together to develop a series of new products for local production and distribution.

The workshop programme offers coppice workers the opportunity to works with contemporary designers to develop affordable and locally produced furniture.

If you are a coppice worker or designer, please get in touch for more information on taking part in the 5 day design workshops. They run from Friday 17^th – Tuesday 21^st February 2012.

SATURDAY 18th February

Join us for a full day of  demonstrations, discussions and a conference on craft, design and the Utility Scheme.

10am – 2.30pm

A morning of demonstrations and talks at Witherslack Studios, led by Charlie Whinney.  You will meet the coppice workers and designers working collaboratively on New Green Wood Work designs.

3pm – 7pm

Conference at Blackwell, Arts and Crafts house in Windermere.

With talks from:

Dr Kathy Haslam (Blackwell’s Curator) - The philosophy and politics of the Arts & Crafts Movement and its contemporary relevance.

Ray Leigh (chairman of the Gordon Russell Trust, and former Design Director and Managing Director of Gordon Russell Ltd) – Gordon Russell and the Utility Scheme.

Keynote speech by product designer, Michael Marriott.

Questions and panel led open forum

Saturday 25^th – Sunday 26^th February

Green Wood Working Weekend - follow up production workshops

10am – 5pm

Weekend workshop in collaboration with Brantwood Estate where we will be making from scratch, items designed in the Witherslack workshops.

For more information of to book a place, please email maria@grizedale.org or call 015394 41050

Bee buddies

Our Beemaster General, guru David Walmsley, kicks off a new season of bee-keeping classes on 4 Thursday evenings (7.30-9pm) at Greenodd Village Hall near Ulverston, from March 8th - 29th 2012.
If you are very nice to him he might even be able to fix you up with a hive of bees, and believe me they're rarer than a sunny day at Lawson Park.

Call 01539 721501 for more info and booking.

Many thanks to the hardy locals who joined us to plant some new trees yesterday - 24 x cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera) at the rear of the Paddies, and 6 silver birches (Betula pendula) at the foot of the Meadow, to counteract the exposure caused by Brantwood's recent felling of their mature woodland on our boundary.
Luckily, the rain only started once we were all safely back indoors consuming our festive lunch.

Many thanks to the hardy locals who joined us to plant some new trees yesterday - 24 x cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera) at the rear of the Paddies, and 6 silver birches (Betula pendula) at the foot of the Meadow, to counteract the exposure caused by Brantwood's recent felling of their mature woodland on our boundary.
Luckily, the rain only started once we were all safely back indoors consuming our festive lunch.

Ray Davies & Adam Sutherland squabble over the mic

Ray Davies managed to make it to the Coniston Institute for the performance of his 'Child's Play' last night!

A great weekend in Coniston Institute highlighting much of the art, craft and local produce from the village and surrounding area. Overall, the weekend made £4,000 and raised over £400 for the Conistion Institute redevelopment fund. The Grizedale Arts handmade ceramic Christmas decorations sold very well this year, though we got a slapped wrist for the hand grenade. Weirdly, no one complained about the Marcus Coates animal turd decorations! The best sellers were the things that looked most homemade and it seemed there was a preference for the handwritten sticker as opposed to the properly printed and designed label. Bringing so much local production together highlighted just how much is missing from the shops in this area. It's crazy to see shops selling honey from China when there is some amazingly tasty honey produced locally which flew off the shelves at the Fair. 

Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm' just keeps going

At Lawson Park garden there are a few valiant plants still flowering through the recent hurricanes, worth listing here because as the saying goes 'if it works here it'll work anywhere'. Unlike the last two Novembers we have yet to see a hard frost:

Caltha palustris (the marsh marigold - one of the first flowers here and determined to be the last), clematis 'Black Prince' (pruned very late hence flowering very late), buddleia weyerania (a yellow globular form of the butterfly bush), prunus subhirtella autumnalis (a cherry), annual marigolds (calendula) and rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm', and irrepressible yellow daisy-like perennial (pictured).

Good autumn colour in the form of bark, berries etc is found in cornus alba (common dogwood), salix alba vitillina (yellow willow), stephanandra tanakae (a Japanese shrub we have grown from seed). Viburnum opulus (our native guelder rose) keeps its beautiful red berries much longer than anything else.

David Watt who ran one of the few useful shops in the village, just recently passed away. He ran the hardware shop and though he seemed to specialise in dog leads, he always had some magical item that you never knew you needed until you entered his shop. One of the last thing we bought from him was a cable peanut! Everyone seemed to warm to him and even just catching a glimpse of him walking his dog would put you in a nicer mood. He will be greatly missed by the village and by all of us.

The Christmas lights are all up an on in Coniston now and look fantastic (if a little creepy!) A surprising number of people came along to the switch on, nearly 200, which was well above my pessimistic guesstimate of 20.   Richard Ryan, Manager of the Blackpool Illuminations was due to switch on the lights but as he was stuck in traffic, and with people getting bored of mulled wine very quickly, we had one of our favourite local ladies, Margaret Proctor, switch on the lights for us and pose for press photos. We were handed the job of organising the Christmas Lights from a committee of local women who have done this for 11 years. We have been quite anxious about their response to all the changes we have made but fortunately for us, they are very happy with them! Richard arrived just before everyone disappeared into the pub or to dominos night (one of the biggest club nights in Coniston!) so he was able to give his talk on Christmas Lights and the Blackpool Illuminations. We had bought a couple of lights from him and the big Peace on Earth sign, he told us, was originally made for a Robson Green Christmas pop video! 

Hoping this will be us soon!

These last few months waiting, getting excited about the new arrivals and now we discover that Octavia our pig is no longer pregnant. It seems likely that she was pregnant as she stopped coming into season after being served by a boar back in July. This would have made her due next week but because her mammary glands never developed, we have had to come to the conclusion that she lost her litter. From talking to Carole Barr, whose boar we borrowed to cover Octavia, she must have re-absorbed her pregnancy. This sounds quite gruesome but actually it makes sense for mammals that produce large numbers of offspring. If there's a problem with say just one embryo, rather than the whole litter being aborted, that one embryo can be reabsorbed into the body and the others can carry on to full-term.

From looking online, it doesn't seem that uncommon for a pig to lose her litter this way, but in proper pig business this translates financially as 'empty days' and the aim is to minimise empty days. This is done by either slaughtering the unproductive animal or taking it back to the boar as soon as the re-absorbtion is discovered. Fortunately we don't have to think in these terms as she's not our cash cow, so I think we will minimise her empty days by getting another grower in to keep her company. We'll take her to the boar soon and aim for a spring litter.

Seventeen volunteers showed up on Tuesday to get stuck into more revamping of Coniston Institute. The kitchen was the priority. Since the new units were put in a few weeks ago, we hadn't had a chance to add the finishing touches like putting up shelves and deciding which cupboard for cups and which for plates and where we should keep the tea towels. It's all looking great and working so we're looking forward to cooking a big thank you dinner for all the volunteers, committee members and funders.

We also had a massive clear-out of a general hoard found squatting in the basement. The mouse-nibbled shuttlecocks, broken Christmas decorations, rotting curtains and paint brushes gone hard, filled a trailer and three cars. 

Then came the rubble.... a wall has come down to make a once overflowing storage room and dark corridor into a beautiful new library.... update to follow.

...As the rain lashes the window on a Friday night, I find myself wondering if Barry White was much of a gardener?

Anyhoo, I'm posting to remind you that the Grizedale garden at Lawson Park opens next year to you - the public - for charidee (the National Garden Scheme, it's prestigious don't you know).

The big cakes and all date is SUNDAY SEPT. 2ND 2012 - save the date now and order your waterproofs.

But you can also contact me if you're in the area another time and if I'm around you'll be most welcome.

A north-east wards view of the bog and upper Farmhouse Garden, Nov. 2011

... so make the most of it.

During recent rainy weather a nice local signwriter has been at last inscribing our Library Manifesto on an interior wall.

It's all very clever, with maintenance info I can update for future LP gardeners, pictures and even notes on edibility. I promise that one day we will publish it. Promise.

It's all very clever, with maintenance info I can update for future LP gardeners, pictures and even notes on edibility. I promise that one day we will publish it. Promise.

On Monday we took delivery of this fine Rietdale Chair made by Harvey Wilkinson, former curator at Blackwell. The chair is a hybrid of the 1917 Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld and the Eskdale school of woodcarving, produced by itinerant craftsmen in the valley of Eskdale in the English Lake District around the same time.  The Eskdale woodcarvers were never recognised as a movement or driving force in arts and crafts , yet their extraordinary designs in carved oak offer a proto-modernist version of design evolved in this remote valley, like some lost evolutionary offshoot.

Harvey has not created this piece as an art joke, but as a genuine improvement on what he sees as a slightly clunky attempt at a chair. The frame is built in beech, the arms in oak and the seat and back in ply. The edition of ball and ring turning to the legs is conceived to give the whole thing 'lift' in the traditional manner.  Further models with material variations are to be developed and it is surprisingly comfortable.