Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Monday 26 July 2010

A free range, crafty sort of day

Compostgirl had 2 friends over for the day,, today. They went off to free range in the wood all morning, playing games outside before coming in at lunchtime ravenous to demolish homemade/homegrown lunch of sausage rolls, green salad, tomatoes, potato salad, bread, hummous, cheese scones, yogurt and banana bread. (where do children put it all? do they have "hollow legs"?)

They all then decided to watch a film (Night in the Museum 2 - great fun, I recommend it and the first one as good family viewing fun!) and then they came to me requesting "PLEASE will you do some craft things with us!" So we made some stained glass window cards from cellophane and craft card, also some paper fabric which is now drying out to make cards from, next week...them they all ran outside to play in the garden and wood again (yes all by themselves in 3 acres of woodland...!) until their mum came to collect them.

I love the summer holidays when they are like this...a house full of children all playing and just having free range fun! and wanting a bit of creative play workery input from me...now and then!

I must add the site is very well risk assessed and is relatively safe so I don't feel the need to follow the children around and watch their every move, but even so there is a small element of risk involved and yes I am OK with that as it is an essential part of growing up...

I also managed to have a meeting this morning with a friend/business associate about interesting work related stuff, which shows how well the children were occupying themselves!

Am off to bed now, hope every one has had good days, mine was very good indeed...

2 comments:

  1. I have to say it's the one thing I wish I could do with sprog is let him play totally by himself without having mum constantly over his shoulder, but with no sense of danger (and he's a bit of a thrillseeker) it's just impossible to do. Still, he'll be in the Scouts soon and I know he'll love that. He loves tromping in the woods - I'm too boring as I get tired, but he gets his chance from time to time.

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  2. It is very hard to judge when it is OK to let children loose..I don't let CG in the wood alone, I make sure I an "around" if she is down there... but there were three of them this time so I left them to it...but I did insist they stay together (and went down to check they did !) and told them to come to me if anything happened.

    Also as I use the Wood for courses etc I *know* it is reasonably safe to play in, unattended...

    But..it is so hard, with a child who is "challenging" to parent (in what ever way) to know where to hover and when to back off. I know, I have a child like that!

    Only the parent, or an experienced activity leader, could possibly decide.

    I hope your energy levels recover a small bit, soonest.

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Hello! Thank you for reading my blog and for commenting. I try to reply as quickly as I can and I really appreciate your interest in my life and doings here in The Compost Bin.

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