Upcoming Composting and Recycling event!

I shall be at Bishops Wood Environment Centre, nr Stourport, Worcestershire this Sunday 29th March, at a Recycling and Composting Open Day, doing my Master Composter work to help people compost as much of their household waste as possible. There will be lots of us there and it is a busy programme of events! I have been busy helping to organise this event and really hope it goes well.


The timetable is as follows:-

Sunday 29th March 2009 11.0 a.m. – 3.0 p.m.
Timetable of Talks

Compost and Recycling Corner 11.30 a.m. Making Compost (Trevor Bell of WRAP)

12.0 p.m. Permaculture garden _ reusing materials (Wade Muggleton of Worcestershire Countryside Service)

12.30 p.m.Using compost in the garden (Master composter)

1.30 p.m. Bokashi compost systems (Woody Nelson of Bubble House Worms)

2.0 p.m. Recycling question time Panel (Deborah Parker MHDC, Rachel Kennett BDC, Trevor Bell WRAP , Viktoria Salisbury WCC)

2.30 p.m. Worm composting (Richard Fishbourne of Wiggley Wigglers)

Out and About all day.
Friends of Bishops Wood membership and Tombola in the foyer.
Worcester Resource Exchange and Duckworth Trust making mini-beasts from recycled materials in the Rainbow Cabin
Recycling Bus, recycling games and compost clinic on the field
Newstart recycled furniture and Bishops Wood Nursery plant stall on the path

Choose to recycle, re-use or compost at Green Street. Take photos of your family becoming worms, beetles and apple cores in the Giant Compost Bin


at the picnic area under the pylon.


Displays and Young Enterprise Sales stalls in the Woodland Room and Poolside Rooms
Compost Sales in the car-park
Compost(ideal soil improver)£2 per bag (3 for £5)Kindly provided by Severn Waste Services Proceeds in aid of Friends of Bishops Wood


Local Food / Global Recipes Café in the Chestnut Cabin.
Boreley Pig Roast – at the entrance to the field Just follow the delicious smells!)

regarding Bishops Wood Centre

"The centre is located within a 39-hectare site which includes 17 hectares of ancient woodland and a field of 11 hectares which was planted to re-create mixed broadleaf woodland, meadows and other habitats.



Bishops Wood is recognised nationally and internationally for its work in environmental and sustainability education with schools and for its training courses.

Due to the nature of our educational work, regrettably, the Centre is not open to the general public except on our Open Days."

I think Bishops Wood is a WONDERFUL place, very interesting and educational and great fun to visit! I really hope to see some of my blog friends there, so if you DO come to it, please come and say hello to me!

A hormonal Violet Dorking hen

Violet Dorking has gone VERY broody in the last week :-(

She sits all day in the Eglu nest box and is very vocal and aggressive if you try to feel for eggs under her or move her off the nest....and if you DO move her she squats down and "nests" wherever she is....



I have dunked her bum in a bucket of icy water , to try to "snap" her out of being broody..I did this 3 times in the space of one day...but she is STILL broody.

I don't want her to hatch out chicks at the moment as I don't want any more young ones just now, also I have not yet organised the houses for any more chickens or where I will pen them in to be safe and have lots of space and NOT trash my garden!

I plan on putting the chickens out in a big pen in the wood, but not just NOW!

And I don't like the possible option of putting her on fake eggs and letting her sit on them. I don't really want to put her through that for no return of chicks to rear AND she will not lay eggs for a long time.

hm mm will have to put her in a wire bottomed broody pen next, I think!

This cools her "nether regions" down due to the air circulating around...and she has no access to nesting material so it helps to stop the brooding instinct..

She will still have food and water and shelter...just not be able to make a nest and brood in it.

Poor hormonal Violet hen! She only started laying 6 weeks ago so is a classic hormonal teenager....I DO feel sorry for her but I cannot afford to just leave her be as she is disrupting all the other Dorking girls, who also want to lay and sleep in the Eglu...

Sometimes I feel a bit too emotionally involved with my hens...(!) but I am their surrogate mum and *I* have to decide what is best for them all..

Gosh it is like being a parent to 12 teenages at the moment I suspect! ( probably not really but you get the gist of what I mean! ;-)

Hen in the house

Yesterday a friend came round to collect some Master Composter supplies, as she is giving a talk later this week on composting. We had a good old chat, a wander around the garden, a look at my compost bins. A also stayed for lunch, which was a lovely treat for Compostman and I,to have company for lunch!

A was present when THE MOLE incident happened (which I will post about anon)

After she had left, and Compostman had gone to collect Compostgirl from school, I sat down for five mins with a cuppa in the sitting room.

Suddenly I spotted Cathy hen in the doorway and she came into the room and hopped up on my lap! I had left the back door open and she had come in through a hall, the kitchen (past Kitty Cat!) the inner hall and into where I was sitting!

I took her back out to the kitchen, wanting to get her back outside, but she promptly turned the other way into the futility room and started eating the cat food.....



Gosh, she made a mess....see the bits all over the floor?



She did peck them all up, though.... ;-))

She came in several more times yesterday evening and today wandered around the lower bit of kitchen, begging for crumbs...and tried to get through the cat flap into the futility room to get at the cat food I guess?

She follows us around in the garden as well, and comments on all that we do. And she purrs :-)

I think she must be happy!

A very busy Mothering Sunday

a lovely Mothering sunday card for me...



and a picture



and one for Compostman!...



The hens invade the made compost storage bin...looking for worms!



Compostman prunes apple trees in the orchard






and Sidney snoozes the day away under a cloche....

Cat update....

This post is for all the cat lovers out there in the blogosphere, who have wanted to know how the Compost Mansion cats are doing.....here they are in the regular place they sleep in during the day..in Compostgirl's bedroom....


Sidney the lovely puss





Tom Kitten ( nearly Tom Cat, now..) and his sister Tabitha Twitchett





I think the answer has to be...very well indeed!

Kitty Cat was asleep by the Aga, downstairs...he is too senior to join in with huddles on the sofa in Compostgirl's bedroom....he stays in *his* special bed by the warm Aga.....