Welcome! Moors Wood is a small private woodland owned and managed by Sarah and Ian Blenkinsop as a nature reserve and as a sustainably managed source of various wood products.

Sarah is a freelance Environmental Educator, Lecturer and Forest School Leader. Based at her own site at Moors Wood, Sarah provides fun natural/recycled craft workshops; play or storytelling sessions; eco themed parties; workshops on food preservation, setting up an organic garden, setting up a composting area or keeping chickens; or training courses in various woodcraft and play skills. These services are available for adults and/or children. Sarah is also very happy to come to you and deliver any of the above, or to give talks to groups.

Follow the links to find out more about what is on offer. Please click on the photos if you need to make them larger. Also visit Sarah's other site, The Compost Bin, for more general info and advice on sustainable living.

Green Gathering 2015

One of the things I did this August was to volunteer to help at Green Gathering, the most amazing green festival ever. Some of you may remember I went to the last Big Green Gathering back in 2007,

Well this is its baby sibling, risen out of the ashes of  the sadly ( due to no fault of its own) defunct BGG which was cancelled at the last moment in 2009.

I traveled down to Peacefield Park, Chepstow during the last week of August, in beautiful weather, to set up camp for a week in the "temporary intentional village" which is the Permaculture area;






 I set up my tent and a spare one for my daughter  and a friend, who were coming for the first two days of the festival proper. I also had Algy and Mrs the Serama  miniature chickens with me, as I was doing a workshop on chicken keeping during the festival. So my car was full to the brim as you can see! You can just see the pen that Algy and Mrs shared in the lhs tent  (it's the red thing)



I also helped to set up various structures - tents, yurts and helped with the chores in the Permaculture village.



I had fun with fellow Forest School Leaders, we were providing sessions for the festival goers and their children as well as any one else who wanted to have some fun :)





On Wednesday I was pleased to meet up again with John "Compost" Cossham and I spent a lot of time recording the process of setting up his compost waste reduction area.


The recycling areas dotted around the festival site are quite something! The dedicated recycling crew collect the carefully separated resources from the festival and all is recycled.




This is last years compost pile and the composting area on Wednesday morning, before John got clearing it up.



All the festival compostable waste was brought to John in bags and over the course of the week and the festival he (mostly single handedly!) created a huge compost heap which allows the festival putrecibles to compost down rather than going to landfill. The pile remains there unattended until next years GG.





This is a waste minimization process rather than a soil improver process, as the compost made is full of all sorts of stuff which won't decompose.



But is an amazing feat of work from the Recycling crew and John to reduce landfill from the festival site.


The composting area on Sunday






As well as helping John with the compost area and helping in the Permaculture village and with Forest School  I also gave three workshops over the course of the festival, on chicken keeping and composting. here is Algy the Serama cockerel meeting his adoring public




Apart from working hard, I met up with loads of other friends I have not seen for a long time.
I went to some excellent talks, chatted to so many people, bought an lovely poncho from The Woolly Pedlar,


saw some amazing artists and craft people







and of course listened to lots of bands :) Seize The Day, Martha Tilson and Sentient were excellent!




We had two days of terrible rain but apart from that the weather was kind to us - on Wednesday night I was able to watch the meteor showers for several hours lying on my back in the grass :)

I came home Tuesday tired and in need of a shower and with aching knees after a week in a tent, but very happy :)