The seasonal cold finally arrived with the east wind, but once again we were safe from rain. Wrapped up toddlers (no Ivy or Holly to light the fire) arrived, gloves essential. Only the Twilight kids needed the fire. The great news was Mell was one tooth less. With great courage and far too long in… Continue reading KFS – November 21, Mells tooth, oak boards and shadow puppets
Wallace the wormery - it's the circle of life! At the Toddler group two potential carpenters and wood workerss cut their first logs for our fire. With Mells on the other end of the saw, NAME and NAME cut logs from a Hazel cord to the rhythm of Row, Row Row the boat. For the… Continue reading KFS – November – sawing, sitting, fire making
Thanks to the great John Esling, the Kaliwood ponds are now framed with woven hazel and some willow. In fact there are 6 different styles used, including one done exclusively by Kinda kids. Here are the photographs and here's a video of John teaching the kids
It was a day of Guests and H's. With our Toddler group, and encouraged by Sage, we made a Hedgehog Hibernation Home, complete with Leaf Kebabs for when the Hedgehog came back late at night after a few hedge-lagers and felt a bit peckish. (Thank you Holly for this ingenious sport). The actual hedgehog home… Continue reading KFS November – day of H’s and WORMS
Did we ever catch up with the day? Our todler group was all H's. We started by building a hedgehog hibernation home, location chosen by one of our 3 visitors that day, John Esling, our pond fencing man, who wisely pointed out that the decaying wood would give nutritian to various bugs and fungi that… Continue reading KFS November
Magical Toddler morning session, where Mel enlightened the fire for the last time this Celtic year, on the day of Samhain, end of harvest and beginning of dark half of year. Sage appeared, and we all got a nose blessing. Ant trampolines, Troll fingernails, Ivy almost and Leela making the spell with a witches hat,… Continue reading Samhain – October 31st
We gathered under the instructions of John Esling Hedgery, to learn the gentle art of hazel hurdling, to have a meeting, and have the first of hopefully many, working days at Kaliwood - an exchange for hosting Kinda Forest School in the wood, a payback of the most generous kind. Like plating, we learned how… Continue reading Working Sunday – with Hazel Hurdling around the ponds
Forest school teachers, Mel, Eloise and Kym came and were shown around the Hedgery Hazel Hurdling around the pond by John. Mel found the Titanic moment with Kate immitation. Paul cutting and finding bindings, progressed to 3 binders.Eloise a natural snedder. John fell in the pond. Mel and I cleaned out the green van, while… Continue reading Wednesday half term working
‘It’s not like working here’, said John Esling. ‘It’s like a dance’. Another glorious, rainless, sunshine October day, and day 3 of creating a boundary around the pond. Thanks to unexpected funding from Sara Solnick. Sal and Nicky's willow woven along the southern boundary of the pond. More stakes made Finished staking out the hazel… Continue reading 2018 Fencing the Pond – Day 3
John Esling, from a company companionably called Hedgery, wrote us a remarkable proposal, remarkable as he was so much in line, in tune, in touch with all of our teaching and thinking. Here it is Holton Fence Esling. He arrived today, to start working with Paul to create a boundary around the two ponds in… Continue reading 2018 Fencing the pond
Kinda Elders in the woods 