It’s our 3rd week at the Caerhys farm, and we thought it’s about time you heard something from Elena 🙂
We start of the week with some good changes – Emma joins our team of farming girls. She is here as a European Voluntary Service (EVS) volunteer and will mostly help out in the outdoor farm work. Later on we are also joined by 3 WWOFers from France – having them on the farm means we can dedicate more time for our activism work – yippee! Find out more about these volunteering opportunities here and here.
At the start of the week, Caerfai Farm was generous enough to accept us on site to view first-hand how to make the Welsh cheese Caerfilli – a semi-soft cheese typical to the region. The farm produces its own unpasteurized milk organically and processes and stores the cheese on site. Check them out at http://www.cawscaerfai.co.uk. Linda was our lovely guide for the day – she even let us taste the curd! (The cheese-making is generally not open for visitors, which made it even more special).
When we got back to the farm a surprise was waiting for us – FREE FOOD! YES! Food & Wine, an organic store in St Davids, kindly lets Gerald take away products past their sell-by date – and we are happy to share them as you can see above!
Note: It is generally acceptable to consume products a few weeks after their best before date, provided that they are not perishable goods. The safest option is sealed containers or packaged products. Wikihow has a step-by-step guide for you if you’re interested in going one step further and try out dumpster diving – enjoy!
The week went on as usual with some tough, but much-needed work on cabbage transplanting. We are using straw and natural wool pellets to suppress weeds in our rows, and keeping our fingers crossed!
During the weekend we unexpectedly joined an event organized by the WIRE (Women in Rural Enterprise) and met some inspiring women from all kinds of backgrounds. We attracted a bit of extra attention since Dave and Gerald, our chaperones for the day, were the first male guests for Pembrokeshire’s WIRE. Everyone was very welcoming – Gillian showed us around the Fishguard Garden Centre, we met Anne from Abermawr Camping & Accommodation and last but not least, Julia from Wild about Pembrokeshire showed us her soap-making workshop. The lovely day ended with an almost obligatory ice cream from St Davids and a pint at our usual spot in Solva.
Sunday was spent visiting nearby Melin Tregwynt Wool Mill dates back to the 18th century and to this day produces wool products with both traditionally Welsh and innovative designs. We wrapped up the weekend with a long coastal walk for Lili, and a successful visit to Haverfordwests’ flea market and nearby Little Haven for me and Gerald.
The week after, our visit to an eco farm was cancelled to be replaced with something just as good – visiting a cheese factory! CAWS Cenarth is located in a beautiful wooded area and produces some of the best cheese in Wales. They also produce several varieties of cheese with organic milk.
In case you were wondering about our campaigning efforts – this week we managed to squeeze in an intense meeting, and we now have a plan! We will be taking supermarkets in Haverfordwest by storm, asking them to take Glyphosate products off their shelves.
During the weekend, we assisted Gerald to give an updated presentation about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Glyphosate at the UnEarthed in the Field festival. The talk was well-attended and we even managed to get a couple of teenagers on board – Success!
>>IMPORTANT<<
The European Commission recently granted a temporary extension of Monsanto to sell Glyphosate, a destructive herbicide, for use in the EU. However, with increasing resistance towards glyphosate from some European countries and public health bodies, Monsanto could be set to merge with Baye, creating a mega-corporation that would dominate the food supply chain. Sign the petition to stop the merger.
Stay tuned for next week’s post where we will tell you more about our fight against Glyphosate and some insect-attracting installations we are planning for the farm, and more!
Hope you had a wonderful Solstice. This is our view of the sunset that day.
Catch you next week,
Elena