"Bits and Pieces"

I brought a little black journal on this trip, leather bound with a grey tassel to remind me where I was last. Inside the book, way in the back is a pocket that folds out like a tiny accordion. In the spirit of blogging, here's what's inside:

-A fortune from a cookie in Sebastopol that reads "An airplane ride is soon in your future sending you to fun!"

-A few business cards that map out some of this journey with names like Boundry Bay Brewing Company from way up in Washington State to Pistyll Rhaeadr Waterfall in Wales.

-A 2"x2" birthday card from Ryan, hand made.

-The contact # for our new friend C in London (who's husband happens to be a professor at the Art Collage)

-A scrap of wool I pulled off barbed wire fencing on one of our walks along a "publicfootpth"

-Pressed flowers: red Clover, Daisy, Bluebell, Buttercup. And my most recent addition:

-A bit of china no bigger than a fingernail, blue and white that I found in the soil while weeding at Bont Glan Tanat.

That was our last wwoofing spot in the UK; we're leaving for Amsterdam in 3 days. I'll do my best to catch up- please accept my apologies for not writing sooner. In all honesty when I've had the time, I've lacked the space, and when I had the space, there was no time.

The Hatch: The warm welcome we received from 3 year-old Romy feels strangely like it was both ages ago and somehow just yesterday. I can't share enough good news from the Hatch - I'm only left with the miraculous feeling that "home" can be found in the most tucked away places- down one lane windy roads hidden from view by a tall thick hedge and "family" is an ever-expanding organism of it's own.

The oldest part of their 4 story brick home is a converted Hop Kiln dating back to the 1760's. Inside the walls are full of art- everywhere your eye rests on something interesting, unique and beautiful. Outside, past their garden there's a pond (bordering Lake-status) with water Lillys and an old wooden bridge that looks like the Monet - no joke. This place is a fairy-tail postcard with nooks and crannies, woods blanketed in Bluebells, orchards, flowering perennials all around, complete with a hammock and rope-swing to sweeten the deal.

There is no shortage of enthusiasm or inspiration at The Hatch a 30+ acre estate owned by Ben's father the white haired, pipe smoking, salty architect: Robin Salmon. With expressions like "not exactly up to muster for the barber but respectable none-the-less" sputtering out during sheep sheering (sheep bum-wool trimming to be more specific- ask Ryan for details)- someone should really write a book about this guy…. or paint a portrait…

Ben and Nada are working out ways to make their family property into a viable business. They've been busy networking with local agricultural business coaches and it was inspiring for me to see them in their process: sticky notes, poster boards, schedules, meetings- to see past the icing on this delicious cake into what it would really take to "keep the farm".

We helped them extend their chicken run to near palatial status, and built a compost heap worth writing home about. I think what we really liked about being there (besides our gracious hosts and the view from our window) was that Ben and Nada were really open to our ideas and suggestions. Theirs is a work in progress - and so is ours.

On our third day there, working in the woods, setting posts for the fence that would keep the chickens in and the fox out, a black Audi sneaks up the driveway. Out of the wrong-side-drivers-side window we see the white teeth of our new traveling companion and Ryan's long-time friend, Mr. Matt Davies.

We quickly put him to work and Matt stayed and sweated with us at the Hatch for a couple of days digging a moat-like ditch as part of our chicken run fortification project. In the mornings he played his guitar on the sunny porch.

Ben and Nada had a full house that weekend, and this is a big house I'm talking about. Ben's band was in for a rehearsal, 2 wwoofers from California and their friend from by the Big Lakes, 2 more wwoofers with a baby coming on Sunday, and their long time friend Handy Andy (another one deserving of a book and a portrait). Did I mention that Ben and Nada have a 1 and 3 year-old? All this is to say that I was inspired most of all by Nada's grace. She even found time to bake bread - all the while with little Wolfie on her back…. amazing!

On Sat. we bid a sad farewell to The Hatch and I did my best to move gracefully from what was now known and comfortable - to the yet unknown (at least for me) town of Hay on Wye.

On the way to Hay we stopped in the little town of Pembridge and sat outside a 13th century Norwegian-style round bell tower which was across form the 14th century Church. We walked through the graveyard and took photos of old doors, cobblestones and clouds. Pembridge historically was a really poor town, too poor to renovate it's buildings when the hip thing to do was plaster over exposed beams and change the wattle-and-dob to brickwork. Lucky for Pembridge all those years of hardship are now paying off - it's a beautiful historic village tucked away in the countryside where travelers come from far and wide to enjoy a pint outside the hotel pub.

If you ever get the chance to go to Hay on Wye, go for it! The documented history of this little village goes back to about 1070 when Welsh kings battled for the usual stuff boys fight over. But it's the pairing of Hay's rich past with its more recent history that shapes it into the groovy place it is today.

"On 1 April 1977, [Hey resident and] bibliophile Richard George William Pitt Booth conceived a publicity stunt in which he declared Hay-on-Wye to be an 'independent kingdom' with himself as its monarch. The tongue-in-cheek micronation of Hay-on-Wye has subsequently developed a healthy tourism industry based on literary interests for which some credit Booth." …'His legacy will be that Hay changed from a small market town into a mecca for second-hand book lovers and this transformed the local economy." -The Interweb

There's a bookstore for mystery lovers, a bookstore for chefs, a bookstore for war-buffs, and one for plant nerds too, book stores everywhere you look, each one cozier than the next (most of them eliciting a sneeze of authenticity from the dust-sensitive). Over our two days there we hopped from coffee to books to chachkies (that's Yiddish for nick-nacks), to tea, to a walk along The River Wye, to books, to The Black Lion, to the Blue Boar, to books, and eventually to bed. Thanks Hay! …

More to come soon - I promise….