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| Caterpillar and fly share a broccoli stalk |
We stood, lining the slight grassy bank, facing the sinking sun in silence. The wide hills around thrummed with intensity. Swifts darted and whirled, skirting low above the water in front of us, a pool glinting. All our attention was fixed on this still pond with its tiny incongruous island. Nobody spoke, minutes passed. And then at last there was movement, ripples coming from behind a reed bank. Into view swam a brown object, a nose, a head, a back, pushing itself through the water with slow dignity. We were in the presence of a mammal that until several centuries ago lived in abundance on these Isles, until little by little humans managed to kill them all.
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| A carrot flower |
This mammal, the beaver, is in fact the world's second largest rodent, after the capybara. A few have been released into the Scottish wilderness as a trial but as yet it is still illegal to set them free in Wales. This pond home for two beavers, one male and one female, was ringed with some serious fencing, with wire mesh on the inside of the wooden stakes to prevent escape by gnawing.
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| A compost toilet under construction at Blaeneinion |
We watched as the male beaver took his stately swim, pausing now and again, once resting at a shallow point allowing us to see more of him. The female never appeared. He was out extraordinarily early in the evening anyway, perhaps sensing a group of visitors to impress. We had expected to glimpse them much later, as dusk came on, so our tour of Blaeneinion was put immediately out of kilter by his unexpected appearance.
Sharon* who lives and works here, was our guide. A few years ago a small wildlife trust asked her to buy them a farm somewhere in the UK, live there and plant it full of trees. After a year of two of asking “Are you sure?”, she ended up doing it, moving from north London to the remote fastness of Artists Valley, mid Wales. Sure enough, she (with some help!) has already planted thousands of trees, many of them edible, all native and deciduous, so in years to come people will be able to wander through the woodland picking berries and nuts as they go. Some, like the walnut, take a human lifetime to mature fully. Not many endeavours in these capricious times are measured in decades, will come to fruition a century hence.
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| A murky cameraphone shot of the heart of Blaeneinion |
She keeps geese and chickens, and grows a range of vegetables in a massive polytunnel and outdoor raised beds made from railway sleepers which, like me, she supplies to the Machynlleth veg bag scheme. To make ends meet (the charity provides her no income) she also finds time to run a B&B. Maybe the sublime weather helped but it did seem a magical place, so beautiful and remote - it takes a good twenty minutes to drive up the winding narrow lane from the main road to the top. If ever you want to get away from your humdrum and routine life you could do worse than spend a week up here, roaming the hills and generally communing with creation. She occasionally organises volunteer weeks to plant trees too - check out their website here. I'm definitely going back. Mind you I've no choice, our next veg bag scheme growers meeting is to be held there.
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| The tomatoes finally began to ripen |
*Her real name.
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