Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 353
A Community Orchard
Hello Everyone
So l wanted to tell you more about the Rocky Bay Community Orchard in this week’s blog post.
Last week, l told you about how Miss Pringle and her boyfriend, Steve, came across a piece of neglected land that had some old fruit trees in it. She had the idea that it could be turned into a community orchard and went to see the vicar about it.
There have been quite a lot of developments since then.
The church, who own the land, have given permission for the community orchard to go ahead.
A committee has been formed. lt is called the Rocky Bay Community Orchard Committee.
A committee is a group of people who get together and have meetings to discuss what needs to be done about something. Then they make decisions and start to implement them – that means they make things happen.
Being on a committee can be a lot of work, but if you feel passionately about the project you are working on it can be very interesting.
The committee consists of Miss Pringle, the vicar, Captain Jack and Reg, who is the landlord from the Rusty Anchor.
The idea of a community orchard is that lots of people come to work in the orchard and then they have a share of the fruit it produces.
They can also use the orchard for other things like parties, May Day celebrations, summer picnics and Apple Days (21st October).
Miss Pringle is especially interested in organising a wildlife survey for her class to do. The vicar wants to organise some moth nights where people can observe moths when it gets dark.
Captain Jack and Reg have it mind to make some scrumpy.
So the first committee meeting was on Monday night.
The first thing the members of the committee did was to exchange e-mail addresses so that they could keep in touch with each other through the week and ‘everyone would be singing from the same hymn sheet’ as the vicar put it.
The vicar was to start the ball rolling by looking into what is called a ‘risk assessment’ and then organise any insurance that would be needed.
Whenever members of the public are gathered in a place together, it is wise to get insurance in case someone has an accident.
lf anyone wants to start their own community orchard, there is advice on how to do it from The Common Ground’s Community Orchards Handbook, a local council for Voluntary Services and even people called tree wardens.
There are also websites with useful information.
A legal document called a ‘written constitution’ will have to be drawn up.
Some community orchards set up a membership charge to raise money.
Community orchards were first begun in the 1960s, but have become popular in every part of the country since the early 1990s. They can set up in villages or towns. They can be set up on council land or private land.
They can be a beautiful haven of peace for people with hectic lives, especially if they do not have their own garden.
So anyway, after the committee meeting, everyone went to have a better look at the piece of land under discussion.
lt turned out to be a parcel of land at the bottom of the vicarage garden. The previous vicar who had been living there for quite some years had not been a keen gardener and the plot had been neglected for a long time. lt is amazing how a garden can go to rack and ruin very quickly when it is not tended regularly.
Luckily, there was a little alleyway that ran down the side of the vicarage and down to a side gate in the wall that ran around the orchard. This was going to be really useful to give access to the orchard for all the people and machinery to get in without having to walk through the vicar’s house!
The four committee members took torches with them to have a look because of course by the time they got there it was really dark. But the land was such a tangle of overgrown plants it was difficult to see what was there.
The orchard was badly overgrown and a lot of weeds and brambles would have to be removed before anyone could even think about what needed doing next.
The committee decided that they also needed some more people to help them. So the vicar telephoned Auntie Alice and Farmer Jenkins to ask them if they would like to join the committee.
This would mean that the committee would have some extra gardening and agricultural expertise to help them make plans.
And Captain Jack and Reg were both hoping that Farmer Jenkins would have a large apple press that they could borrow.
(Large apple presses squash lots of apples at the same time to get the juice out of them.)
Luckily, both Auntie Alice and Farmer Jenkins agreed to join the committee and help in any way they could. They would come to the next Monday evening meeting.
So Miss Pringle got her class to design and paint posters to tell the whole of the town about the new project.
Miss Pringle explained to the children that when you design a poster you need to put all the information you need to put on it on it and no more. People needed to get the message the children were trying to give out really quickly and the words at the top of the poster should be big and eye-catching and grab the interest of people passing by.
All the posters were so well-done that every one of them was put up somewhere.
They were put up in the Rocky Bay supermarket and the board outside the church and many other places besides. Reg put two posters up in the Rusty Anchor.
Captain Jack got in touch with the Rocky Bay Gazette to tell them of the plans and spread the word even further.
They put out ‘a call to action’.
By the end of the week, quite a few people had expressed an interest and a working party was organised to start clearing the ground.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: There is a very interesting news article in the Rocky Bay Gazette today.
Bob: What does it say?
Bill: The Rocky Bay police have been on the hunt for the money stolen in the recent bank robbery.
On a visit to the local manor house, they found the gardener putting extra compost on the vegetable patch.
The plot thickens.
Bob: Ooooo!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Cherries
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Auntie Alice has been selling eggs, vegetables, fruit and all manner of home-made goodies like jams and chutneys over the summer.
She has been doing a roaring trade and been making quite a bit of money.
She has become a fully-fledged entrepreneur!
She had to spend a lot of money out on re-thatching her cottage from her savings account and gradually she has been replacing this money with all the money she has been making since the spring.
She has taken the last of her apple harvest round to Betty Clutterbuck.
The dove release business she started with Captain Jack has been going well and she even had a bumper harvest of honey from her two hives.
She borrowed a honey extracting machine to clip her honey frames into from her local bee keeping association and bought her own sieve to use to strain the honey through.
She filled many pots with rich, golden liquid. They are ready to sell now. If she can’t sell them to her regular customers she will hire a stall in a farmers’ market.
She is convinced that talking to her bees nicely has made them happy, little bees and they have worked very hard.
We won’t argue with her.
She is of the opinion that you need to speculate to accumulate and has now decided to invest some money in a new greenhouse.
There is nothing wrong with the old one but she just wants more space to grow vegetables under cover.
In this way, she can grow vegetables over the winter in a way that she could never do outside.
She will be able to supply Betty Clutterbuck with fresh lettuce and cress for her sandwiches.
Betty will be putting apple cake and carrot cake on her menu this winter at the Rocky Bay Tearooms.
There will be onions, spinach, herbs and carrots for the Rusty Anchor Inn for their pub grub lunches too.
There will be more fruit and vegetables to take to Sid and Ethel in the Rocky Bay Cafe as well.
You know, chefs just love cooking with fresh and locally-grown produce when they create their dishes.
The new greenhouse arrived this week. The base had already been prepared.
It is made of concrete, and that needs time to set before anything is constructed on top of it.
Captain Jack and I were going to erect the greenhouse for her, but she remembered how much we were playing about when we helped her to empty her attic and she said she would sooner have some experts on the job!
I think the exact words she used were ‘ a couple of clowns like you two’, but I won’t go into that…
The children were at school when the new greenhouse arrived and that wasn’t a bad thing when you saw how many panels of glass were being carried about.
They will help carry pots in there later in the week though.
So the cottage looks very smart with its new roof and is lovely and cosy inside.
The new greenhouse looks lovely standing at the end of the vegetable garden.
Auntie Alice is now all set up for her winter trade!
Of course, if winter is on the way, then Christmas is on the way and if you feel like knitting some decorations to put on your tree this is a really easy pattern for a beginner.
You can make these sweets any colour you like.
You could knit them in traditional white, red and green or another colour if you have a different colour scheme in mind.
If you have an unusual colour scheme on your tree like royal blue and gold or pink and silver, it may be difficult to find decorations in the colour you want, but not knitting yarns.
If you put some thread at the top of the sweets the same colour as your tree, the sweets will look as though they are hanging in mid air around the tree!
Choose your own colour scheme!
NEWSDESK MINIMAKE
CHRISTMAS TREE BONBONS
BONBON WRAPPER (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 15 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Change to pink dk yarn
Knit 8 rows of garter stitch
Knit 8 rows of stocking stitch
Knit 8 rows of garter stitch
Change back to white
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Purl 1 row
Cast off purl-wise
TO MAKE UP
Cut 2 lengths of white yarn 20cm long
Tie one around the wrapper at the side of the centre section
Stuff the centre and hold the stuffing in place with another tie
See the photograph…
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Quick Quiz
What are these things made from?
- Cider
- Perry
- Cheese
- Omelet
- Beer
- Wine
- Crisps
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A DOLLS’ HOUSE WHEELlE BlN AND RECYCLlNG BlN
Here is a very useful wheelie bin and also a recycling bin for the dolls in your dolls’ house to use.
You will need 1 sheet of 7 mesh 10.5 by 13.5 inches/26.7 by 34.3cm
First cut your panels.
WHEELIE BIN
Sides 20 holes by 10 holes – 2 panels
Front and back 20 holes by 8 holes – 2 panels
Base 10 holes by 6 holes – 1 panel
Lid 15 holes by 12 holes – 1 panel
RECYCLING BOX
Sides 10 holes by 6 holes – 2 panels
Sides 8 holes by 6 holes – 2 panels
Base 10 holes by 8 holes – 1 panel
Lid 12 holes by 8 holes – 1 panel
TO MAKE UP
Cut a rectangular hole at the back of the wheelie bin lid to make a handle.
Lid of wheelie bin
Cover the all the panels in green yarn using tent stitch apart from the lid of the recycling box which is covered in black yarn – do this in a way that the back of the panels will get equal coverage.
Back of panel
WHEELIE BIN
- Sew the sides and back to the base
- Sew up the back corners
- Sew two black buttons onto the bottom if the sides at the back of the panel to act as wheels
- Sew the front in place
- Sew along the top rim to neaten
- Tie 2 lengths of green yarn around the back of the lid and the top of the back to make two hinges so that you can open the lid – tie these into a couple of knots and then cut off the yarn
RECYCLING BOX
- Sew the sides to the base
- Sew up the corners
- Sew along the top rim to neaten
- Sew around the edges of the lid to neaten
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- Cider – apples
- Perry – pears
- Cheese – milk
- Omelet – eggs
- Beer – hops
- Wine – grapes
- Crisps – potatoes
A hop
