A community in transition to a low carbon, sustainable, resilient life.

March 2009 Blog Posts (7)

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Another walk up towards the north of the parish yesterday, the goal of which was the Roman iron work site at Cansiron. Walking up the bridleway part of Cansiron Lane there is a small bit of ancient woodland on the left, called Shipyard Pett. Pett is an Old English-derived word for pit, but I'm puzzled about the shipyard connection, unless it is a corruption of something else. We're not exactly close to the sea, especially if one is trying to transport stuff.…

Continue

Added by BradScott on March 22, 2009 at 16:00 — No Comments

Natural Swimming Pond

Last year we finally got around to building a natural swimming pond -literally that, the water is cleaned by the plants within, wildlife is encouraged (except fish and birds - they have to enjoy the adjacent

fish pond!). As it was only completed last September, we have only swum in it the once, though the children did try last weekend but it was rather cold.... but it is just wonderful.

This week in the sunshine I counted 26 frogs/ toads in the bottom of the deeper swimming area… Continue

Added by Rowena on March 21, 2009 at 21:48 — No Comments

New 3G Mast Planned for Our Village

A planning application to Wealden Council to upgrade the mobile phone mast at the Fire Station to 3rd generation technology, 3G has been submitted. This will result in an increase in radiation waves around us all (whether you have a mobile or not) affecting not only us, but our children, the elderly, pregnant mums, our animals at Tablehurst and as research is pointing to our Beees. Increased radition waves could be a contributor to Colony Collapse Disorder.

We all need to be aware, inform… Continue

Added by Michael Cassels on March 17, 2009 at 1:12 — 2 Comments

The New Naturalist

It is sixty years since the iconic New Naturalist series began to be published by Collins, and yesterday a long piece by Richard Mabey was published to celebrate it. Over a hundred titles have now appeared in the series, and they are a vital source and inspiration for us about our natural environment, living up to their original mission to provide a "high standard of accuracy combined with… Continue

Added by BradScott on March 15, 2009 at 10:09 — No Comments

Green Streets

Interesting item in today's Guardian about the importance of energy efficiency in the broader picture of climate change. It cites a project last year, funded by British Gas, called Green Streets which was an attempt to reduce energy usage in some streets in a number of cities with a £50,000 prize to spend on a community project. A street in Leeds won, with an average energy saving of 35 per… Continue

Added by BradScott on March 13, 2009 at 15:00 — 2 Comments

Social and community networks online

Just reading a short article in New Scientist on "How social networking might change the world", which also referred to the Terra future conference that took place in London last week.

I haven't looked see if any of the conference papers are on the web yet, but it had themes relating to sustainability, climate change… Continue

Added by BradScott on March 9, 2009 at 23:33 — No Comments

Gates, woods and mud

I managed a lovely walk in the middle of the day today, largely continuing and extending the one I did last October. I'd also been leafing through The Ashdown Forest Dispute again and it reminded me about the extent to which the Forest was populated and used by the tenants who lived on its… Continue

Added by BradScott on March 4, 2009 at 23:06 — No Comments