Dear ,

The last few weeks we have been bathed in sunshine! The light and warmth are a true summer gift for us and our young vegetable garden.  Another flush of green has emerged over the hills, though, it's hard to imagine how it can become even more green and alive.

It feels as if life has burst forth with an unstoppable force. Our new Terranu bees pollinate the lush white hawthorns and elders that adorn the hills. The deep purple of the blooming rhododendrons illuminates the horizon.

Just over a year ago, on May 4th, we set foot on this piece of land for the first time. It was a serendipitous and surreal experience and within the first 5 min we knew it was the place we were longing for. We then spent the next 4 hours exploring the land, discovering just a few of the magical places and falling completely in love! The next days were surreal as we made our first bid on the land, with no concrete idea of how we would be able to pay for it, but sure that the land would support us to be creative. With generous loans and bridge loans we managed to collect the payment needed to secure the land. A whirlwind of planning, packing, farewells, arriving, unpacking (sort of), and then…. the ever increasing list of to-do's!

Today, 1 year later we are here!  It’s hard to imagine a time when we weren’t thinking about the best ways of reducing mud on paths, preventing stoats from eating our chickens or rhododendrons from taking over the rest of the native trees.

Yet, here we are, all a little older & wiser, a little less naive and still very much dedicated to navigating this life of beautiful challenges. Challenges are always easier to reflect on retrospectively so perhaps in a year or two we will share a little more details on those.

Beltane

The festival of Beltane, celebrated at the beginning of May, marks the beginning of summer in Ireland. Roughly translated Beltane means bright fire, an acknowledgment of the traditional lighting of a great bonfire, a cleansing ritual to bring luck into the summer months and care for a plentiful harvest. Our Beltane celebration this year at Terranu was graced with the company of visiting friends. We felt blessed to sing and dance together and jump over the fire expressing intentions for the coming time, things we wish to deepen and let go. We also made a Green Man from clay and natural objects on the Ash tree which stands by the fire pit. The Green Man, spirit of the wild wood,  is long associated with Beltane and is said to bring back life and energy to the earth. To craft one can be a good reminder of how much life force there is available for us to tap into.

Polytunnel & Gardens

After months of planning we can finally share that with many hands and with the graciousness of the wind spirits we were able to put up the Polytunnel! It has been thrilling (and overwhelming) to get busy digging the beds and at last giving the tomatoes and some other seedlings their final home! The last weeks have been spent preparing beds, moving compost and mulch, trying to catch up with the growing season. We were grateful to have some helping hands the last weeks, eager to help us plant, dig and shape. 

It is thrilling after so long dreaming of harvesting from the gardens to be able to eat salads grown on the land here at Terranu, including lettuce, radishes, spinach and koolrabi!

Learning Village

Over the last weeks the children have been spending time exploring the sacred celtic trees that are part of the Ogham tradition. They have connected to the qualities and gifts that these trees bring by spending time in and under the them, singing songs, drawing, writing, crafting and cooking with their bark, blossoms and leaves. It brings lots of joy to see the small troup set off down the hill to find the lacy hawthorn, and later hear their joyful singing as they come back up, carrying baskets filled with leaves and flowers to be dried for heart nourishing winter teas.

We are also thrilled to have made a Maypole, a thinned out spruce pole adorned with colourful ribbons. We have been spending time practising some of the traditional “weaving dances”, that has long been associated with the month of May and Beltane in Ireland, which culminated in a gathering of local families who joined in for a morning of dancing. 

In the coming weeks we are heading into a summer rhythm, filled mostly with work in the gardens. The children have started to tend their own garden with great enthusiasm a few weeks ago and they will keep giving their care and attention to those. Here too the first harvest has been celebrated! Also their will be a lot of time and space for them to play outside, make trips to the swimming hole just down the road in the river and to explore all the adventures summer will bring.

Community Investment Circle

As we mentioned in the last newsletter we are actively looking for investors for the Terranu crowdlending. This form of community mortgage was inspired by a similar project in Spain, and we are thrilled to announce that we have commitments for 45% of the total needed funding. If you like to read our full brochure please visit our website. We warmly invite you to share this with people in your circles who might be interested in supporting a project like this.

New Farm Animals

With a lot of joy we have welcomed 6 new farm animals to Terranu. Two of our hens have become caring mothers after weeks of loyal brooding! What a magical spring gift it was to witness all this new life popping out from under mothers wings. The first hatch resulted in our very first chick that has changed his fluffy yellow fur for real little chicken feathers in the meantime. The second hatch now moves around the yard in the form of 5 downy yellow and black dots following their mother everywhere they eagerly learn all the skills that are part of a chicken's life. Maybe you have guessed already: we would love to invite those of you that still have their outstanding perk from the crowdfunding to name a chick! We are very much looking forward to your creativity and we trust that the children will quickly remember who is who!

Just as in nature the power of the sun is palpably increasing and the days are lengthening towards midsummer, we feel the life force increasing within us and countless ideas are bubbling that we would like to share with you in the near future.

We wish you light, warmth and inspiration for the coming time!

With love from the Terranu team,

Nakyta, Sarah, Pieter & Merijn