On the 1st May Pete and Cheryll paid a visit to a Dartmoor farm to advise on the siting of a tree bog. Dan went to the May Day celebrations in Lustleigh at the weekend, and joined in with the procession and sunny Maypole fun.

The BBC filmed Ben in his treehouse for their 'Children of the Seventies' documentary series. It ended with naked interviews in the hot tub, but you'll have to subscribe to some strange digital channel to see it when it is broadcast later this year (BBC3). The director was tempted into the hot tub after the filming, and seemed reluctant to get off to his next shoot (this was the short sunny bit at the start of May before the 'April' showers finally got going).

At the Hayne Manor Plant Sale we gazed in awe at the splendid Oak and Beech trees, and bought some herbs.

The Moreton Woodcraft Folk started a series of six sessions in the Forest School area of the woods. They'll be coming here for six weeks and doing woodcraft folk activities... in a wood.

The Spring newsletter was printed up and distributed, and as questionnaires started to trickle back we started thinking about the Summer issue. The theme will be energy, as we have just received a grant for more wind, water and solar power equipment.
Around and about we took part in Regenco's Sacred Potato Stomp, celebrating the renewal of the earth and the food growing around us; except we went to the wrong field and arrived rather late, but not too late to see Thomas' amazing fire sculpture 'The Angel'. We also saw MED theatre's 'Forest on the Hill' (sounds familiar) on location in Yarner Wood. The play was great, and the atmosphere created by seeing the play in its dramatic location was brilliant.

The Economads stayed with us for a week as part of their tour of European Ecovillages. They are 2 adults and a 2yr old; we were something like their thirtieth stop on their two year long trip (so far), and the second in Britain after Keveral Farm. On their last night Ofek showed us a slide show of their trip so far, with photos from Israel, America, Spain, Spain, Germany, France etc. He also introduced us to frozen banana ice cream...They have a grat website at www.economads.com with information about the places they have visited, plane-free intercontinental travel, nappy free babies, raw food and economadism.

Preparations got underway for this year's Moretonhampstead Music Day, with Pete, Cheryll and Dan all planning to get up and sing things on the 22nd of June.
The Growing Area continued to fill with green leaves and bean poles as the growing season moved on, onions, peas, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuces, beetroot, carrots, artichokes, comfrey, rocket etc etc are all stretching towards the sun amid the weeds and carpets.