The use of concrete or plastic pipe would have been expensive and ugly. Cursory research would suggest that this is now the only possible way of waterproofing, however that’s not how the millrace was built originally, some hundreds of years ago.   After further research we took inspiration from pigs (and the gley technique for sealing ponds). Pigs can be used to seal ponds as they like to wallow in water. They compress the earth which stops the water leaking out. We don’t have pigs, and the millrace would be an awkward shape to try to pen in pigs, but we do have feet, and wellies. I have spend several hours down the valley in the water. The dog comes along out of curiosity and the sheep and goat follow to be part of the herd. I wallow around for a bit in the water – which means basically standing welly deep in mud and tramping it down until it stops feeling sticky underfoot.  It’s noticeably more difficult below trees that are right on the bank – these are probably spots where the water continues to leach out, however it’s made a marked difference in general. Areas of the valley are now dry even after heavy rain.  It’s important to remove wood and stones in the bed so that the layer can be compressed properly.  We had been thinking about digging out the dead leaves which had fallen in the water, however these, apparently, will add to the waterproofing layer.

The pond is now beginning to fill. It has a huge surface area so it’ll take some time. Also, there are several pipes coming out in various spots around the barns and garden.  The ends of these are currently hidden in the reeds and grasses at the side of the pond so I’m spending some time searching around for them. Once the water is about a foot higher the sheep and goat can graze on the other side of our land, without hopping over into next door’s garden and eating their fruit trees. We can stock the pond with fish (the plan is to purchase rainbow trout fingerlings) and we can even think about putting in a turbine for electricity generation. For the time being, my ambition is to hold an Easter Monday duck race.

As the weather warms up, I hope that we can get out there and wallow in our bare feet. The water looks nice and clean, and will have a constant supply of fresh, oxygenated stream water going into it, so maybe this year we will be brave enough to use our natural swimming pond.

You use the top couple of inches of the plant as a vegetable, so when you’re weeding next time, put this part of the plant aside for dinner, rather than on the compost heap.

Of course, you need to wear protective gloves while picking,  and wash them thoroughly as they grow close to the ground.  The best method for cooking I’ve found so far is to put them in a covered pan on a high heat in as much water as sticks to the leaves after washing. Within about 5 minutes (heating from cold)  they will have wilted down – take them off the heat as soon as they look like cooked spinach – you don’t want to destroy nutrients by cooking longer.  Use them in place of spinach in any recipe.

Sekanice is a local Easter recipe here which, according to my students, requires between 30-50% nettles. In my version of the recipe I substitute smoked tofu for bacon and soya for boiled pork – much to the chagrin of my Czech students. I have tested the recipe on non-hippie meat lovers, it didn’t last long despite the perceived weirdness of the ingredients.  Traditionally Sekanice is made for the Easter weekend. You can eat it hot, straight from the oven, and then cold, cut into slices over the next few days.

Sekanice uses nettles as the green because in the old days before we had vegetables flown in from Kenya, it was the first vegetable to come up after the snow.  The word Sekanice means sort of “Cut thing” – because you can harvest baby nettles using a scythe, and then you can cut the Sekanice into slices when it comes out of the oven.

Vegetarian Sekanice (pronounced Set can it say)

• 8 eggs
• 1 block of smoked tofu, chopped into small squares
• 1 pack of soya chunks – soaked for an hour in vegetable stock, then fried in a generous amount of  butter or olive oil
• sage
• a handful of chopped chives
• 3 bread rolls torn into chunks
• 2-3 large handfuls of stinging nettles

Method

Prepare the soya – once it holds the same amount of fat and salt as boiled pork, it loses it’s holier than thou taste.

Heat the oven to 200 degrees c. & grease a large ceramic  baking dish (if you use oil to grease with, it’s really easy by the way).

Separate the egg yolks from the whites and mix the yolks with the bread chunks.  Whip the egg whites into a frenzy (in Czech, they say whip it into snow – when the egg whites are fluffy and form peaks).

Chop the tofu, bread & chives. Combine all the ingredients apart from the egg whites, mixing well. You will need to add quite a lot of salt and pepper as tofu and soya are not salted when you purchase them, like pork and bacon are.  Finally, fold in the egg whites and turn the mixture into the baking dish. Cook for 40 minutes or until the top has gone a nice baked brown.

Ingredients

• Honey (a couple of hundred grams ish or  2 cups)
• Olive oil (a couple of hundred mls ish  or 2 cups)
• Rolled oats (up to 500 grams or 5-6 cups)
• A hand full of  dried fruit, nuts, orange or lemon peel, chopped – what ever you have in the kitchen.  If you choose just two,  it’ll have a clearer flavour.

(or – equal parts honey and oil, with equal parts dry to wet ingredients)

Method

Heat the oven to 200 degrees c. and oil a metal baking sheet.

Combine the olive oil and honey in a large saucepan and warm over a medium heat. When it comes to the boil, turn off the heat and add the two or three types of flavouring ingredients – I normally stick to two so that it’s ingredient A and ingredient B flapjack – Almond and Lemon flapjack, or Walnut and Ginger flapjack etc … three flavourings becomes too much of a mouthful to say, if nothing else. Once these are mixed together, add as many rolled oats as you can – ie completely coated by the honey & oil.

Turn the mixture into the baking sheet and pack it down with the back of a wooden spoon. It needs to be an inch or 3 or 4 cms thick. Once it’s packed down, you can use a spatula to cut it into portions, then pack it down again. This’ll make getting it out much easier.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at a medium heat  for 20 minutes, or until it’s a nice golden brown. Let it cool before eating.

* Traditional Flapjack is something like American Granola bars.

Slowly things are becoming green, but as yet there are no leaves on the trees. Some of the seeds that we planted inside have germinated – the broccoli, onions, wild rocket and sorrel have made an appearance, but none of the others… it’s possible that they didn’t react well to the cats climbing in the boxes. Today we’ve transplanted broccoli, and companion planted Nasturtiums with it (another edible plant). Michial has built a sturdy frame to protect the puny seedlings, and we’ve experimented with a few different techniques of plant protection using the cuttings from the apple trees and old net curtains.

This week, wet weather has necessitated a lot of indoor jobs – such as sorting out cupboards (I finally tackled the last cupboard left full of random things by the previous occupants – we needed the space for puppy proof shoe storage) and furniture restoration.  The rain has been good for the plants, however, and things have started to come up in the raised beds that Joann and Jaakko built. As the peas have germinated, they have been disappearing. We think it’s reasonable to blame the pup for this.

Nettles are one thing that we always have a lot of. I hesitantly sautéed a few last weekend – and ate tentatively before reading that it’s important to cook them thoroughly in order to get rid of the sting. Yesterday  I tried them as the green in herby puy lentils and they worked really well!  They have a sort of nutty taste.  Nettles are the first thing we can harvest here – I’m thinking of picking some more tomorrow to put in the freezer. You can eat them later on in the year but the new buds of spring are the best as they don’t have crystals in them which lend a gritty texture later in the year.  Also if I pick them now, that should mean we have less of a nettle invasion in the summer.

Today I found the first spring violets growing. I’ve sugared one flower – you paint it in egg white fluff then cover it in icing sugar. I hope that it works – such a beautiful, delicate taste – something my grandmother loves. Another discovery is that the bull rushes in the pond are called Cat Tail reeds in the US – and are a very useful edible plant.   The green shoots from this are nicknamed Cossack’s Asparagus, and the young seed heads can be baked and eaten like corn on the cob.  I also saw a recipe today for using dandelion root as a vegetable – as is done in Japan – a useful way to weed the garden (I find the leaves too bitter to use as salad leaves – I’ll leave that to the survivalists). As I was in the garden picking nettles today I noticed another distinctive leaf nearby… we have sorrel in abundance!

Last week Joann and I went on an expedition to collect willow switches with which to plant a living willow fence at the bottom of our land. It became a bit of a mission when we had to clamber through soft snow of more than a foot deep… carrying our bundles of sticks with our lively pup either pulling on the rope tying the willow together, or wrapping me up very effectively with her lead. But – it was a rare day of winter sunshine and it was beautiful to be outside nonetheless. The area we were gathering from is now completely flooded with melt water.

It was the Spring equinox on Sunday – meaning that we have twelve hours of dark and twelve hours of light, and at last a couple of patches of snow had melted enough for us to start preparing the garden. Joann is our specialist gardener volunteer so it’s been a frustrating wait for the sight of soil – and believe me – you don’t want to be digging in frozen ground – it might as well be concrete. She is only now with us for another week so I hope we manage to get the beds dug and planted before she leaves us.
Our other late winter visitors were both brave and hardy – the temperature inside and out has been particularly low, and with no central heating, simply keeping our living spaces warm turned out to be their main task. We have worked our way through nearly all of the wood from the fallen barns. Though the winter wonderland looked so pretty, life was harsh. Our (extensive) hallways hovered around freezing point, and we became very accustomed to indoors dressed for outdoors – woolly hats are fine things, but balaclavas are better as bed wear as they don’t come off. We should not know that. I never knew I would be so glad to see the back of winter.
Today the sun is shining and the temperatures are mild. We are finally able to get on with tasks in the garden. Our permaculture specialist spent a lot of time planning, and now at last we’re able to get our hands dirty in this worm rich soil.

Jerry & Vladka’s cottage is close to a tributory of the Vltava river, called the Orlice, and very close to Mount Tabor – or Tabor Hora. A name famously linked with the church reformer Jan Hus (who also introduced the haček to the Czech language). At Tabor Hora, close to the Orlice, Honza Hus went into battle riding an ostrich. He was married to Pokahontas.

There is a race of pygmy people living in the vicinity of the Orlice, called the ‘Mravenec’. These people are famous for kyaking & other adventurous sports. At least, I think that’s what he said.

Apart from a great deal of Czechlish, we also learnt a new game – played on a small billiards table with no pockets. Only 4 balls, using the red ball you must attempt to hit all three other balls on the table, to score 100 points. We also played croquet – which is a stupid game (!).

It was great to spend the evening with musicians – Jerry & his friends sang many of the songs I’d listened to last year while trying to learn Czech through the medium of Country music. Quite a lot of songs were translated, and the originals familiar – such as Trh Ve Scarborough. We need to learn a couple of English language songs such as Irish Rover & Black Velvet Band – as we only know the chorus to these!

Luckily we were able to fix it – with the help of a stranger innocently working on his garden in a small Czech village. He even gave us the tool we needed! Some people are so nice. We managed to get to Novy Mlyn, though stopping every so often to tighten up the loose fitting. The countryside was beautiful (something we’re nearly taking for-granted now) and the journey felt like very good exercise (i.e. it is nearly constantly up hill from Tábor).

When we finally reached the house we were exhausted and clueless as to what to do next. The house looks like just so much work. And the collapsed barns are an absolute eyesore. There were loads of toady thingies in the pond playing leapfrog. They were calling loudly enough for us to hear from some way away and wonder what was going on. We had a good look round the house & garden and then were kind of petrified into inaction. The answer seemed to be to do nothing, ie drink beer & catch up on January’s issues of the New Scientist left there on our last visit.

I was too excited to sleep properly, and managed to wake up M at 8 the next morning – we did a big clean of the house. 7 hours later it looked much better. Unfortunately our new water pump – in the cellar, has been stolen. M says not to worry and we are really lucky really.

We clearly didn’t bring nearly enough food with us, though… which is very surprising as this is the kind of thing I’m very careful about normally! On Sunday all I had left was olives & crisps (Bohemia Chips from the large supply given to us by the Burians – after I once managed to say in Czech “Bohemia Chips are the best crisps anywhere” – they were so impressed that they gave us a bag every time we saw them from then on). However, carless on Sunday meant that we couldn’t just drive to Tesco to pick up supplies – including water (now none left at Novy Mlyn).

Twenty minutes into our journey home the Interspar Red Fox bike broke completely. I’d worked all day, not slept the night before, not eaten or showered (no water), and was aching from the previous cycle ride. And after we’d picked the thing back up out of the ditch (where M had thrown it), we were left stranded in the Czech countryside without the language, friends or resources to get back home. At these times you think, what the bloody hell do we think we’re doing here. I didn’t cry, but it crossed my mind – luckily I was distracted by M throwing the bike in the ditch.

We pushed the bikes until we reached what we discovered to be functioning bus stop and were lucky enough that the only bus of the weekend was due soon, and also lucky enough that the bus driver let on the incomprehensible foreigners and bikes. So we didn’t need our alternative plans to a. cry and b. lie in front of the bus till he agreed.

So, a couple of hours later we were acheily watching the world go by from a cafe on a small Tábor square – over delicious food (an apt Czech saying “hunger is the best chef”) and lovely beer. A man and his son were moving stuff into a building. The man seemed to be doing most of the work. I noticed an old man with a dog I’d seen around before. I love seeing really old people with really old animals walking around together. It’s just so appropriate. The old man was loitering though, and then started looking in cars & trying various vehicle/property door handles. Maybe he was about to run off with an armful of loot. Maybe the old dog and old man walk were simply a disguise for a perfectly able bodied burglar. Later on the moving man was left in the middle of the square, his son had driven off leaving him with a fridge. We were going to ask him for an ice cream – we were too knackered to offer him help. I cried (with laughter – I think we were a bit giddy from the sun).

We’re here now. It’s time to sort out Novy Mlyn.

Stage 1 will be the house itself, then sorting out the fallen barns, before landscaping the garden & pond.

Once we have the mortgage we will be able to begin the work.

Taking the advice of my carpenter great uncle, we will start with the roof. The attic steps need replacing & the entire building must be treated for woodworm.

The well can be sunk & the external drainage repaired.

Simultaneously, the back upstairs windows can be replaced in the bathroom & Anne’s room. Once these are done, we can make a judgement about replacing other windows.

We need to make toilet decisions. This would be much easier had we been able to see Sunmar in action somewhere. I’ve resubmitted a request for a quote for the system, and am waiting for the mortgage guy to get back to me today.

Yesterday I caught the train to London for a meeting with the Water Works UK, based in Wood Green. I left my laptop at home as it doesn’t travel well & spent the journey reading the New Scientist. There was a thorough article on carbon offsetting called ‘Look, no footprint’ – raising concerns about the efficacy of tree planting as a method of carbon offsetting.

One strong concern was that it may only postpone the problem – when the natural life of the tree is over , carbon will be released back into the atmosphere. I think this will only be a problem if we have not a) developed cleaner energy or b)developed better CO2 capture in the mean time. Therefore, I think that planting trees is fine, and as long as they are not then chopped down to use as firewood, will give humanity time to develop other solutions.

I had recently decided to add carbon offsetting to the list of eco solutions on www.500yearvision.com – and was in fact looking for a suitable supplier. The article gave some info about existing schemes – and makes the point that different companies measure emissions from flights and calculate costs very differently. For example, a flight to Australia could be responsible for 1.8 tonnes, 5.4 tonnes or 12.5 tonnes of CO2 – there are many influencing variables of which to take account, including seat occupancy. The going rate was between £165 down to £13.30.

The article listed six questions to ask of a company providing carbon offsetting:

• Do your offsets result from specific projects, and what are they?

• How long will it take for the project to offset my carbon emissions?

• Can I follow the progress of the offsets I invest in and read reports of independent verifiers

• Do your projects meet the Gold Standards

• Can you prove that the projects in your portfolio would not have happened without you?

• Can you show you are not subsidising others to meet legal obligations.

As planting trees and ensuring their welfare for the next 100 years would be a slight divergence for 500 year vision (though was the idea between the -as yet unrealised- Vermenathon forest – my very first eco business plan) – I’ll not be rushing off to do this myself, though the article did give me an idea about an alternative.

Before I left for London this morning, I had a long and lovely conversation with the chair of one of the voluntary groups that I have supported in the past in Birmingham (this one a committee made of parents of children with specific needs). They need office premises and are looking at rentals for this.

The article in New Scientist and earlier conversation with Saeeda gave me a new idea. I could very simply give products to established voluntary groups which would reduce their energy consumption. This would have to give significant added value to a group in broad terms, so that it was an attractive proposition for them to take part. It could be tracked by fairly low cost means (pictures of equipment in use on a website, for example). Provision of a digital camera for this purpose would be idea for added value. We could design in low barriers to entry – such as asking only for a copy of a constitution as financials would be quite unimportant if items are being delivered rather than money. The scheme would have to also have very low administration costs. In many schemes, only 50% of funds get to the user organisation because of the costs incurred giving the money out.

Eco credentials could be built into the scheme, such as only email or pdf applications being accepted. The funding application could be very simple – incorporating a tick list of what energy efficiency the group already has access to, will have access to and need access to. We can then use the carbon credits which have been purchased to meet as many of these needs as possible.

Would it be ethical to sell carbon credit to fund the provision of energy efficient products to not for profit organisations? How much should be charged per mile for a flight?

What kind of products could they use? Things that tie up with opening a new office would be great.

The alternative route would be to offer people buying carbon credit the opportunity to be investors in the development of clean energy sources which could be utilised by such groups. One idea which has been preying on my mind in previous months is capturing the energy in falling water. If people invest in the carbon credits, this money could be used as a prize for a competition to develop a microgenerator which would operate in down pipes and provide either heat, light or battery recharging any time it rained. Which is a lot in the UK.

I think that it would probably be sensible to do some market research and find out which option people would prefer. It wouldn’t take much to put both of the products on www.500yearvision.com and see what happened.