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The CountrySOLE project ::
The Sustainable Organic Living Experience was established to close the
gap between environmental demands and a modern, comfortable
lifestyle. CountrySOLE aims to raise awareness of the
unnecessary use of the world's finite resources and to
encourage the use of sustainable materials in everyday
life, recycling where possible and striving to close the
gap between environmental demands and modern living
conditions. It is organic both in principle and growth. It
continually evolves, and each stage is exciting and
challenging. We would like you to come and share our vision
and experience sustainable living. The CountrySOLE
Project….it simply works!
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The challenge we set for ourselves was to build a
sustainable house using as much as possible renewable,
reusable, reused and biodegradable materials, and to build
a living system which would have the least impact on the
environment.
There are many ethical and practical considerations to
grapple with and I’m not sure that we have always attained
the right balance, but we have tried hard to work through
the difficulties. We would have liked to be able to buy
everything from local sources but often the materials or
the expertise has not been available. We are very grateful
to the volunteer groups from Hands Around the World whose
input has been much appreciated and for all the family help
and support throughout the project.
THE
HOUSES
We now have two houses built from Finnish Pine interlocking
logs, protected by a home made borax solution to control
mildew and woodworm. The construction involves only wooden
pegs to “nail” the logs in place between the log
intersections. The wooden framed windows are double glazed
and the wall and floor insulation is provided by sheeps
wool, some of which were grazing on our farm. The roof
tiles are recycled plastic reformed to copy Welsh slates.
Electricity is obtained from the sun using photovoltaic
cells (plus a small wind turbine later this year) and
stored in deep cycle batteries. The Bunkhouse operates at
12 volts and the new LED lights provide adequate lighting
at very little wattage. The main house has a dual power
system relying on 12 volts for all essential operations but
the ability to invert to 240 volts for operations when the
power is plentiful. A back up generator will be available
for filling in the gaps in supply. We have been very glad
of the technical support for the renewable energy systems
from our son-in-law Ben Whittle of Southern Solar.
Heating and cooking comes from solid fuel (in this case
wood) Rayburns, thrown out in the rush for oil and gas. Hot
water in the summer will come from solar heater panels on
the south facing roof.
Both houses have grey water recycling and composting
toilets to return, eventually, all waste to the soil.
THE
GARDEN
We have planted 350 trees within the plot to theoretically
replace the trees used in the buildings and eventually to
provide a source of firewood and timber. More trees will be
planted over the coming years to maintain the balance.
We have created an amazing circular garden (the cycle of
life). There is a central octagonal pool (the water of
life) to raise fish for eating, and raised beds radiating
from the centre to the 8 main points of the compass,
growing fruit, vegetables and flowers on a permaculture
principle, with the small triangular beds between for other
crops.
We have a garden kitchen for use during warm days when
lighting a fire indoors would not appeal, based on a
chimenea and barbecue using wood again as fuel.
THE FARM
Run to the
Organic standards of The Soil Association, the farm grows
crops of carrots, potatoes and cereals and has Hereford
cattle and the local Ryeland sheep. Our daughter Bridie
Whittle runs The Good Egg Co. and her 600 free-range laying
hens produce eggs for the farm shop, local organic veg. Box
schemes and the September Organic Dairy Ice-cream. This
award-winning ice-cream originated on the farm when we were
dairying and is now produced by our son Adam and
daughter-in-law Lizzie in the village of Weobley but always
available at our farm shop!