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We made halloumi!

A couple of weeks ago now Andy and I spent a few days WWOOFing at Canon Frome Court, a community of around 45 people in Herefordshire.

As part of our UK tour we’ve been trying to fit in a bit of WWOOFing, as well as it saving us a few pennies (a few hours work in exchange for accommodation and food) we also wanted to experience different ways of living, both from the ideas of having a small holding, and also living as part of an intentional community.

This was our first stay in a community and we really didn’t know what to expect. We has just spent a week entirely by ourselves, doing very little, house sitting in Devon, so as you could imagine it was a bit of a shock to the system to drive through the 15ft gates topped with a statue of an eagle with a bloody torn off hand in it’s mouth and then down a half mile drive, to a beautiful, though rather daunting, Georgian mansion where we were to join the whole community for dinner just 20 minutes after we arrived.

Luckily everyone was very nice, no one tried to chop off our hands to feed to birds of pray, and we spent the evening eating lovely homegrown food, drinking wine and chatting. Phew!

From what I’ve seen it appears no two communities are the same, they all run differently in terms of numbers, membership, ideals, living arrangements etc. Before we got to Canon Frome we weren’t really sure how this one was set up, we’d just been recommended them by a friend who told us it was the best example they’d seen of a community that “worked” in that things got done and people didn’t just constantly argue.

Canon Frome was set up in 1978 (so it’s exactly as old as me!) and they do seem to have managed to get things sorted in that time (although I was told there were a few fist fights in the first few years).

They run a 40 acre farm, with cows, chickens, geese, sheep, an incredible 1.5 acre walled garden for veg and an orchard. Everything seemed very well managed and productive. At this place people buy an individual unit, their own house basically. In fact I suppose it’s a bit like buying one of these “luxury apartments” in a converted old house in Manchester, except for these really were luxury and you actually interacted with your neighbours instead of ignoring them in the hall ways.

People have responsibilities for a certain space of land or care of animals, it’s recognised that some people may be able to do more than others and all produce is shared equally. Most people have a job outside of the community too. Really it was all very sensible and definitely not just a load of hippies rolling around naked in fields as part of some kind of cult (you can tell this is what some people are thinking when we say where we’ve been).

Not sure it’s the place for us, definitely not at the moment at least, I think I would prefer somewhere smaller with more communal meal and activities (although I’m sure that’s exactly the kind of place where people constantly fall out!), but it was a great experience anyway. I imagine it would be a lovely place to bring up kids. At one point while we were working we saw a group of kids appear from between the trees. They peered over curiously at what we were doing, all of them were munching their way through whole cucumbers. Kids choosing to eat cucumber, imagine that.

I think my favorite part was the walled garden, which was fantastic. It had a great rotation system, split into four sections the same group managed the same plot each year and the crops moved, so you would have your own patch to nurture and improve while getting different things to work on each year.

The polytunnels were very impressive, one was entirely full of tomatoes, the other had melon, early courgettes and crazy cucumbers, which on one single day had produced a crop of 42 cucumbers, some were wriggly and spiky.

Perhaps the best thing about it though is when you get to go pick and make your dinner out of the food grown there. On the last night of our stay Andy and I cooked for ourselves and we had a small feast including the halloumi we’d made that day, lots of different spicy salad leaves, nasturtians, courgettes, tomato, basil and mozzarella salad and tzatziki all of which were made entirely from home produce. So satisfying.

I was particularly excited about the tzatziki- goats yoghurt fresh from the day, garlic they’d just harvested, mint I’d just picked, cucumber from the polytunnel. I just thought it was crazy it was possible. I want a goat now. Halloumi and Tzatziki. Hurrah!

Thanks to all the people at Canon Frome for all you taught us and the great time we had there!

Click here for more information on WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms).

Click here for more about Canon Frome including how it is run, farm stays, room hire  and membership application.