The Blog
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Foraging with Taste the Wild [Read me!]
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New Years Eve [Read me!]
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Christmas Craft Weekend [Read me!]
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Christmas is coming… [Read me!]
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Lewis Todhunter Gig 16th Nov 2012 [Read me!]
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Cakes made to order! [Read me!]
Keep up to date with Bivouac life with our blog and join the Friends of Bivouac for our regular newsletters.
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A sunny day around site in October…
Beth Hardwick posted this on 31st Oct 2011
We are BUSY!
Running around like headless chickens we are…. the office is never empty and the site has more mud churn than our wellies can cope with!
But it is coming together and we are loving this weather… it does not feel like winter yet? Maybe I am speaking to soon…..
A few pics to share with you…
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Volunteer Days at Bivouac in March 2012…
Hazel Swan posted this on 31st Oct 2011
Bivouac are organising a weekend of volunteer activity, with tasks such as building log stores and painting furniture - to helping with some finishing touches on the interiors of the shacks and yurts. We’d love you to get involved!
As the Bivouac site progresses, we look to Spring next year when we will be getting ready to welcome our first visitors to the site! Our team here are busy working away hard to get everything ready.
Some of the jobs we need to do to spruce the site up can’t happen until the Spring, and we’d like to open this opportunity up for anyone to get involved!
For people that would love the opportunity to be a part of getting the Bivouac off the ground, and would enjoy some team building in the Yorkshire Dales, we have some dates for your diary…
Dates - Thursday 1st March - Wednesday 7th March
All guests are welcome to camp in the field here, we’ll provide shower and toilet facilities and there will be a camping kitchen set up next to the house.
Feel free to come and get involved in a day or stay for the whole weekend, everyone is welcome!
Here are a list of the types of jobs we will be doing over this weekend…
- Building a log store
- Planting
- Clearing areas of the site
- Hanging signage
- Building some recycling bins around the site
- Starting to dig a veg patch
- Building a compost
- Setting up and finishing off the internals of the shacks and yurts
- Painting and restoring pieces of furniture
- General moving of items around the site
- Making food and drink for our volunteers
- Creating a coal stock shelter
- Fixing some dry stone walls
- Tidying up the gardens
- Fixing up some shelves
- Interior decorating throughout the barns and accommodationIf you’re interested in joining us and getting involved then please fill in the form below and e-mail to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Wanted - Chef for The Bivouac Cafe
Hazel Swan posted this on 20th Oct 2011
The Bivouac Cafe could be looking for you…
The Bivouac is looking for a Chef for our Cafe. You would be involved in the design and set up of this area, from kitchen set up to opening to the public.
Our theme is hand-made, local, reclaimed, recycled, Rustic! Simple!
We love ‘Bills’ café down South for style, feel and food….. look it up on line.. there is one in Lewes down South and Brighton, Jimmy Doherty’s cook books and food, http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/nutrition/ their language, feel and food. Have a good look into these – and form your own reflections.
Check out the Job Description below if you would like to hear more, pass on to a friend or get in contact with us yourselves.
We look forward to hearing from you…
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Raising money for the Play park…
Beth Hardwick posted this on 20th Oct 2011
We are amazed at how many folk are helping us raise money in memory of our daughter Florie. The Bivouac team are so excited to see this happen and we all want to thank you so much for your help. Keep it up! Want want to raise £25,000 to get the best in keeping natural play area here for families to enjoy for years to come.
Check out facebook page - ‘Florence Briah Play Park’, as well ‘Gifts for Florie’ and help us spread the word and raise funds.
THANK YOU FOR RAISING £1,400 SO FAR!
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The birthing of our yurts…
Hazel Swan posted this on 14th Oct 2011
All the way from Devon our yurts have started their life and will soon be making the journey up North to The Bivouac!
After lots of researching and talking to yurt people, we have decided on our yurt suppliers. Wanting to get them made in the UK, we have gone with Kevin, a guy who lives in South Devon and is going to make our bespoke yurts to fit in with the landscape at The Bivouac! We are really excited to be working with Kevin and his friends who will be hand making all our yurts. Production will be starting this week, with the finished articles heading up North early next year ready for opening.
Dan and his team up here are getting ready to start building the bases for the yurts to sit on to help keep them weather proof. The site is rapidly transforming!
Here is a sneak peak at an example yurt Kevin brought up to show us on site last week…we can’t wait to put the first one in place!
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Autumn Larder….
Andy Robinson posted this on 10th Oct 2011
Foraging to fill the Bivouac Larder!!
The bivouac larder is filling after reaping the rewards of the abundance that autumn foraging has brought. The trees and bushes just keep on giving long into the autumn and as the warmth of summer begins to leave us as the first cold snaps are an ever so prevalent reminder of last winter’s chill. But I know we are on the way to filling the larder store for those long cosy nights relaxing in the warm light of the fire. I am looking ever more now to spicing those evenings up with our wind fallen apple chutney as is jarred up and slowly maturing. There seemed to be a record number of apples this autumn with bags full being exchanged between friends and family of the bivouac.
Another of the autumn favourites of mine, known mainly for its flower petals being used in many different products, is the elderberry. The elderberries make a simple but wonderful cordial packed full of vitamins to help fend off those sniffs and snivels. You can add it as a mixer to any of your drinks be it alcoholic, hot or cold. If it manages to survive lasting the winter through to summer it can be most appreciated simply mixed with water and ice for a real refreshing juice.
I was extra excited this year as my forage for sloe berries not only yielded mass amounts of a bumper sized crop but also some hidden wild plum trees with branches fully laden. Once upon a time I imagine they were part of a managed orchard but now sadly the land has mostly given way to pasture for cattle but these remaining beauties still survive and seem to be thriving. Both the sloes and plums have been added to the bivouac stores as Sloe gin and ‘wild’ plum jam.
I can not wait to sample these free delectable delights that this autumn has thrown up. -
Foraging for food
Hazel Swan posted this on 03rd Oct 2011
Foraging for food in the woodland at The Bivouac…
Foraging is the act of searching for food. I love the idea of foraging for wild food as it is free, local and fresh! The woodland at the The Bivouac is full of delicious wild treats, including blackberries, mushrooms and sloes.
Despite our strange weather relapse, it is now Autumn, and looking out the window, the leaves are flying off the trees. Autumn is a great time for rooting around and seeing what we are growing unknowingly on our land.
Last week I picked a load of blackberries from the area around the Druids temple. I made a blackberry crumble with them which was really easy. (I admit, it wasn’t the best crumble I have ever made, I’m going to blame the scales for the fact I put too much sugar in) There is a certain sense of satisfaction from having made something to eat from fruit that you have picked!
I have also been on the hunt for sloes and came across a load last week, a short walk from the Bivouac site growing in a hedgerow.
You’re supposed to wait for the first frost before you pick sloes, so they lose their bitterness, but from previous experience, I’ve found if you wait until then, they have either been eaten by birds or are a bit past their best. My cheats way of making the sloes think they’ve been through the frost is to stick them in the freezer overnight.
There are a few things you can make with sloes, but my favourite is of course sloe gin. There are loads of different recipes for this, but this is a good basic one I have used the last few years - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sloegin_7722
So, my sloes are now sitting in their demijohn having a great time, waiting for Christmas when I am going to let them out!
If I knew anything about mushrooms, I’d be having a field day in our woods right now, where there appear to be hundreds of varieties - I’ll have to book myself in on one of our foraging courses we are going to be holding in the woodland next year!
