Living Willow Wales stall at Lampeter Apple Day Oct 10th 2009
Living Willow Wales (me and Lisa) did our first willow stall back on Oct 10th 2009 at the Lampeter Apple Day, and lots of fun it was too! Getting everything together was hard work but it seemed to be appreciated. And we even had enough space to put up all of the willow letters we had made. I was a little worried about this as although planned to be smaller our letters ended up each being about a foot high. We put on a little mini workshop for the children by bringing along a couple of Rose’s small table and chairs and providing paper, charcoal pencils (willow of course), willow rods and various willow shapes to copy. Rose did get a little territorial at one point and excluded all other children from the stall by building a barricade of chairs – she’s such a sales women! Several children where running around with willow wands (a simple willow star shape) by the end of the day. We also brought along samples of eachof the different kind of willow that we grow. We’re mainly using and selling the fast-growing structural willow (Viminalis and a viminalis x triandra) at the moment but are building up our stocks of various ornamental and basketery willow. The Salix Ethroflexuosa being the most visually impressive, being corkscrewed and bright red. We had lots of interest in the photos we’ve got of some of the amazing things people have done with willow especially Marcel Kalberer. I wouldn’t say we’ve done anything truly amazing yet, but I’m quite excited about the 40ft space ship we’ve got planned this winter!
As well as us, and apart from the appley things going on (people could bring there apples for pressing), Gary was there with his Maesyffin Mushrooms – loved the pate; a local shoe maker; a miller with flour created using one of the few genuine water mills still in operation; Transistion Lambed; and a couple of other stalls I didn’t get chance to look at.
So with the great weather, all in all a great day out.
There is more information at the Living Willow Wales website.
