The past few months have been a chaotic mix of adventure, history, culture, and digging big holes. It's the essence of the classic ‘self-discovery through farm renovation’ experience – a journey where the past and the present meld into a single, exhausting, soil-covered narrative.

In the spirit of the wild men and woman that once lived in the Shropshire Hills, we embrace the unknown, tackle the uncharted, take copious amounts of hallucinogens and let the energy of the land guide our way. The Onny Vale Project is not just about bricks and dirt; it's about seizing life's wildest opportunities on a canvas as boundless as the human spirit. …Also connecting a toilet to mains water.

This SPRING / Summer we:

Dug trenches for a new mains water connection!
Got kayaks to the site and been on the lake for the first time - Including stepping foot on ‘The Island!’
Begun working on the Lodge renovation.
Explored the Bog Visitor Centre & Stiperstones.
Visited a Shropshire archaeological dig.
Visited Shrewsbury Arts Trail.

Trenches for a mains water connection!

This month has been quite literally ground-breaking! After 6 months of planning and organisation, the first actual work began at the fishery.

This manifested in the form of 3 days of digging 150m of 4ft deep trench across the full width of the site, to accommodate the pipework that will carry water to the Lodge.

Our once-beautiful, perfectly-manicured site now has a giant, muddy scar across it that is slowly filling with water.

Kayaking to ‘The Island!’

Ever since first arriving to the site, I have been teased by ‘The Island’ that sits in the middle of the Carp Pool. It has always been a place of curious mystery that has been just out of reach. This month, however, in an audacious move, we inherited some kayaks, got them on to the water, paddled our way to The Island and walked all over that motherfucker.

This felt good because it was only a few months before that The Island had transformed in to a giant Black Snake that told me “stop shoving the world in your mouth.”

In reality, we made a 20ft journey across serene water, to get to a small island with nothing on it. But this watery trip represents a world of possibility and adventure that can be enjoyed on this pool. It represents success in our efforts to try and immerse ourselves further in to the environment, and be connected to it instead of just an observer.

Stiperstones / Bog Visitor Centre Walk

The Lodge has a real ‘squatters-on-a-building-site’ vibe to it when we stay there. None-the-less, we are getting our time in. We have explored a lot of walking routes around the site.

This month we walked from the site to the Bog Visitor Centre. From there we were able to grab a coffee before completing a loop of the Stiperstones, then heading all the way back. This was an approx. 9 mile walk, with varied, interesting terrain but beginner-friendly terrain. It incorporates the Stiperstones and the loop can be extended / shortened as desired.

It was exciting to discover that you can walk directly from the site to the Stiperstones with no road walking. We have spent plenty of time on Corndon Hill and Stapeley Hill, but this was really also the first time using the Lodge and Site as a base camp to properly explore one of the main tourist attractions in the area. It was easy and offered a great glimpse of the sort of activities the Site will be useful for.

Necsliffe archaeological dig

We have been taking great joy in discovering the rich history that Shropshire and The Hills have locked away within them. Tens of thousands of years of weirdness has taken place in this area - a rich history filled with tribespeople on psychedelics, rock-worshipping devil cults, men in helmets, flags, bad teeth and some of the greatest incest-loving scientists to ever live. I am starting to see how significant of a role this place has played in the development of the world we have inherited. Maybe that’s why I’ve come here.

In pursuit of learning more about the local history, this month we visited an archeological dig that was taking place at an iron age hill fort in nearby Nescliffe. Genuinely fascinating and we were the youngest people there by far. No-one seemed to have any solid idea about what they were doing, what they were looking at, why they were doing it or really anything about what was going on.

The phrase “finds of national importance” was repeated a great number of times, by men who looked like they had also been discovered as part of the dig.

People have inhabited this area for so much longer than my puny mind can understand; each individual with a life as complex as our own. Rich cultures and communities that have come and gone over and over again. Hundreds of thousands of lives all toiling away, just so we can be where we are now. At some point in history, the people in these hills developed some of the technologies and beliefs that are fundamental to our entire modern world.

In my romanticised version of the past I am incredibly jealous of the truly wild, rich lives the people in these hills must have once lived.

The real irony of this whole venture is that the funding for the dig ends this year, and so they are going to bury it all again to “preserve it”. Maybe the people that originally built these things were smarter than us… Maybe in 1000 more years someone will dig up this blog post.

+1 faith from Stone Circles; must be built adjacent to Quarry

Shrewsbury Arts Trail

We visited the Shrewsbury Arts Trail. Just another benefit of being in an area full of local culture and heritage!

Other people have written lots about this, and it’s all better than what I would do, so google that I guess. I just went for the SEO benefits. For real though it was very cool and we will make more of a deal out of it next year.

Lodge work about to begin!

I have spent a large part of the past few weeks speaking to bald men in DIY shops about the intricacies of grouting tiles. Not just for fun, but because we are getting ready for work beginning on the interior renovation of the Lodge. Lots of hours of looking at flooring, measuring sinks and motorway driving have been racked up. 34 is an exciting age.

For 4-6 months, the Lodge has been largely unusable. We have made use of it the best we can, but the lack of running water and electricity, the holes in the wall, ceiling, floor and exposed cables and pipework, have generally all made it a bit of a bummer vibe to spend time in.

The Lodge is the first of the major projects to be completed on-site. Getting this building done will ultimately provide the rest of the site with access to power and water. It will offer basic facilities for staying on-site and will be a base to work out from to begin other projects. The prospect of this work finally beginning is an exciting thing and yet another indicator that the plan is about to start becoming real.