christmas fair

We had good opportunities to show our presence in the local area on 2 occasions. Our community has been growing in steady paces but there are still many people in the area who don't know about us. We were very keen to take part in some events for PR.
One was at Raheenwood steiner school when they had a christmas fair. It is a well established christmas fair and many people came to the school on 29th of November. We had a stall there last year but had no products of ours. This time we had some rugs, table runner,etc from our weaving workshop, home baked breads, jams and juice.
The rugs were very popular and people were surprised to hear that they were made in our community.
The second occasion was on a christmas fair in Ennistimon. It was a wonderful way to meet people and get to know some of those people.

new looms for the weaving workshop

Sometimes ago, we have asked our friends at one of our camphill meetings and asked for unused weaving looms.
It works. We got what we asked for!!!
Recently, we have got 2 new table looms from Camphill Dingle and a standing loom from a good soul.
The weaving workshop is temporarily set up in Clai house at the moment. It's expanding quickly. Now we have 4 weaving looms set up.
Our weavers have been busy making some products for the christmas fair.

The new purpose-built workshop is waiting for more funding. Hopefully, we get a roof over the building soon.
Now what we need are more people who works on the looms!

first pots

We started a couple session of craft work a while ago.
We have been making a few flower pots and tiles for mosaic work since then.

As we don't have any pottery equipment, it isn't easy to finish them off.
No equipment at all.
It's easy to make some pots but they all need to be fired.
what can we do???

we tried to fire them in a paper kiln. As the name suggests that they get
fired in newspaper.
How is it possible?
well, it's hard to believe but the newspapers in certain conditions don't get burnt easily.
Different layers of wet newspapers hold heat and work as insulation.
Eventually it gets very hot and convert clay into ceramic. It's very fascinating process and wonderful event for anybody to see it.
it is very valuable experience to follow the whole process and try to understand what ceramic is.

Indeed,It was very successful firing. There was no broken or cracked pots.
so, we'll try to fire some more pots in paper kiln again.

latest member in our community

"Bobby" is our latest member in our community. He's 6 months old dog that found a good home. He was a stray dog that was found at our friends' house.
It happened that people in Clai house was considering to get a dog and they were looking for a suitable dog. When they heard about the dog, a meeting was arranged for him to visit us. It all went well and he was to come and live with us in Clai house.
Well, unfortunately, he got a car accident the day after. When he joined us, he had some stitches on his front paws. With special neck holder around his face, he looked a little bit sad.
anyway, he is a very happy dog now and he's off the neck holder and all the stitches. He looks much healthier and started walking again. Indeed, he can run and go for a long walk. He's very friendly dog and everybody in the community seems to be getting on well with Bobby.

Harvest Festival & Open house

We asked our friends of the community to come and help us harvest the vegetables. 

Even though it was a very wet summer and wettest summer for most of us, some vegetables grew well. As the garden has been providing a variety of vegetables for last few months, we are very grateful. With the extra hands, we managed to harvest all the carrots as well. 

After we could appreciate our harvest by eating nice hot soup that was made from our own vegetables in the garden. 

The same afternoon, we had "Open house" to welcome our friends and neighbors in Clai House. Instead of turning the events with full of games and programs to entertain our guests, we kept it simple. We could spend more time with our guests. 

There was one more event on the day in Kiltrateera afterwards. We had our first "story night". It was wonderful to listen to all kinds of stories sitting by the fire in the old farm house. The house has a perfect set up for such event. All the grown up were quietly listening. I hope we can create the story nights more in the future, especially in dark nights in winter time. 

new house

                                   

From 1st of July, We've been renting a new house called Kilreteera.

It's an old farm house with 5 acre land. 

There is a vegetable garden with 4 poly tunnels. There are strawberry, rasberry, black currant, red currant, goose berry , apple trees, pear trees, etc. 

It's a magical land where a lot of fairy beings  are around. 

inis house

we have reopened Inis house. It had not been used for a while as residential house. 

we are trying to get the house ready to accommodate people. we got new furniture as well and there is more warm atmosphere in the house definitely.

new weaving workshop

We are building a new workshop next to Clai house. It's going to to be a bright room where weavers create something special with various colors. 

clai initiative blog

I've set up a blog for Clai life sharing community so that family & friends of our community can see what is happening here. 

I'm setting up online photo albums as well. You can view it and leave comments if you like. 

eiji