Dear ,

🇳🇱 Deze nieuwsbrief liever in het Nederlands ontvangen? Laat het ons weten!

This morning we awakened to the drifting song of a cuckoo, calling from the far side of the farm. Each spring, sometime around the celebration of Beltane (May 1) a cuckoo (or two) visits us, and fittingly seems to herald the opening of the bluebells, carpeting the earth beneath the woodlands.

Spring at Terranu

If you stand still for a moment on Bluebell Hill and close your eyes, you can hear a gentle, continuous hum —almost like a symphony— created by thousands of tiny insects gathering nectar and spreading pollen between the plants.

As the earth springs to life I feel deep gratitude for all the unseen tasks that these tiny living beings around us are continuously carrying out. It strikes me especially when I find a bumble bee hopping between the strawberry plants in the polytunnel, braving a human made space to gather food, while leaving behind the small green berries which will soon be bursting and red.

We have been having some incredibly sunny weeks/months, and we have been spending every moment we can out in the sunshine.

Life on the Farm

Our days are full, and our to-do list keeps growing. Whether we are supporting our children with tree identification and mapping skills in the orchard, or building the volunteer accommodation with the help of 4-year-old Kai, it’s never dull around here.

As chaotic as it may get, we always find moments to pause and reflect. Today feels like a perfect moment to share some of those reflections in this newsletter.

A morning on Terranu wouldn’t be complete without the morning chore round, up to the chickens, moving the goats to their paddocks and checking the sheep. In March our milking goat Lioba had two of the sweetest kids, Luna & Finbar. We have been enjoying their constant antics (though their growing desire to itch their budding horns on our legs is a little painful...) 

We are really enjoying having animals, however the learning curve has been humbling. Learning to (begin to) recognize nutrient deficiencies, sore feet, mites or any other puzzling new thing that comes along! 

The Aronia blossoming is in full swing as I write this ↑, and the warm days and the warm weather means that we are hoping for an abundant harvest! In the meantime we are digging dock roots out along the lanes, and a team of Commonland colleagues of Pieter helped us mulch with sheep wool from the neighbours. ↓

We’ve been busy tending trees, lots of trees. We were thrilled to partner together with Trees on the Land, which sponsored 100 native apple, pear and plum trees to expand the mixed cropping system above the aronia berries, as well 150 mixed species shelterbelt trees and nut trees (hazel, walnut & sweet chestnut) which we have been planting out around the farm. We love some of the names of the tree varieties, such as the "Ballinora Pippin Apple", the "Merryweather Damson Plum" and the "Wunder aus Bollweiber Hazelnut".

We had help planting from a team from La Rousse Foods! It was great to see how quickly a whole shelterbelt and orchard can be planted in a couple of hours. It gives meaning to tend to trees and know that if given a fair start, they will live to witness the turning of a few centuries. ↓

Join Us in Securing Terranu even more!

As you know, we're inviting private investors to invest in Terranu, directly supporting our vision of restoring nature. Last time we were at 45% and looking for €125.000 to replace bridge loans.

Our progress since January:

• Achieved: We managed to raise €45.000 from several investors. That means we now have raised 65% of our goal of €230.000. We feel very blessed and excited about this progress!
• Need: We still need €80,000 to secure the farm and replace short-term bridge loans.

We offer a 3% annual interest — a way to grow your money while nurturing the land and supporting nature’s regeneration.  

Interested? Learn more at www.terranu.ie/invest or share this with someone who might be!  

Volunteer at Terranu

Our volunteer accommodation is ready to welcome those who want to spend some time working alongside us. During summer months we can host 2-4 people and during the winter 1-2. If you are curious to come and spend some time on this fair (and often rainy) green Isle, get in touch!

How would you like to hear from us?

We have been relatively quiet in our communications the last few months. It felt good to take a bit of time to reevaluate how we want to show up online and in your inbox. We feel ambivalent about the big media corporations (read Meta-Instagram-Facebook etc), but they do enable us to share a vivid and colourful story of what we are doing at the farm. If you feel inspired to drop us a quick message with your thoughts, we’d love to hear from you.

With sunny greetings from the mountains,

Nakyta and Pieter