The twisting plum tree
In Hugh’s garden there is the most incredible plum tree – over 100 years old and still producing fruit. It has a wonderfully twisted trunk as you can see in the pictures, and Hugh describes it as the reason he bought their house. It has a small bench underneath, and before I left I played a few tunes for Hugh and Janet and the plum tree, enjoying its shade on a very hot day.
Hugh: I met Janet on Erraid at the community there – we fell in love over a fencing project! In those first few years we gained lots of experience in planting unsuitable trees – the trees provided to us for planting were not always the right kind for that environment, so it was a learning experience.
When we moved from Erraid we were looking to start a new community for ourselves – a land based, family community. Erraid had been such an inspiration to us. It was hard to find a suitable site for us – we searched around for a year but couldn’t find anything we could afford that was in the right location, and had enough buildings to house the three potential families. So we temporarily put our search on hold.
We started to look for a place for our own family. When we came to view this house, there was the plum tree - sat in the centre of the garden dripping with plums. It was twisted and magical, and I fell in love with it immediately. Janet was very taken with the character filled old farm house - I wasn’t quite sure about taking on such an old building, but I sat with the plum tree and it told me it was the right thing to do, so we bought it.
Almost immediately some friends moved to join us, and within a year another family first rented a nearby bungalow, before buying the adjacent converted farm buildings a year later– we had achieved our intentional community. We worked the ground together to produce fruit and vegtables, started a car pool – which was the origins of the Moray Car Share scheme – and we would share food and eat together regularly. Recently there has been less interest in community living, though we still host WWOOFers (worldwide opportunities on organic farms). I think as humans we are made for community life. You certainly learn lots of essential skills! Patience, negotiation, tolerance…..
Nearly 30 years ago, we planted a woodland. It was a clear felled site of 70 acres. Some trees have come from natural regeneration, but we planted an additional 40,000 trees, the majority of which I grew myself from seed. It is now a beautiful and productive woodland that is a joy to be in, and provides me and others with beauty, firewood, fruit and nuts, and ever increasingly useful timber. It is the most meaningful thing I have done in my life.
