In between storms and rain, we've got Tiny House Two at Inverquiech fitted with its door and windows. I had to reduce the height of the door, (because I'd forgotten to allow for the fascia boards and gutters), so made it into a stable door while I was about it.
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| Tiny House Two is becoming a very pleasant space! and it's been great to work away in the better weather. |
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| My duck house for Tombreck Farm, Ben Lawers in the background |
I remember thinking, long long ago in my guitar making days, that it would be wonderful to have a tree nursery.... and that's as far as the idea got. So it's wonderful, after all these years, to be helping out on a very special project growing native tree species from seed gathered in the wild: DARROCH NURSERIES.
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| Moving seedlings outside to get used to the weather - they still have some protection from the wind though |
We grabbed the opportunity in some of the very few dry days in Jan/Feb to crack on with getting Tiny House Two at Inverquiech wind and water tight. Here it is with all its roof sheets, door and the last of the charred oak supporting posts:
I've set up some classes for the first few months of 2026 - they're all ideal for people with little or no experience. My big mission is to help beginners to take those first steps - it's never as complicated as it can seem and I make it all as simple and fun as possible :-) All these classes are at Perth Community Farm, an excellent teaching venue if ever there was one.
HERE'S THE DATES, MORE DETAILS AND BOOKINGS VIA THE LINKS:
COMPOST MAKING Find out how to convert household waste into useful material for your garden. Sunday 8th March 2026, £25 per place
We've been making this second tiny house for Inverquiech over three shed making courses, two at Kate's and one at Perth Community Farm, so it was a bit of a relief when it all fitted together so snugly.
Brilliant volunteer, Resourceful Dave, and I were lucky to get a three day gap in the recent storms. We made the last bits for it, the trusses and purlins, then put the whole lot together.
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| I'm smiling because however much I draw plans and check and recheck measurements its always a bit of a relief when things work in real life. |
In 2026, it will be an amazing FIFTY YEARS since my best friend, John Yellowlees, and I set up in business together. John, aka "Stone" or "Man", doing leather work while I, aka confusingly, "Man", or sometimes, "Other Man", made and repaired guitars. We shared a workshop and also a cottage at Gannochy Farm just outside Perth. I'm happy to say it all worked really well and we both got busy quite quickly with our trades, learned the nuts and bolts of business and had a lot of fun. Somewhere or other there are a lot of very silly photos from that time... although it was before the days of peoples' whole lives being photographed and broadcast every ten seconds... probably just as well in our case...
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| FIFTY YEARS AGO! We will have to celebrate with a mug of peppermint tea or something... |
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| I mostly fixed guitars but other instruments came my way too |
1976 was a restless year for me but one in which I picked up loads of the experience that has set me up in my working life.
At the beginning of the year I was working at John Birch Guitars in Birmingham. At the time, Birch's was the top custom guitar maker in the UK, making guitars for the rock and pop players of the day such as Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath and Dave Hill of Slade.
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| John Diggins, the guy who actually made these guitars rather than John Birch, was one of the most amazing craftsmen, I've worked alongside. Birch was responsible more for the pickups - which have a particular powerful chunky-clangy kind of sound that's still much in demand |
... to be continued...
WOODWORK TWO - MORE HAND SKILLS - INLAYING AND SHAPING
It was really nice to pass on some skills I've hardly used since my guitar making days some forty years ago. John got in touch wanting to try inlaying as a potential decoration for brilliant little boxes he makes. I'm happy to say I remember the tricks as if no time had passed at all. I used to work with ebony and mother of pearl - here we were working with reclaimed hardwood skirting board and sheet plastic from re-formed bottle tops (a legacy of working with Fiona McBain and Zero Waste Perth).
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| A great fit, well done John! The reformed plastic makes an amazing pattern |
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| Me busy making a guitar sometime in the 80's - a bit more hair then... |
TINY HOUSE ON A SALVAGED CARAVAN CHASSIS
One of my big themes is that it's possible to make really useful stuff with just a simple set of woodworking tools (mostly hand tools) and some basic skills. Here's progress so far on a tiny house we've been building on two of my Sheds, Vans and Tiny Houses courses - courses which are open to complete beginners by the way, we go over all the basic stuff you need to know, and you get plenty of practice.
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| THE BEFORE PHOTO... the caravan chassis stripped bare. It was awful to see how little decent material we could salvage from the whole thing. Just the chassis and a good bit of plywood, the rest was complete rubbish - what a waste of time and materials to make things that way... |
My own New Age Pensioner response to these bonkers times is to keep busy, running classes in simple living skills and helping out at two of the most inspiring projects I've ever worked on in all my 72 years - Perth Community Farm and Inverquiech.
The fruit and veg harvest at the farm has been spectacular this year - we've had the heat and also the rain (and being in town have a mains water supply too). We divide up the produce amongst us volunteers and give away surpluses to local food charities. You're welcome to drop in on our regular volunteer day - Wednesdays 11 to 3 - through into November depending on weather.
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| Pretty much everything has done well at Perth Community Farm this year and we're growing a wider range of crops than ever before |
Come and find out how to grow lots of stuff as easily as possible - this class really is for complete beginners - covers fruit and veg and also the principles of working with natural processes - fascinating and fun. More details and tickets for all my classes via Eventbrite link below.
FRUIT TREE PRUNING - coming up Saturday 31st January 2026, also covers basic principles of forest gardening and permaculture.
...NEW...EVENING CLASS...
Our first date went really well, it's just a two hour class but that's time to show lots of different techniques and for people to get in some useful practice. I'll run these regularly, next date is Thursday 2nd October - 5pm to 7pm
...SPECIAL OFFER...REPEAT DISCOUNT...
FOR BASIC WOODWORK CLASSES ON 18TH OCTOBER AND 7TH DECEMBER
I'd like to encourage people to do my Basic Woodwork class more than once - they're small classes so I can set you up with something else to make to suit your experience, and give you plenty of support as ever. This class is now £118.80 but I'd like to offer a special price of £99 for repeaters for either these two classes - please email me directly if you'd like to take up the offer: ianecowatt@gmail.com
I'd like to pass on some of the experience I picked up from my complementary healthcare career - come and learn about gently effective Craniosacral Energy Therapy at Inverquiech, near Alyth, Sunday 5th October. Inverquiech is a magical setting for this, we also run retreats there alongside all our permaculture activity.
Kate's yurt - a brilliant setting for all sorts of healthcare events
MORE DETAILS AND BOOKINGS VIA THE LINK
IAN'S PRACTICAL WORKSHOPS ON EVENTBRITE
See you soon! Very best wishes, Ian
Right from the start, we thought that teaching would be a major role for us at Perth Community Farm, and that's exactly how things have turned out. We don't try to grow tons of stuff to sell, but we do grow as wide a range of fruit and veg as we can and focus on showing people how to do the same in their own gardens. (We share out the produce among us volunteers - there's a lot at the moment! - and give away any surpluses to various charities).
We teach in an informal way - people are welcome to drop in on our regular volunteers' day, Wednesdays 11 to 3, to look round, and lend a hand. There's always loads of different things at various stages of growth to see. I also run more formal courses in gardening (also fruit tree pruning/small scale woodland management and more):
NEXT GARDENING COURSE 10TH AUGUST
A few photos from a Basic Woodwork course back in July and a few new ideas we've been playing with at Inverquiech.
It's always brilliant helping beginners to make something from scratch they can take home. We've been using more greenwood, hazel, willow, sycamore and oak, it's fun exploring ways of jointing it and combining it with plywood and other machined wood.
A big part of my sustainable living philosophy is thinking up ways to produce the things we need with what's growing or lying unused locally. Learning the skills for that makes us more resilient - and it's fun too :-)
This course covers the real basics to get you started on your gardening adventures, whether you're starting with a windswept concrete slab or acres of overgrown jungle. Find out about sowing seeds, potting up seedlings, propagating from roots and shoots, growing in tunnels and outside, compost making and much more - we'll also look at the basic woodwork you need to make raised beds etc. These are small classes, so we can look at plans and photos from your own gardens and hopefully give you the sort of advice that might save you hours of labour...
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| Sowing seeds |
MORE ABOUT THE COURSE AND BOOKINGS HERE: GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS
A VISITOR FROM THE GARDENING COURSE IN MARCH
It was brilliant to see Sian from the gardening course in March, she's helping on a couple of our volunteer Wednesdays. Here she is with the tatties and onions they planted on the course, now almost fully grown. That's a picture of her own flourishing garden on her phone, of which she is rightly proud :-)
Everything's growing like mad at Perth Community Farm... including the weeds of course. We have various non-chemical ways of keeping a bit of a check on them with mulching and cover crops etc but at the end of the day there's always some hand weeding to do. Still the farm has probably never had such a big area in production before and there's some great crops coming along.
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| Another class on the popular Basic Woodwork One course, I'm always delighted to see how much fun everyone has and how they often surprise themselves by making something from scratch with very little or no experience. |
SHED MAKING SKILLS - new course at Perth Community Farm
This was a brilliant weekend - great to see people without much experience working together to make a sound structure - then feeling competent to start planning and building their own sheds and extra rooms. Well done everyone!
