Newsletter – Issue 17

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the 17th Leach Press and Oakist Press newsletter, 28th September 2026.

The aim is simple – weekly in spring and summer and fortnightly in autumn and winter, I'll send a short update covering new books, new videos, events, projects and life at Oakwood.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting independent publishing.

The newsletter archive is available on the website, with photo appendices documenting the changes around Oakwood.

New videos this fortnight

Watch all videos here:

Oakwood Rewilding Project

Work continues at Oakwood in Llanbrynmair, although Erika has been away on a residential therapy course this week, leaving me holding the fort and attempting not to create too many new projects in her absence.

The Woodland Trust project remains the biggest development on the horizon. Our planting proposal has passed Phase 2 and been approved, and we are now waiting for the site visit. That will allow us to move from the broad proposal to the practical questions: what species will work best in the different parts of Oakwood, where they should be planted, how many trees the land can sensibly accommodate and what support will be available.

There is little point second-guessing the final planting plan before the visit, so for now we wait. If everything goes according to plan, however, this winter could mark the beginning of a substantial new phase in the development of Oakwood.

The cider orchard is similarly in a holding pattern. Ten traditional apple trees are on order for the new orchard, including Breakwell's Seedling, Ten Commandments, Arthur Barnes, Grenadier, Ashmead's Kernel, Blenheim Orange and Green Purnell. They have been chosen to give us a useful mixture of bittersharp character, acidity, sweetness, body and complexity for future cider experiments. There is no further progress to report yet, but Oakwood Cyder remains firmly on the horizon.

Pond-da-Rosa comes alive

The biggest change over the past fortnight has been around Pond-da-Rosa. After all the digging, planting, filling, emptying, refilling and wondering whether it would ever settle down, the pond is now full, the water is clear and life seems to have discovered it remarkably quickly.

Multiple types of dragonfly have been patrolling the water, while pond skaters and water boatmen are already busy on and beneath the surface. Frogs have been found moving through the surrounding grass and, rather more impressively, a heron has now discovered the pond. Whether that is good news depends somewhat on whether you are a heron or something smaller living in Pond-da-Rosa.

A pub-style bench has also been installed beside the water, which may not contribute greatly to biodiversity but does considerably improve the human habitat. Sitting beside a pond that only recently existed as an idea and watching dragonflies, frogs and water insects move in is a rather satisfying reminder of how quickly nature responds when given somewhere to live.

The vegetation around Pond-da-Rosa is becoming a story in its own right. What was recently bare and disturbed ground is now being colonised from several directions, with plants reflecting the different little habitats created by the pond, banks and surrounding grassland.

Some are familiar Oakwood stalwarts. Dock and dandelion are present, alongside broadleaf plantain, spear thistle, sow-thistle and creeping buttercup. Yorkshire fog and cock's-foot are among the grasses moving through the area, while common sorrel, autumn hawkbit and willowherb add to the developing mixture.

The more disturbed ground has produced its own collection. Fat-hen, redshank, pineappleweed and sun spurge have all appeared, exactly the sort of opportunistic plants you might expect to take advantage of newly exposed soil. Meanwhile, willow is establishing around the wetter ground, beginning the much slower process of adding height and structure to what is currently a very young habitat.

None of this was planted as a designed scheme. That is precisely what makes it interesting. Pond-da-Rosa is effectively running its own colonisation experiment: water arrives, bare ground is exposed, plants find it, insects follow the plants and other animals follow the insects. We are watching a new little ecosystem assemble itself in real time.

The running plant list now includes dock, dandelion, Yorkshire fog, common sorrel, sun spurge, broadleaf plantain, spear thistle, redshank, cock's-foot, fat-hen, willow, sow-thistle, autumn hawkbit, pineappleweed, willowherb and creeping buttercup. It will be interesting to see which of these are still prominent this time next year and which are simply the first wave of colonisers.

The proposed hydraulic ram pump for Pond-da-Rosa remains on the engineering list. A fast-running stream lies about 250 m away and below the pond, and in principle it may be possible to use the energy of the flowing water to pump a proportion uphill without electricity or fuel. For the moment, however, the pond is full and there is no pressing need to solve a problem we currently do not have. Measurements of stream flow, fall and pumping head can wait until they are actually needed.

Autumn takes over

Across the rest of Oakwood, autumn is now unmistakably taking hold. Summer vegetation is dying back, grasses are collapsing and seed is being dispersed naturally across the field. We continue to interfere as little as possible, although fresh dock seed heads are still removed where we find them. The objective remains control rather than eradication: dock belongs here, but we do not particularly want to hand it the keys to the entire field.

Meanwhile, dandelions are springing up in surprising numbers, providing another splash of life as much of the taller summer vegetation begins to retreat.

There is still plenty moving amongst the dying vegetation. Grasshoppers remain abundant, alongside shield bugs, butterflies, dragonflies, ladybirds and meadow birds. Frogs are turning up away from the pond, and there is plenty of evidence that small mammals are using the increasingly dense mixture of grass, stems and ground cover.

Leaving much of this vegetation standing, falling and decaying naturally is deliberate. What can look untidy through human eyes is winter accommodation, food storage and shelter for a considerable range of wildlife.

The young planted trees have been checked again after the recent winds, and mulch has been topped up around many of them. Most have now survived their first summer at Oakwood. Their next examination is the Welsh winter: months of rain, wind, cold and saturated ground. Welcome to Mid-Wales, little trees.

Around the polytunnel, the summer growing season is winding down. The tomatoes have been particularly successful this year. The raised bed outside, built from old fencing recovered from Erika's garden, is complete and ready for its next job. Reuse first, buy later remains a useful rule around here.

The small "formal garden" beside Dread Palace has also had its autumn treatment. It has been cut back, the vegetation composted and the ground mulched. Even the slightly more domesticated bits of Oakwood are gradually being pulled into the same cycle: grow it, cut it, compost it, put it back into the soil.

Fungi, chickens and other inhabitants

Autumn has also brought a noticeable increase in fungi. Earlier finds included Agaricus species and boletes, but many more small species are now appearing as conditions become cooler and damper. Identifying them all is going to be another project in itself. The fungi should provide an interesting indicator of how the grassland, deadwood and developing woodland habitats change over the coming years.

And, finally, the chicken project has ceased to be a chicken project and acquired actual chickens.

The two new Oakwood residents are called Jacket Potatoes and Hashbrown.

Their house and run beside the woodland are now occupied, and they are beginning to turn what was previously just another structure into a working little part of Oakwood. Apart from eggs, they should contribute scratching, manure, food-waste processing and a certain amount of general chicken-based chaos.

Winter jobs beginning

Work has now started on a compost toilet in the shepherd's hut, another small step towards making it properly usable without adding unnecessary infrastructure.

One of the old dead oak trees has also finally come down. Rather than disappearing from Oakwood, it has simply changed jobs. The tree has been felled, logged and chopped for firewood, turning standing dead timber where it was no longer wanted into winter heat. Where appropriate, plenty of deadwood will remain around the site for wildlife, but this particular tree will be keeping Dread Palace warm instead.

The FOD Wagon has also passed its MOT, which means one less mechanical cloud hanging over the place.

Running is back on track too. Apart from the obvious fitness benefits, regular running around Oakwood helps keep some of the paths open as the vegetation continues growing and collapsing across them. It turns out that path maintenance can occasionally be disguised as exercise.

The campsite has effectively moved into 2027, while the Art-a-Van and bee projects remain on the longer-term list. There has been no significant progress on them during the past fortnight, and there is little value in pretending otherwise. Oakwood has enough moving parts without every one of them having to move simultaneously.

Life at Oakwood

It hasn't all been trees, ponds, fungi and compost toilets.

My big sister Chris and her partner Nick came to stay for the weekend. A thoroughly enjoyable visit was had and far too much drinking was successfully achieved. Rewilding the liver may now take slightly longer than rewilding the field.

We also held a celebration of the life of our friend and Llanbrynmair pub local Steve, who recently passed away. Friends gathered to remember him, eat pizza, drink and give him the sort of send-off that suited the man. There is more on that elsewhere in this issue, including in the Modelling section.

So Oakwood heads properly into autumn. Pond-da-Rosa is full and increasingly alive, the chickens have arrived, fungi are appearing, trees are mulched, winter firewood is stacked and another growing season is beginning to fold itself back into the land.

There are still large plans waiting in the wings, particularly the Woodland Trust planting, the orchard and eventually the bees, but one of the lessons of this project continues to be that not everything needs to happen at once. Some weeks involve building things. Others involve planting things. And sometimes the most useful thing you can do is sit on the new bench beside the pond and watch what turns up.

Further photographs documenting the continuing changes around Oakwood have been added to the September appendix.

DJ news

The big ska and punk all-dayer has had a change of plan. After meeting with Vesna, we have moved the main event from December to Saturday 24 April 2027. The original idea was for plenty of people to come in vans and stay around Newtown, and December weather was increasingly looking like a fairly effective way of turning that into an endurance event.

The meeting with Vesna went really well. The April event is now shaping up nicely and, rather encouragingly, the discussions could also lead to a regular Dicky Dread DJ event at Vesna next year. More on that as things develop.

My actual 60th in December will therefore be marked with something rather smaller and more local at the Wynnstay Arms. Then, once winter has got out of the way, we can make considerably more noise in April.

Modelling

The celebration of Steve's life also produced the beginnings of a new modelling project.

Steve was a train driver by trade and also left behind a substantial OO-gauge railway collection. Justyn and I are planning to recover it from Essex and give it a new life by installing the layout in a caravan.

The idea is to create a mobile railway that we can take to events, with entry money going to Steve's leukaemia charity. It seems a rather fitting way of keeping both his trains and his memory moving. More on this once we have recovered the collection and have some photographs.

Coming soon

Work continues on a number of current and future projects, including:

• Further video episodes of Physics, Consciousness & Reality
• Further video episodes of Living on the Road, Waterways or Off-grid in the UK
• Further video episodes of Crime, Punishment & Justice (although not until one of the above are complete)
• Further videos on off-grid living
• New Oakist Press releases:
  • Monique & the Thingies by Tom Rantula, now in the final stages of production.
  • Resources and the Future: An Anarchist Perspective by Dicky Dread.
  • Books from Marge Hunter, Saz Denny and Stu Schotnes.
  • Education: An Anarchist Perspective by Dicky Dread.

Author's note

A fortnight in which autumn has properly arrived at Oakwood. Pond-da-Rosa is full and already attracting an extraordinary amount of life, Jacket Potatoes and Hashbrown have finally moved in, fungi are appearing everywhere and the land is beginning its annual retreat into winter. Elsewhere, plans have shifted rather than stopped: the big ska and punk all-dayer has moved to April, Steve's railway may be about to acquire a rather unusual second life, and the Woodland Trust project continues to sit tantalisingly on the horizon while we wait for the site visit.

Increasingly, Oakwood feels less like a collection of separate projects and more like a place beginning to develop under its own momentum. There are still plenty of jobs to do, but there is also rather more to be said for sitting beside Pond-da-Rosa with a brew and watching who turns up next.