Renovating an old farmhouse and living on the Pennines

[Evoluzione]

dhutch said:

Stuff.

Your questions were answered back there btw.

---

Is it a plane? Is it a helicopter? Neither or both...

As mentioned before I think the RAF come over here now and again on training. It was dark the other week and when it's dark here it really is black. At the moment that is our security, i'm thinking that if anyone wants to try and break in and they can't see they won't bother. Yeah I know, torches and stuff, but I don't think your average real life burglar carries a torch, nor want to try and jemmy a door holding a mobile. No matter what security measures you come up with someone will say it won't work because of xyz etc.
Anyway, I could hear something coming over and it was almost completely unlit, all I knew was it sounded weird. It came right over us very close and the only thing I could see was two tiny little green lights, nothing else whatsoever, all very eerie.
K looked it up on an app and it turned out to be a Boeing Osprey:












It went further up North to a mystery location before coming back again later, 2 nights on the trot.

Out in the field late afternoon I was treated to the sight of the barn owl coming out early and our Kes having a battle in the sky, Kes won, the Owl went back to it's house to wait for nightfall when Kes would be roosting. If you've been following closely you'll remember the owl really does have a house!
One of my neighbours says the Kestrel sits on his Easterly facing window cill sheltering from the storms.
I've never seen a red Kite here, but one flew over recently. I think they travel quite far looking for food and as per usual the crows went up like a pair of WW2 Spitfires to fend it off a Heinkel.

The digger had a very rusty roof. I had some epoxy paint to cure that and some fibreglass to cover it so I made use of the dry weather we've been having lately. I made a template from some Trespa I had kicking around for the sunroof, you need something the fibreglass won't stick to like plastic, even so I wrapped the edges with box tape and made up some basic framework to hold it in place whilst I 'glassed it up to form a flange for the rubber seal.







The one thing I didn't have was some topcoat, it's important to know the difference between topcoat (or flowcoat) and gelcoat when you're 'glassing. Topcoat is what they use for fibreglass roofs and is always grey - a bit like a JCB digger roof. It's been a bit windy all over the North and Scotland lately, so haven't put it on yet. It has rained too and the cab is dry - no more puddles on the seat.

Whilst it was dry, it was also a bit cold, the roof froze over after some of the stages which probably didn't do it a lot of good, but whatever, it's a roof on an old digger. As long as it keeps the rain of it'll be ok.

I've also realised the whole front upper window and frame slides up until its sits right out of the way under the roof which is handy.



It uses a very, very crude method of square tube sliding in a track and also looked like it had been roughly bashed about by someone and was locked in place. I set to and equally roughly bashed it back, the frame lifted up as it should and promptly fell out on my head
A couple of bolts were found in my bolt bucket which stopped the track from spreading, it coming out and I set off out to dig some holes somewhere. When closed the thing rattles loudly like an old machine gun, now I know why some eejit hammered it closed. I cut a wooden wedge and shoved it in, no rattles and when it's open the wedge keeps it there too. I know from my Automotive background that 3 cyl engines are very unbalanced and vibrate a lot.
I eased the binding door, greased the hinges and put a piece of Polycarb in the bottom where the glass was missing, that rewarded me by rattling too and flapping open occasionally.

If you look at this early pic you can see a high point under the tow hitch:



The whole yard has been dictated by this piece of stone just peeping out of the ground. You drive uphill into the yard to this point and downhill everywhere else. Downhill to the house, the field beyond and to the paddock.
I'm thinking that we will take that rickety stone wall down to extend the garden and view a bit further on before it drops down a steep slope, maybe put a Summer house on the edge so we can sit and admire the views from there. The house is set too far back for this to be available from the ground floor.
This chunk of stone says 'Leave me alone and do something else' because many before you have fallen at this hurdle. The man with the newly acquired digger however is oblivious to this nonsense. He is God in his JCB so off we went on a mission. Some hours later (after digging through the backfill spoil of bricks and concrete blocks of others) this was exposed:



And that was just the tip of the iceberg as it goes down much further than that.
It's the size of a small car, but with the weight of a truck. The big guns were called into play and I set to like a rabid man on Speed cutting a lawn with a pair of scissors. I chipped and chiselled, I clawed with the bucket and broke it down over a period of days. The bits that came off that were too big to lift I rolled and dragged them out of the battle site.

Here you can see how to do it properly, go in with the road hammer until it starts to crack:



Then bray some chisels in until it lets go. You can hear it cracking like a piece of ice as it gives way, it's surprisingly flexible and will open quite wide at the face whilst at the bottom it's still un split.



Then I go in with the bucket:






I then get them half on the dozer blade and half under the bucket and drag them away. I hope there are no plant operators or mechanics reading this bit. Move along now, there is nothing to see here
I must have pulled out about a thousand pounds worth of stone and have now got a decent sized hole to get rid of some unwanted hardcore.

Some close up shots for the geologists:



It looks like sand sculpted by waves to me. It was a long time since I went to school, but IIRC when the ice age thawed glaciers slid down the hills, scarring them and bringing rocks like these with them, which is why it was marooned there at a strange angle on some stones, soil and clay. It feels a bit odd to be the one disturbing it and splitting it open after thousands of years, but it'll be put to good use. I want others to be able to enjoy this place after we've gone.








I often start these posts with a couple of points I want to share, but once I start I remember all kinds of things. I hope it remains interesting in a mild kind of way, a bit like (but not as good as) Mortimer & Whitehouse fishing or James May taking something apart and reassembling it perhaps.

Edited by Evoluzione on Tuesday 8th February 15:09

[Evoluzione]

Steve_W said:

Nothing useful to add, other than to say how much I enjoy this thread.

Loved the description of the crows rising like Spitfires after the kite. We get that here as they see off the kites & buzzards - tenacious beggars, aren't they?

Rock hard are crows, they'll have a go at anything.



It's all a bit grim at the moment, like much of the UK it's been nothing but cold, wet and windy for the last few days. Almost everything I own is wet and it doesn't matter where it's stored either. The constant driving rain forces it's way though the walls and roofs of the barn, garage and house. Driving down the road to the town and it's cascading off the fields above the road and running like a river down it.
Water is running over the top of our fields and actually bubbling up out of them too.
The Polytunnel is holding up well, the greenhouse frame I brought with me not so:



Before:


Now:


Lord knows where the dog went, probably in York somewhere.

I keep having a few hours with the field drainage now and again, I was working away oblivious to my silent, smiling audience until I looked around:



The spring near the house has overcome it's meagre temporary drain off pipes and is coming down the hill, luckily I'd dug a moat at the base as part of my digger learning exercises so it's running around that:





Where I lived before I was classed as motor trade and had many useful contacts, one of which was my MOT guy who i'd known and used for decades. It was a case of rock up when told to, have a chat whilst he had a look at it, pointed out what needed doing and gave me a clean ticket. I then went away and fixed whatever it was when it was convenient, all very easy and amicable.
Not so now. Here Adolf failed it on various items, some serious, some not and I had to roll around outside under the van in a freezing force 10 to fix it.

All the stone is now pulled out of what now looks like a bomb crater:





When we tore out all the stalls and walls from the stables/barn I stacked it all outside on pallets. One of our neighbours has a tractor with forks so is going to pop around later on this week. Hopefully it'll lift all the rubble up and dump it in the hole. It'll settle naturally then eventually we will put some kind of driveway over it. I'm really liking the idea of reclaimed stone sets (cobbles). They'll cope with all the traffic and weather we can throw at them, most of the streets in the towns around here were and still are lined with them.

When it stops raining i've got to measure and draw the area where the new workshop will hopefully be built, then apply for planning. Hopefully (again) i'll have somewhere dry and slightly warmer to work next Winter.

The chap that owns one of the fields bordering ours has got rid of the lad who was renting it off him for sheep and cows, it's now going to be a wood, you can just see the bundles of something (saplings or their plastic covers) dotted around in the field there:



I don't think we'll see large trees there in our lifetime, but someone will one day. With it will come more birds and possibly deer. The latter do live further down the valley, but don't come up here due to the lack of cover.

Some of the bulbs we planted around the place are showing buds now:



So Spring can't be far off.

[Evoluzione]

IanA2 said:

And now Spring is here. Missing your updates. Hope all is good.

It is thanks I was a bit miserable, nothing much exciting was going on and i've spread myself a bit thinly by posting on other platforms too, each post is tailored to a different audience. This was the PH Feb/March chapter, so we're a bit behind and yes, it's great to see Spring again

More sorting out the drainage in the lower field gubbins and other bits and pieces




People write their best when they are emotionally charged, there isn't much of that going on in a UK Winter!



The birds are coming back, the wavering call of the Curlew is now commonplace as is the almost electronic noise the Lapwings make as they swoop around the moors. The nutters which are the Oystercatchers back too, one of them flies up and down the valley just as it's got dark, calling out all the way. I felt a bit sorry for the male blackbird(s?) that regularly visited the bird table in Winter. Where was the female, was there one? Happily there is and she now visits a few times a week.
A couple of cheeky Pied Wagtails spend most of their days on and around the patio, they're greedy buggers too.

Emotionally deflated I managed to dodge the snow, gales and rain in Feb and did an overhaul and service of the old digger:



As you can see I just drove it onto the patio and cracked on, I love living here
The last of the three storms we had rattled the door on it relentlessly until the latch slipped. The wind then took it and slammed it back multiple times until the upper glass was in a thousand and one pieces. As it's laminated it's still there, but looks even more tatty now. I've since fitted a rubber ball and cup type hold back for it, this works really well, will stop that from happening again and also mean I can pin the door open when working.
It's cost a bit in parts and time to get it working properly, but I'm happy with it's performance now. It leaked diesel and engine oil out before, was also slow on its tracks, but now it's much improved in those departments (it just leaks hydraulic oil now!) so it was down to the problem field to see what a mess I could make down there because when these move in you know you've got issues:



First off I deepened the culvert so it'll take the surface water off much better and also flow when it's at high tide:







I made the rookie mistake of taking the wrong (2' digging) bucket with me rather than the 4' ditching or grading bucket so it wasn't the best or quickest, but it does the job. It's supposed to meander anyhow I'll go down later on in the year when it's drier, make a better job and by then i'll have something to put the stuff into and take it elsewhere.

Used an old gate post slab as a bridge for the sheep:



One thing i've noticed about Herdwicks is they're quite quiet sheep compared to the others around here.

I'm hoping now that the surface water has somewhere lower to drain off into and localised flooding will be less, but much of the issue still comes from over the wall which is rented off to a farmer. It's a mess over there with water everywhere due to collapsed soughs and blocked culverts. It then runs under and through the wall wherever it wants to. I've had words and been told it'll be sorted. The stupid thing is because it's left like that it causes the dry stone walls to collapse, when I walk around almost every collapse is by a badly maintained and damaged waterway.



This isn't a great pic, but you can just about see the kink in the wall where it's leaning over dangerously:



The M1 of drainage Soughs wends it's way down the troubled Turf Meadow (all old fields have names). It's taken me a while to plot it's course underground and even then I didn't know where it went part way down. I just knew when it was overloaded it bubbled up and went overland. I realised that the ground there wasn't swollen as such, it had been built by silt swept up by the flood waters.



I put a trench in at 90 degrees to where I expected it to be, I figured i'd destroy anything which was left of it, but I'm on my own and the thing is circa 2ft down under sopping wet clayed soil. This isn't TimeTeam where you've got 50 people scraping away with a trowel for free for 6wks.
If you look carefully up the field you'll see where the ground is dry, this is where the M1 is underneath.



This bright blue/grey stuff in the centre there is Gley which is derived from Russian words for some reason. It's basically clay formed by certain conditions and often found all the way up the Pennines and Scotland. It's a bloody nuisance when you're digging as it and normal clay clog the bucket up:





I've found a cure for this, but haven't made it yet.
As you can see I found the sough, then put the digger astride where I figured it would go and exposed more and more of it. If you can do it this is the best way you see, track backwards digging between the tracks as you go.




As you can see there is broken, collapsed and blocked up parts to it. I'm thinking it's collapsed (heavy tractor?), but the water has carried on flowing. Because it's at a much reduced rate it's dropped it's cargo of silt, rubbish and stones etc making the blockage worse. It was a foot deep with this solid carp for many, many metres. I tried shovelling it out, but as it was compacted so much and full of small and large pebbles it was tough going to remove even a bit. My feet were either side of the sough and the shovel below me meaning I had to use my arthritis riddled carcass to push and lift. I did a few hours, but could barely walk upright when I go home. I took my painkillers, drank some homemade cider and swore at some people on the internet before passing out in my chair.

Unearthed failed attempt 1 (of 2):



Too small and no gravel surround, waste of time and money.

There are some surprisingly bright colours down there, if you look around here you'll see the bright orange which is Iron Ochre:



It's caused by the iron in the ground mixing with bacteria and water to make some horrible drain blocking jelly.



Because of the haphazard way i'd been forced to attack it as I didn't actually know where it was going I was left with a ditch in many varying states. Sometimes I'd gone on one way with the digger only to find the sough went somewhere else!
I'd picked up some old Keruing sleepers for free so took them down and made a bridge for the digger to sit on:



Don't try this at home kids, it's a bit dangerous. I had the throttle set on it's lowest, was leaning as far forward as I could in the cab and using the lightest of touches to control the bucket. It's bloody difficult to be light with a rickety old worn machine and sticky hand controls, there were some heart stopping moments. If you've never operated one of these things you need to know that if you're pulling the bucket towards you and it gets overloaded with weight or snags on a rock it pulls the machine to the bucket instead.
Anyhow apart from splitting one sleeper in half it did the job and with a combination of bucket and shovel work the sough was flowing again.





I put back as many of the capping stones as I could, covered over with soil, trampled it down and got loaded up to go home just as it started spitting. As I write we haven't had much rain, just annoying showers. I'm hoping we'll get something big and that the sough will flow and flush itself through as it should. I'm thinking these things work by having a sh!tload of rainwater put through them at high volume and speed, because the water can't go anywhere else (when it's covered and complete) they clean themselves out, but we'll see. If it does work like that it may mean it'll deposit a load more where I've just cleared it and it's open, then flow over the top.



Coming soon:



Plant auction action

[Evoluzione]

Evoluzione said:

silentbrown said:

Evoluzione said:

Last nights hard frost is certainly bringing the birds to the table, a woodpecker and what looks like a Finch with a red breast visited this morning amongst the other regulars. Had a little white flash on either wing and the red colour went from it's beak down to it's legs. Not a Bullfinch, Chaffinch perhaps?

Or possibly a redwing. You can get flocks of them scarfing rowan berries at this time of year.


Chaffinch is sort of pinkish all over.

Hmmm, neither of those then. It was too small for a Redwing and I think i'd recognise it as they're very much like Thrushes and like the Fieldfares we do have a lot of. As you say they have been in the Hawthorn bushes getting the berries, but they won't come near the house. A Brambling perhaps? Will keep an eye out for it.

It turned out to be a Chaffinch after all



They are both (M&F) regular visitors to the feeder now.

[Evoluzione]

Looks like I have some YT videos to watch on other antique plant collectors

Plant:

When you have an excavator you soon realise you need something to accompany it. You're either taking something out of the ground or adding it in and need something to carry it. I needed a dumper.
2wd was out of the question as was a swivel skip. A what? Yeah, the container which holds your muck on a dumper is called a skip, on some models it swivels round so you can tip it to the side which is quite useful sometimes.



However, they sit a bit higher so if you have a small machine to load it up you'll either struggle or it be of no use at all. I'm really glad someone mentioned that to me.
What I knew about dumpers I'd also known about excavators and I took a risk with that. I know a lot more about diggers now.
At the local auction 2 turned up, one old Benford and one newer swivel skip. I spoke to some people who know and the said don't pay more than £1500 and don't get a Petter engined one. The swivel went for silly money and £1400 all in (including fees) bought me Benford:



Whilst the metalwork has more rust than paint it's solid enough, it starts and runs so time to get busy and see what we have.
Like most plant at auction it's been run into the ground and sold on. It needed a good week spending on it and about £500 in parts & fluids. I've:

Reconditioned both steering rams with new seals and bearings.
New filters to: Engine oil, fuel, air and hydraulic oil.
New fluids to: Front and rear axles, brakes, gearbox, transfer box, hydraulic system and engine.
Brake master cylinder was remanufactured - re-sleeved in SS with new seals for use with hydraulic oil, NOT brake fluid.
New battery
New starter motor
New sealing ring/gaskets to cylinder heads
Set tappets
Get the handbrake working
Fitted a pair of front mudflaps
Fitted a twirly knob to the steering wheel

Still to do:
Make an exhaust pipe as it's rusted through.
Service the skip ram as it weeps a bit. This is a big, heavy ram and at the moment one of the fixings is seized solid hence me leaving it.
Get the footbrakes working.
Maybe find out why it's overfuelling under load, (black exhaust smoke). I've been told it might the governor, but it's inside the engine block and looks (on paper at least) a bit complex with lots to go wrong. I lack a bit of confidence with going out of my safety zone and doing engines I have no experience with, but it usually works out ok in the end.

The only thing I got wrong was the battery. I listened to someone else who was incorrect in diagnosing it and it turned out to be a very old and internally corroded starter motor. Still it's done now and for an old machine with no glowplugs starts extremely quickly, 1 second on the key and we're off.

Celebrated getting it mechanically sound by taking the bin out:




It's a 3 ton capacity machine and from a mechanical POV it's:
Air-cooled 1.9L 3 cylinder. Lots of torque, no bhp
A really small basic 3spd + reverse gearbox with no synchro
Foot brakes are by a normal master cylinder, but interestingly it uses hydraulic oil and the brakes are none contacting discs immersed in oil inside the axles, a bit like motorbike clutch or a viscous coupler.

4wd, but on open diffs so it will go 2wd if challenged (1 at the front, 1 at the rear)
What it's like to drive:



It's dirty, bad tempered, bucks up and down, you sit very high up, it pivots at the centre and makes a right old racket. If you're heading into the wind you get facefuls of dust and grit blown into you from the skip.
It feels very dangerous and it is. Health and safety has come a long way since Benford was new and scampering around a building site. I would have just been leaving school, starting work, dating 'birds' and going to college at that time.
It has no suspension, just the tyre flex and a sprung seat which is rusted solid. The front is fixed from left to right, but the rear is allowed to rotate slightly (clockwise left to right) on a centre pivot.



This is so all four wheels stay on the ground on uneven terrain.
The front is also connected to the rear with a central pivot.



Some sexy Benford shots:



Phwoaaar:



Getting stuck in mud here is now no longer news, it's just everyday life and (aside from this one below) i've actually given up taking pictures of it. I've had every vehicle we own completely stuck in either mud or snow.
Benford got stuck on his first serious job. Whilst fully laden it sunk in the mud by a ditch we were filling with gravel.
I then used a bed of rushes to take him and me back and forth to another job successfully all afternoon. Until one time when we strayed off piste into virgin territory by just 1 metre and it immediately sunk up to its axles.
Both times the excavator came to the rescue and pulled him out. You stretch the bucket out as far as it will go and tether it. Dig in by lowering the dozer blade then retract the bucket pulling it towards you.



^ I'd been working in this bed of rushes all afternoon, until this happened. Just before darkness fell, it's always just as the light is fading, every bloody time! I had a go, but ended up walking home, The Walk of Shame
Next day I went back with a clearer head and some daylight, unbelievably I got it free:

Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 29th April 08:04

[Evoluzione]

The three antiques at play:




When I was about 7 i'd have to be called in from playing outside with my toys for my dinner.
Not much has changed, just the toys got bigger, more expensive and rustier.


Getting tooled up for forthcoming battles:

The plant collection is growing, mechanical plant that is. I've been busy at the local auctions and as you can see a Stihl brush cutter, Belle compactor have been procured. I've also picked up some forks.




The Stihl seems ok, just needing a mild service with air filter, new harness, ear muff/helmet/visor combo and new 3 pointed cutting blade (it already has a nylon string thing with it).

The compactor was a different story, it was not in good condition. It looked like it had either fallen off the back of a lorry or taken a heavy clout from something big. The handles were bent, drive belt missing, On/OFF switch hanging off, starter cover battered in, starter locked and rubber anti-vibe mounts bent too.
I set about it methodically enough in the barn back in Jan whilst getting rained and snowed on. Starter cord cover came off and was pummelled back into shaped with a metalworking hammer and sand bag.

Back on and in place I gave it a tug and the Honda engine burst into life easily enough. After a new belt was fitted revving it up saw no whacking or vibrating going on and I noted the clutch wasn't gripping.
The handles came off and went under the hydraulic press, 10 mins, a bit of 'rack at eye' and they were lovely and straight.

Fastened back on and I noted the engine was sat at a weird angle. The cure was easy enough, I just slackened off the bent rubber mounts, spun them round 180' and locked them up again.
Still no drive though so I went in for dinner and hit Google before drinking some cider and cursing at people on the internet.
Bad news; clutches are NLA and used ones are fetching £100.
Drank more cider, swore some more and woke refreshed in the morning.
The ON/OFF switch is witchcraft. It has just one wire going to it and doesn't turn off (is permanently on) unless put into it's hole. Then it does. Well Araldite soon sorted that and it now works.

The clutch looked serious so to Plan B. Plan B is get off your arse and repair it, so I got me glasses on and had a good look at it. Well this is funny says I, turning it round in my hands, it should work? If you've ever looked into a car or trailer brake drum then that's what it looks a bit like, except the whole lot turns round and the centrifugal forces throw the 'brake linings' outwards so they lock the unit together.
It seems that the whole thing is driven by some very vague and mild splines, nay mere scratches between it and the end of the crankshaft it sits on. But it doesn't, it just slips around. I note this thing will go on both ways so offer it up the other way that it came off and Bingo! It grips and works and we now have a fully whacking wacker plate, ready for action.
Sorry for lack of pics, I just cracked on and forgot to take any.
The forks, hmmm, work in progress, we'll get onto those later.

[Evoluzione]

A bit of gardening.

By the house the soil is very stony, the fields are clay. I wanted to try grow some veg so found a guy who said he would deliver soil up here. When he got here he said when he was a kid he worked as a labourer in one of the farms below us, also that his truck had been down to 1st gear on the way up.
I've never lived anywhere where i've had to buy soil in before now! It's my first year of growing veg in a completely new and harsh environment, so that was the first hurdle. That was followed by 'Oh dear, i've just had 12t of clay soil dumped in my yard'.



After that was some research which pointed out it wasn't too bad afterall.
We watched The Don to get some good advice:



So into the beds it went, some cardboard went into both:




Couldn't get in the Polytunnel with the dumper so had to resort to barrowing it in:



All planted out:



It runs due East/West so to the right is absolute South. With this in mind two rows of staggered toms to the rear with lettuce in between. Strawbs at the front with French beans behind them. I've dug pockets in there and filled them with potting/general purpose compost before putting the toms and lettuce in.


Picked up some old sleepers for free so knocked up a bed outside. garlics to the right and some beans in the foreground. Even got the stringline and tape measure out!




That isn't what Monty said is it?




Actually I think you'll find he did. He uses a plank too you know.

All done:





Sorry, terrible picture for some reason, maybe clay on the lens.

Something has already found my 'grow a new onion from the top of an old one' experiment and put a stop to it:



'Eats shoots and leaves', but we have no Koalas here. The wildlife cam will be set up, heads will roll.

What this years crop will turn out like remains to be seen as I haven't had the chance to improve it in any way. I'm working on a few tons compost though, ingredients all locally sourced:



Dave scoops up last years hastily cobbled together failed Hot Composting hoss muck experiment and passes it over to Benford.



Sorry worms, you're just too slow. We need compost and we need it this year:



Off to the field to gather Moorland soft rush with Benford:





Then back to the new heap:




As every good gardener knows, equal amounts of brown and green are needed.

As is some wood ash:





Dave moves in to mix it all up and once in its stride it heats up by about 1'c more per day until about 65'c.

Someone has moved in under the tarp:




To help pay for the soil I answered an ad for someone wanting clay. He was making a cob floor in his house so I said I'll sell you finest Pennine blue Gley for what I can buy soil for. We have no shortage of clay or gley here so Dave and I spooned a few tons into Benford



and the guy picked it up in his Yaris (I kid you not!). No soil there, just pure clay. You could make finest Wedgewood with that

All I can do now is hope for some decent weather and keep watering it.
With my new Monty Don inspired Geko soft lance

[Evoluzione]

schuey said:

This thread is excellent. I’d love a place like that.

Thanks, I do try to post the interesting and positive bits. There are plenty of tough and negative parts too, but I don't think you want to be reading about me moaning about those though.

---

Wildlife vandals.

It's woolly hat and coat weather this week, mainly due to the incessant high wind. It's10'c some days, but the 40mph wind chill makes it feel like 2.
The plants I put out have done nothing due to the cold, just resisted being battered by the wind. Kind of wish i'd kept them in the PT for a while longer as warmer weather is promised for the weekend, but they were bursting out of their pots. Hopefully they'll catchup when it warms up, who knows, it is an experiment to see what veg will grow here afterall. The more I develop the inside of the Polytunnel the more we can grow inside it, but obviously some things can't be grown in there. Stuff like certain Radish for instance 'bolts' or goes to seed if it's too warm. Apparently French beans will do ok though.
I'm really glad of the Polytunnel though as we've not done bad for sun and things are coming along nicely in there.



The first flowers are just about to open on the biggest toms.
It's handy to be able to open the doors at either end or both to regulate the heat. The problem is you have to do this manually so have to be here all the time. Any still sunny Summer days may cause overheating problems - if we get many.




This old Pachypodium Lamerei is about 8ft tall now and has been with me a long time, it's a deciduous succulent. In the last house it had a pitched roof conservatory to grow into, but not now. It comes in the house in Winter and Polytunnel in Summer. I've had to cut off that extra long limb, this will equal it out and mean it can live here for longer before running out of headroom. It'll have all it's leaves back in a few weeks.

I'd been meaning to put a fence around the apple trees I planted all Winter, but never got round to it. Mainly this was due to not being able to get down there with Terry without getting stuck and usual Winter weather/lethargy. In the meantime the local auctions had yielded two new rolls of wire fencing cheap and I'd found a few fence posts kicking around here and there.
So a fence is now up, it'll do for a few years whilst we work on something else.



Stood back to admire my work and realised i'd put it all on upside down

It doesn't really matter if the rabbits get in anyhow, they're welcome to it.

Too late for the trees though, the new Spring buds of flowers and leaves were stripped from one lower tree and partially on the bigger ones by the Sheep. They'd also tried rubbing themselves against them, probably to scratch. One was leant over, others had branches snapped off.
One of the field gates isn't used and is always open yet I found it laid on the ground the other day, I can only presume a sheep has again tried to scratch itself on it and actually lifted it off it's hinges.

I saw and heard a Cuckoo recently, but it came and went in one day so I don't know what happened. Thanks to someone who pointed me in the direction of this Cuckoo tracking site which has some interesting info on them: https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/cuckoo-tr...

I also spotted a deer on the moors above the house, it's rare to see them up here.

The rabbits have bounced back from last Autumns Myxomatosis and the population has increased massively.
They haven't found my raised veg patch yet, but have been burrowing in Ks new planters.





Next job is putting back the anti-vandal mesh and some gates where they're missing to keep them out of the yard.







Thanks to whoever recommended Ecofriendly cat litter btw (rather than clay) The cat thought it was ok to pee in but any solids were better on the house floor.

In the last post I said the compost would go to 60, but it never did! It got to 40 then started to fall. I took this as a cue to turn it, I don't think you can see the steam here:



I think i've made a mistake in not chopping up the rushes before putting them in. They would have broken down much sooner if I'd mulched them and made better compost. Bugger, another machine needed.


Next up: Dry stone walling.

[Evoluzione]

deadtom said:

I remain utterly envious of your house and burgeoning collection of slightly wobbly plant.

I'm just glad someone's still reading



That's a drystone wall to be proud of.


We look across SW to here:



and can see a house on the highest hill to the right there on the horizon. So we knew what that looked like from here:



But didn't know what our place looked like from there, for a bit of fun we decided to find out.

The first time out we forgot the binoculars so it was a failed mission. It took a while to find that point and when we did looking back over here was so very different, we couldn't even find our house!
A few weeks later we tried again and took the binoculars with us.
This is us here:



The Polytunnel makes it a bit easier to spot. We thought we were quite high up, but that ridge behind us shows how low we are in comparison, it's miles behind us though.


We have a lot of dry stone (DS) walls here, most of them fallen or falling down. So it was no surprise when my birthday present was a two day walling course. We pay the Walling Association, but the old guys teach for free.

There are a few variations up and down the country, but they all usually take this form:



As you can see it starts wide at the bottom and tapers in at a certain ratio, this is the batter.
Solid brick walls have 'headers' these have similar, but are called through stones.
A DS wall acts like a body lying down, it adapts it's shape to the ground it's laying on. As it's not glued together solidly when the ground moves the wall can move within itself a certain amount to compensate.
In many areas they were built from the stone found in the fields when clearing them for farming, others were from locally sourced quarried stone or even boulders from rivers.

We started off by taking apart a wall and setting out all the components in the right places on the ground. Then built it back up bit by bit. As you can imagine there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Halfway here:



And finally finished:



All perpendicular joints are crossed like any other wall, none in a line.
A normal modern brick cavity wall has the bricks laid in length (stretcher bond), but in a DS wall they go the other way so the length of the stone points inwards for strength.

The top course of copes is also very tightly packed. If you shove the wall sideways and it moves it's no good, if it's solid then it's a good job well done. Every piece of stone on the floor will have a place in a wall somewhere, it doesn't matter what size or shape it is.

I think it's like a lot of things, you can learn to do it, but you'll never be as quick as someone who does it for a job.

It's physical back breaking work, but ultimately very rewarding too. Done properly it should stand for 100 - 150 years.

Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 27th May 13:19

[Evoluzione]

Thanks
As i'm on a roll a bit of a wildlife catchup.



The big old Sycamore next to us loses it's leaves in Winter so the owls go roost in the only evergreen bush left which is a Laurel for a few grim months.
Early on in Spring the Blackbirds decided to nest in the Sycamore as well as my unprocessed pile of firewood. They sit on the wall, beaks full of food waiting for me to turn away so they can go to the nest unnoticed. I nod and smile; just crack on, I know where you're going anyhow, you're safe here.
Blackbirds show their emotions throughout the season, they get very stressed and vocal during nesting, once that's over with and the young have learned to go their own way the proud father often sits on a ridge and just sings on a still Summers eve.
If they're vexed you will know all about it and we did. I went to look under the Sycamore where they'd nested to see the owls were back. As it has new leaves they can roost under cover, but the blackbirds were not happy.
I looked up there last week to see one fly off carrying something large and brown, probably a rabbit as there are plenty around now. I'm pondering over making an owl nesting box and mounting it on the barn wall, it's the perfect place.




A rabbit has taken all the runner beans and some other stuff, fencing is now in place.



As expected things are fairing much better in the polytunnel:



A Shrew decided it was a good idea to join us in the living room



You could hear it clearly trying to drag some foil into it's new hole, the cat did nothing but look bemused. It was disturbing me watching Corry with it's constant rustling so I ended it by waiting until it was out and then blocking the hole up.
I'd like to say 'well go out as the weather has improved', but not by much at the moment up here:



Hint - study all the figures.

The Cuckoo went into overdrive and Cuckood all over the place. I tipped off friend and local semi-professional photographer Steve, he came up with his huge lens and wandered round the places I pointed out. There are some strange acoustic effects here, something to do with the shape of the land, maybe the rocks above us and certainly the wind. You can hear someone talking from about 1/4 of a mile away sometimes. Not actually tell what they're saying, but just catch words.
I think this helps the cuckoo stay hidden as it's call seems to bounce around a bit. Despite hearing it Steve could not find it. In pure desperation he pointed across the other side of the valley and reeled off a load of shots and went home. It was only as he was sifting through them later he found he'd actually got it from about a 1/4 a mile away:



Some more of his pics as he was here:

Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 27th May 11:41

[Evoluzione]

talksthetorque said:

Strawberries look lush, plus al the other (potential) food pics your mate took are great
Are the fields drying up enough now to do more land work, or is it easier in the mud so you can see where the issues are?

I was half hoping it was a Pheasant that took the bean plants, it would have given me a good excuse to go get one for the table It's a shame neither of us like rabbit much, but if numbers carry on and Mixy doesn't come back we'll be able to host a Falconry day again in Autumn.

Overall it's been dry, just interspersed with squalid showers here and there. Constantly windy though and not a warm wind either, as you can see on the forecast gusts of up to 50 and wind chill in good effect. To cut a long story short this has dried the fields out completely, any shower gets soaked up straight away rather than making a mess like it does in Winter. I can even drive my van down there.

I stopped posting about field drainage for a bit as I was worried it was getting a bit dull. I took enough pics and saw enough over Winter to be able to act, but have done enough opening out for now. Next i've got to do some laying of pipes, covering over and building back up the old style drains where i've exposed them.
The main sough which we call the M1 is now fully unblocked and flowing, but as per above, it needs putting back together and then covering over.
I don't think I mentioned it previously, but I happened on a good idea for caps to put back on top of the soughs - used concrete paving slabs. They come up for free now and again so have been out and about picking them up, that's how I know I can drive the van down there

The fields are now a healthy tone of green and providing plenty to eat for the sheep, this means they're less likely to stray.

Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 27th May 23:43

[Evoluzione]

Bannock said:

How TF do you manage to do all this AND earn a living? Mystified, and deeply impressed.

Several things all combined, i'm not your average PH Director You can live on four fifths of FA if you put your mind to it and still enjoy it, it just depends what you derive your enjoyment from.

We don't have any kids.

Doing most of it myself and working at it 7 days a week, but as it's often quite pleasurable that's not so bad.

My o/h has a well paid job.

Being thrifty, we don't have a frivolous lifestyle. Finding pleasure in simple things. Over Winter we did a couple of pottery courses which used up a few otherwise miserable evenings for very little money.
Many evenings are spent scouring the internet for cheap or free stuff. In the gardening thread a chaps wife recently spunked £400 on bagged compost, It never occurred to them you can make your own at home. Apart from time, mine is free and I enjoy the learning process.

We brought about 3yrs worth of 'free' firewood with us. I'm so glad we did that, especially now as the wood burner is still lit on an evening.

Assets. I built up a collection of saleable items before we came here so can let them go now and again to bring some money in.
A chap came over from Finland the other week to pick up a car I'd rebuilt for him pre-covid, that owed me money. I've got a race engine nearly ready to send to Malta, that's been nearly done for ages so owes me a few quid. A few bits to finish off on a track car I built before moving then that'll be up for sale. Covid put the brakes on many things, which can now be released to get the money back on.

That aside I am more or less taking a year or two off to do the work you see and build a workshop so I can carry on trading again in the future.

[Evoluzione]

Muppet007 said:

Nice to know, thanks. We had a wall moved + new gate and fencing a while back, the guy who did it loved DS but hated the other bits.

We have quite a long stretch of wall we need to rebuild in another area, thanks for the helpful guide.

There are some books you can buy on it cheap enough, depending on where you live you could go on a short course too. I think you'll pick most of it up in two days, the rest is just practice.
Lots of useful stuff here: https://www.dswa.org.uk/

[Evoluzione]

Alex L said:

Evoluzione said:

In the gardening thread a chaps wife recently spunked 400 on bagged compost

Guilty as charged :-)

What makes it worse is that she then asked the gardener to spread it on the flower beds. Furthermore she also forgot how much our 12 month old Border Terrier likes to nose dive into manure…

You can repent

Yeah well, cats can be as bad. Ours found some highly specialised Grouse poo to create another black splodge on her:



Which got her here:

[Evoluzione]

mikeiow said:

alfabeat said:

Although not commented before, I also love this thread. I'm sure there are several like me. So keep it up please.

I find it a very relaxing read. But like "Last of the Summer Wine" on a Sunday evening.

Yup, another follower!
OP, we swapped some stuff on lime mortaring a while back: well, the missus and I went on a course a couple of weeks back....a day well spent!
Looking forward to trying our hand at improving a wall later in the year....albeit I know we will be soooo slooooow!!
Keep the updates coming!

Thanks and thanks all.

You will be slow to begin with, but it doesn't matter. If it's done properly it outlast you, it'll look right and it'll act right for the wall or building. You'll get quicker the more you do and hopefully get some enjoyment and/or sense of achievement from it.
I hope to read about it too, a lot of people will be interested to see it. I wonder what your tutor said about NHL V Quicklime and what you'll choose.
I'm hacking out the cement pointing here at the moment:



Some is easy, but on the walls which get the worst weather it's like granite, they must have mixed it 50/50.


I'm about 2/3rds of the way up this gable now:



And at various other points around the house. I tend to have a go at whatever wall doesn't have wind or rain hitting it when i'm working.
The woodburner has been a touch sluggish since I hacked out that wall, i'm wondering if i've dislodged something which has partially blocked the flue...

[Evoluzione]

spikeyhead said:

Evoluzione said:

Some is easy, but on the walls which get the worst weather it's like granite, they must have mixed it 50/50.


I'm about 2/3rds of the way up this gable now:



And at various other points around the house. I tend to have a go at whatever wall doesn't have wind or rain hitting it when i'm working.
The woodburner has been a touch sluggish since I hacked out that wall, i'm wondering if i've dislodged something which has partially blocked the flue...

Any idea how long it is to hack out the mortar from a square meter of wall?

Not accurately no as it's dependent on too many things. If it's brick or stone, the size of the stones, what style of pointing it is, how well it's been applied. Anything from 10 to 30 mins.

[Evoluzione]

Previous posts got me thinking of this:





Not in a cruel way, quite the opposite. Just different people, different lives, yet having mutual respect and enjoyment somehow.




A Fieldmouse pauses for a quick pic whilst foraging for food on the steep bank behind the house.

Thoughts have turned recently on how to water the plants for free. Well ok, not quite true, thoughts started last Autumn, but as Winter hit they got put on the back burner a bit

But yes Summer is with us at last, plants are thirsty and as the spring close to the house dries to a trickle it was time to do something.
It hasn't been very wet at all recently and the sun, but mainly the wind have dried the soil out.
The old water supply spring and tanks are halfway up the slope, collapsing and don't give enough head to power anything much. I think this old supply will create about 1 bar as it's roughly 10m high. 10m = 1 bar pressure.
Handily I had a 30m length of rope which was just about the length of the bank, my angle finder told me the angle of the slope was (again, very conveniently) 45 degrees. Therefore using Pythagoras therum we'll have a head of 20m = 2bar water pressure.

I had (nearer the start of the thread) hoped to use a ram pump, but after some research and time passed by I realised it would be no good here. It needs a constant flow of quite a lot of water and (in terms of water lost during the process) is very inefficient.

So I needed to work out a way of getting at least one 1000ltr IBC up to the top of the slope where there was a space for a maximum of 3.
I took a pulley, 5ft steel pole and sledgehammer up there to create this:



Bought a long rope and threaded it through and back down.

Then handily we had visitors The women sat in the house yacking and drinking, whilst the blokes went out and did something practical. After giving their son a bit of a driving lesson around the fields we got stuck in.
Phil is a van driver and eats lots of pizza so I figured he'd be the person to drive Terry across the yard. His son and I steadied the IBC on it's way up the hill which was tied to and pulled by Terry via the pulley at the top.
I think some of the time we were hanging off the IBC and being pulled up by Terry too. Sadly we didn't get a pic of this bizarre sight, but it went up easy enough.



To get the water from the source up to the storage tank I got one of these:



And some cheap hosepipe, I wanted the guys to see what we'd done working before they left so coupled it all up quickly and got it flowing.



A black cover disguises it and prevents algae forming inside:



So the basics are there and it's up and running, It needs a bit of improving though.
The pressure is now twice it was, but the flow is way down, this is due to the small bore of the hosepipe so it'll need a bigger diameter down pipe.
Then I need to source/fit and wire up some kind of float valves to turn the pump on and off dependent on upper and lower tank levels.
Then install an irrigation system

---

Part of my um, Professional digger training involved knocking a pretty poor drystone wall down. If you've neve done this you can't consider yourself to be a Pro.



So when Summer arrived mid June we set to with our new found skills and made it even better than before.



It was a tricky one for some beginners.



Far left is a good piece of wall, then a gateway has been filled in 'bricklayer style' with mortared joints, a bit too high as well. Then our bit joined onto the that and linked it to what can only be described on the right as a pile of loose stone thrown there. The wall is on some strange raised soil bank too and we think one day the whole lot will come down to improve the view. I battled with how to bring it all together successfully and think maybe it could only be improved by stepping the copes up on the left in a swan neck to meet the other abortion of a wall.
It'll do for now though and keeps the sheep at bay. After 3 days of that we sat down aching, but pleased enough to crack open a bottle of home made cider and admire our work as the sun went down.

[Evoluzione]

Thanks all

Japveesix said:

Please do put a barn owl box up, they need all the help they can get and your area is obviously very suitable habitat. Barn owls are brilliant to watch when they hunt too.

Contact the Hawk & Owl trust and they may even send someone out to tell you where/how to site it. They sometimes even provide boxes and expertise for installing them. Worth checking anyway.

It's a case of DIY as all the info is available online.
I pondered over it a few months ago, but the barn owl (which we rarely see as it lives a few fields away on someone else's land) has it's own house anyhow. It's the one I explored a few pages back.
I don't think it's a good idea to bring another owl into their territory, but don't know for sure.
It's Tawneys that live here by us and I think they've cleaned out the homes of the other birds in the same tree they all nest in at least twice. There was a lot of noise and I went out to look, the owl took off when it saw me (which is a sure sign it has food) with the blackbird in hot pursuit and even a Blue tit following that too. It was quite comical watching those two chase an owl, but they were so mad. A great shame too, but that's nature. Other families have had more success hidden away in more secluded spots.

I have a feeling the Tawneys are nesting right now in the Sycamore as their habits have changed a lot. When they rear young and they're ready to go they purposely drive them away so they have to find their own hunting ground, if they can't find anywhere they sadly die.

Both those types of owl need totally different nesting boxes btw, it's maybe something i'll look into when i've got less urgent things to do.

[Evoluzione]

'Vicarious', I like that, you can come again. I'm terrible at maths, but better at English and it's always interested me. I like new words and unbelievably I never knew what it properly meant until I just looked it up.

Should you force your body to get up and go to work at a certain time, or just get up when you've had enough sleep, go to work and stop when you've had enough? I've always preferred the latter, If I was supposed to pop out of bed in a morning i'd sleep in a toaster.
I've been getting into the habit of falling asleep in my chair and waking when it gets light, it helps with the carpal tunnel.
Sleeping in a bed is a modern thing and overrated anyhow
Even at my age it still surprises me it's light so early Midsummer. Then I realise I've got to go out to open the Polytunnel as it'll get too hot before I've gone to bed and woken up again! I think it's quite a special time of day, it's just my body says it would rather be resting.
I remember in my yoof partying hard and still being up when the sun came up too, they were good times.
I got this pic of a Tomato plant with beads of water on it early doors:



Note: I haven't been any more specific than 'beads of water' as I have no idea what was going on there, but it was about 12'c.
I think this low overnight temp might be causing the yellow ends on the courgettes. It could be lack of certain minerals too, but not iron or manganese, we have plenty of that.

As is customary in the UK lets talk about the weather - and how it effects plants.
When choosing plants you have to consider soil and weather. Soil can be worked around, weather also to some degree, but you'll always have plants which can only grow outside to brighten the place up.
Whilst we get plenty of rain in Winter and cold spells like anywhere else in the UK, the one thing we do get too much of is wind, that's the one stand out condition that makes you choose a certain type of plant and does narrow the choice down a lot.
The weather has been dry apart from a good half hour soaking yesterday evening and once maybe 3 weeks ago it hasn't rained properly here for 2 or 3 months, just the odd light shower.





Because it's windy and we've had reasonable amount of sun it really does dry the soil out and many plants just fail. We've drained a few IBCs so far this year and they hold 1000ltrs each.
The wind just constantly bashes the plants around and dries the leaves out if they aren't up to living out here.
As far as common plants are concerned French lavender does well, it's looking a bit too dry for heather, anything coniferous will probably go brown. The apples trees are looking sick, that's down to wind, but possibly a soil issue too (caused by me) which i'll either investigate or let them grow through in the hope for better next year.
I'm expecting Alpines to do well here so will have a go at those in the future, they do seem quite expensive though.

I knew it would be difficult growing stuff here which is why I built the Polytunnel and went big. It was put up as soon as it was not really for growing, but general storage until a workshop is built. I have however found some room in there to grow and also had a go with stuff outside.
As noted above the outside veg is suffering from the winds, how it will end I don't know. I think coldframes or cloches may be a solution in the future for things which like it outside, but don't want so much wind or heat.

One surprising thing is that so far the Polytunnel has exceeded expectations. The reason for this is actually the wind! I did spec it with double doors which face West and a single facing East. Most of the Summer winds come from the South or West so it gets plenty in through the double doors. This is having the effect of removing stale and hot air as it blows through. It doesn't have enough energy once it's through the door to worry the plants, just a gentle breeze which is just what you want. The downside is (at the moment) I have to be here to regulate it and of course there is still chance for us to get plenty of still, hot weather, but we'll see.
Toms swelling and waiting to ripen now:






Lettuce will grow between or behind tomato plants just fine.



Courgettes are the nearest, with cucumbers waiting to be moved so they can crawl up some nets. Also in there are beans, spinach and strawberries.

---

Rabbit proofing the yard and paddock carry on. This post had rotted off and the gate blew down in the Winter storms:



Wood rots when it's in constant contact with Oxygen and water and can't get dry. That's why wooden posts always snap off at ground level. Despite looking a bit dishevelled the gate has survived because of it's simple design, it's only wet when it rains and dries out in between.

I plucked this from my post collection, lit a fire and charred the end:



It's the oldest and best way of preventing posts from rotting at the bottom.

Slopped a bit of Creo on to blend it in, made a bit of a cap out of some flashband, some mesh on the gate and we're back up and running for a few years.



The top band was already crooked, don't blame me for that!

---

After being dicked around for 8 weeks, the remanufactured brake master cylinder (BMC) finally arrived (magically after i'd requested it and my money back a few days previous). So it was bolted on to Benford and I attempted to pressure bleed off the system.
As a sidenote and reminder these brake systems use hydraulic oil and not normal brake fluid. There are slave cylinders actually inside the front and rear axles which operate on a set of slotted discs immersed in fluid, nothing like a normal dry friction brake disc at all. I was worried someone had put brake fluid through the system and ruined the seals, it would be one heck of a job separating the axles and getting those out, then finding new seals.

So anyhow I pressured it up and it rewarded me by spewing oil out of one of the hollow chassis members.
Well aren't we f*****g blessed thinks I as I slackened off a brake pipe, pulled it out of the box section where it was hiding to find it in two pieces and one half blocked solid:



It was a non-automotive size too at 5mm ('normal' is 5/16ths) so got some ordered off Ebay.
All fitted, bled off and woohoo, we have very good working brakes at last
It's been so long with just the engine and handbrake to slow and stop it I'm going to have to retrain myself to use a footbrake.
I have become quite deft at operating it like this, but had nearly killed or badly injured myself learning it. I took no pictures, didn't tell anyone and don't want to talk about it either as it made my blood run cold, but it was a hard lesson in Physics. Basically a dumper with no load can be stopped with a handbrake, however when going down a slope with 3T in the front it won't.

I have a localish connection now with a guy who has an 8 wheeler tipper with grab. He sells various hardcores, soils etc and his stuff is utter rubbish! He is however cheap and will deliver up here reliably, the latter of which is a blessing in itself. Getting a parcel off Ebay or whatever delivered up here is a blessing.
His services may come in handy in the future.
I ordered 12T of recycled ste and here it is:


It's supposed to be crushed brick, stone, concrete etc with no dust for some of the field drains i've formed (to put round a perforated pipe), but it's got dust in and also:
Glass
Golfballs
Pool balls
Pens
Batteries
Bits of wood
Gloves
Plumbing fittings
Shotgun cartridges

And god only knows what else. This isn't Kew gardens, it's an underground drain in a field in the middle of no-where so it'll have to do.

Loaded up Benford and off we went to fill some trenches:


The sprung and damped seat seized solid with rust years ago so bombing across a bumpy field means you have to hang on tight to the wheel, a bit of dust might have blown in my eye too as I smiled and realised i'm quite enjoying my life here

On that note this chapter should end, but it doesn't. That's because it's easy to point out that of course I am enjoying it, i've been here just less than a year. It could well grind us down bit by bit in the future. Hopefully not and to counteract this we have to shape the place to suit us, the views and the weather. If all goes to plan this will mean building shelters, a workshop, shed, Summer house and extend the existing house with a better bathroom and more user friendly staircase.
The field which drops steeply away from the front of the house will eventually have a pond and become an Arboretum. Probably the sheep will go to be replaced with Alpacas.
This is the dream anyhow!
If you didn't know there is a PH Euromillion syndicate then take a look at the thread in The Lounge and maybe join in. It only grinds into action when it's rolled over so we get a decent cut if we ever win, it's currently active.
I always throw my £2.50 in, heck I could use the money!

[Evoluzione]

The long hot Summer of 2022




Sorry, but what is a 'TTAYBR thread'?

Sorry for long silence, I told a braggard of a rich property developer what I thought of him, got grassed up and a months ban
I took to posting up elsewhere and am finding it hard to get back into the swing of things here now as everything is months behind.
It's difficult finding time to write in Summer and Autumn too as the weather is so good I'm forced to take advantage of it, but today it is decidedly showery. Anyhow, moving swiftly on I'll title the posts so you can fill your boots with whatever floats your boats and skip what you don't need.

Weather/drought/water/fields etc

The very steep slope behind the house has been dry for months, we've lost a few plants to it (mainly heather) as they weren't established enough. This is that the roots didn't go down far enough to get the moisture. The forecast says rain so you think 'ok i'll leave it'. It never comes so you get the hose out ready, forecast says rain again and it doesn't come again. Plants get fed up and die. Putting water on dried out soil does nothing, it just runs off. Poke your finger in after watering and it's tinder dry underneath.

The farmed fields below us are green, probably as they're clay and low down so get and retain water, the ones further away here were cut for hay which is why they're looking so good, the ones nearer are for forest and rewilding so haven't been touched. The brown does not necessarily mean dry ground, it's just the dry stems and seed heads of the grass (uncut hay).



This was a few weeks ago now, pre-rain.
Some of our fields there in the centre not looking bad:


Everytime I've been past the local reservoirs this summer i've taken pics thinking 'Well we probably won't see them as bad as this for a while', but then it never rained of course, so i've got loads of pics of half empty reservoirs and will now have to go do them all again and the levelsare even lower.
The engineers were inspecting the highest one recently, my man-on-the-moors (local Gamekeeper) says they're worried about some large cracks which have appeared. Presumably these are in the now exposed clay basin. I'll see if I can get access and some pics.

These were from maybe 6 weeks ago now:





If you've ever wondered what those chains are dangling off the towers now you know - they're for opening and closing the outlet lids:




Water used to lap against that wall on the other side:


That was water all the way across, from left to right, the green growth shows how long it's been exposed.





The Met office forecast is laughingly inaccurate here, it's been wrong more often than not this Summer. It'll state rain, 80%, showers, persistent, storms, lightening the whole lot the next day and it'll be lovely, warm and sunny.

Our borehole has been fine, as have many other peoples spring fed properties (of which there are many).

Our superseded spring supply has been nowt but a drip for months so bad timing for getting my garden watering system started. There are 3 IBCs up there now, 2 still awaiting covers to hide them, prevent UV damage and algae build up:




It's still very much in the testing stage and i've created some weird unfathomable effect whereby I seem to have defied physics and have one water level much higher than another despite them being connected with no one way valves or anything like that.
One time I drained one by using it and it didn't draw from the one next to it so started to collapse quite alarmingly instead.

I've fixed the lower catchment tanks temporarily by plastic welding the cracks in the broken tank, throwing out the rusted through supports and replacing them with some old sleepers and some Creo' slopped on for good measure.




Looking a bit neater now:



Must get that solar panel secured before the Winter winds arrive and turn it into a kite.
There is only 600L hence it being temporary, however there is room for two IBCs at 1000L ea in the future, then we'll go into Summer with 5000L on tap and more (for watering can use only) on ground level.
This Summer I've occasionally been taking an IBC down to the stream to fill it up to water the plants. During the two hottest periods the potted courgettes needed watering 4 times a day. They'll go in the ground next year.
I've been using my old car transporting trailer to do this, park it up by the stream and leave the solar pump running for 4hrs to fill the tank. Before I knew it was 4hrs I went back up to the house and kept going out to look at the level using the binoculars.
The heat was so intense some days the sheep were all searching for shade. As I'd tidied all the pumping paraphernalia up, hitched up Terry and was just about to pull away I noticed something moving in my mirrors. A sheep had managed to crawl into the foot gap under the front of the trailer! I went back and looked at it, no movement. When the trailer arrives it has no weight on it, after 4hrs it's got a ton on so sits lower, was it trapped?
I gave it a prod and it dragged itself out and ran off. That would have been one heck of a mess if I hadn't noticed and driven away.

Household water filtration

It took many months to get prices in and educate myself on this. We had so many quotes of wildly different specs and prices it was all a blur. I finally realised they were probably all over-specifying to either make money and/or make the water cleaner than a Nuns butt cheek.
I asked some pertinent questions of one local guy (who wanted ££ thousands and a yearly service contract) and the shutters went up, I got multiple excuses as to why he couldn't do the job, but did glean from him who was to be trusted and who wasn't. I narrowed it down to two and there wasn't much between them.
I approached one that was happy to talk, had a discussion over spec, price and they sent someone out to do a survey, then the job we'd agreed between us.
As i'd thought they were over specifying I questioned, then removed several £k worth of equipment & time and they came out and did the job.
I figured we didn't need UV as there is no bacteria present. We didn't need the ionising to 'mop up anything left' as it was not only a step too far, but also has the side effect of softening the water (it's already very soft) so can make it feel slimy.
There is two ways of looking at this, you overdo it, overspend and are happy with the result or you take a risk by taking off some equipment with a plan to add it on afterwards if it doesn't clean well enough.
We're still in the testing stage, but so far and a couple of months down the line the gamble seems to have paid off and everything which had brown staining cleaned off it has stayed clean. The metallic taste and whiff of sulphur if left stood has gone. It would be interesting to have another water test done to see precisely where we're at, but it's more £££ to just back up what we're seeing and tasting.

And there it is:



Not the most tidy of installs, but the positioning of it made it difficult. The tall blue tank is full of graded 'media', sand, charcoal, whatever and does the first filter. Whatever makes it through goes to one woven polypropylene coarse filter then onto a fine one.
The first filter has a programmable reverse flow (known as backwash) which cleans it out once a week. The other two have replaceable cartridges, when they're clogged the water pressure in the house indicates it's time to change them.

During the heatwave we are at a bit of risk here if the moors go up in flames and I do have some old pics of the fire brigade and helicopter parked on the top road above us when there was a moor fire. After speaking to him gamekeepers are on red alert too. I don't bother watching the news much these days, but as the temps hit record levels I was sat watching those terrible fires both here in the UK and abroad on the TV.
The sun had just gone down when I caught a bright orange glow out of the corner of my eye on the horizon of the heather covered moors
I went out for a look and was relieved to find it was harvest, super, blood moon all rolled into one and what a beautiful sight it was too.