Mud, Glorious Mud

The weather changed a little today. The temperature dropped and the rain has started. After a brights start with sun and a light breeze for an hour, even the birds  tried to set a cheery theme, but the day was doomed to relentless drizzle.

To fit in with the watery weather I decided to start work on the drainage ditch and duck pond. No matter what anyone tells you this is not much fun. The mud creeps over your wellingtons, under your cuffs and under your hat. It also grips your ankles to stop you moving about and threatens to toss you forward into the pit. Each shovel full  that you manage to dig out dribbles back in a slow landslide back to its roots. A day's work looks around one percent of the job, so we may be ready by autumn.


The only bright spot in the work is that breaks can be taken by the ford. It is very relaxing to sit on the large slate bridge and listen to the stream flow by.


Because of the rain we let the chickens work indoors today. They enjoyed an afternoon in the greenhouse, hunting for bugs, in a dry, paraffin warmed, atmosphere.

Chickens happy to be working indoors.
(One chicken with a disgruntled expression has been cropped out)

Spring Sounds

Spring continues to slowly evolve. The days are warmer and brighter and over the last few days we have seen the solar panels deliver about 10kwH. More flowers are showing their heads in the garden with patches of colour appearing in the borders.

The greenhouse has been pressed into action. A paraffin heater keeps the frost away and fills the greenhouse with a characteristic smell which is very evocative of old men and allotments.


We are trying to recycle the as much as we can. Hopefully the tubes from inside toilet and kitchen paper rolls will make pots for seedlings. If they survive long enough, without degrading, they should allow the plants to be transplanted into the ground with minimal risk of root shock. We are also using beans which we found from the previous owner of the house. These french, runner, and broad beans are quite aged so we are taking a bit of a gamble. However, if in a fortnight they have failed we should still have time to get beans going.

We found a large cold water header tank. This was rusted and holed in many places but has been recycled to act as a local incinerator.

Some heavy digging in the near end of the woods has uncovered a large drainage pipe. This should allow us to drain some of the bog down there. It might also make an outlet for a duck-pond. It looks as if, which some unpleasant muddy work, we could dig out a reasonable pond here. Fortunately we are probably having visitors in March who might be enticed into heavy manual labour.

Chicken looking amazed by recycled incinerator.
(Another chicken with a blasé expression was cropped out)

This clip might also give some idea of our recent activities :- Sound

Here comes the sun .. ..

The weather has remained mild and it has felt almost springlike. There was no great wind today and for the most part it has been dry. Little work was done in the vegetable garden but the aged, Tesco garlic bulbs seem to have survived and are now sprouting strongly. It is quite encouraging to see some green in the first raised bed.

The main work of getting the wood store ready for the winter goes on. I have started to work on the far side of the wood where there are a number of trees that have fallen and a number which need felled. With the fm radio on the phone and a set of earphones it is a pleasant place to listen to The Archers' Omnibus and Desert Island Discs.  The need for a good wood store has become more pressing as it seems that we are going to be able to reinstate the old wood-burning Rayburn in the kitchen

The biggest change over the weekend, however, has been the installation of the solar panels. We now have the ability to make 3.36 kilowatts although when they were switched on, just before sunset in the  winter, we only made enough (80w) to light a few dim bulbs. I am glad to say that the panels do not seem too intrusive and  blend into the roof quite well.

St. Dwynwen's Day

St. Valentine's Day has come around again, fortunately we didn't have to celebrate it this year as on the 25th of January we ignored St. Dwynwen's Day instead. Unfortunately,St. Dwynwen's Day has started to become commercialised like its sassenach sibling.

However, these festivities, in part, herald spring and the last two days have been much milder. The temperature is still in single figures but at least it has been greater than one and at last small bursts of colour are starting to appear. Now in addition to the snopwdrops the croci have started to appear.

The colour in the crocus has not been the only yellow to appear. The trail gold mine has been producing more water and the cave is now quite full. This water is a strong yellow/orange and remains this colour down into the leat. Interestingly the opening has been hewn from what appears to be good quality slate. I still have not been brave enough to try and pass beyond the water level. This seems to be a summer, rather than winter, project if I ever pluck up the nerve.

The building work is progressing well and the kitchen and boot room have been partitioned. Large slat slabs have been found under the concrete at  the door to the porch. This raises the hope that there may be more under the dining hall. This may prove a good alternative the the floors  we had considered. The solar panels are due to arrive soon and hopefully will be fitted shortly afterwards.

Mobile Sawmill

In a break from logging trees in the wood I went to the neighbour's wood where he had hired a mobile sawmill. This is a cost-effective way of working in less accessible rural areas. It is very impressive to watch the machine pick up an entire tree and in a few minutes convert it to one inch planking.  As it had been cedar trees which were being prepared the smell was wonderful and added to the morning's work

A recovered greenhouse.

The weather has remained stubbornly cold with no sign of the respite of spring. The last few nights have seen the temperature drop to around -7 degrees and during  the day it has only scarcely  risen above freezing point. This had practical implications as our water supply froze. This left us with no water in the taps for a day or so. This absence of working taps fitted in nicely with the absence of working radiators, lights or electric sockets. Sitting by our wood-burning stove, having collected our water from the stream, we felt truly medieval.


We have become very aware of the weather and keen to be able to anticipate what it holds for us. The Norwegian weather site YR has proven to be the best weather site available. Its hourly forecast is uncannily accurate, you could almost set your watch by the changes in the weather.

Even though spring still seems along way off, and despite the cold, we decided to try and rescue the greenhouse. This seems to have been successful. After a couple of replacement struts were made from old skirting board, and the broken glass replaced, we have a watertight structure. This will probably last for a year or so until we manage to get a poly-tunnel.

The greenhouse is quite well appointed. It has good shelving, a water supply (when not frozen), electricity,  and opening windows. We will need to find a paraffin heater from somewhere to make it fully functional.


During the rescue operations we uncovered a large number of pot plants and shrubs, many still alive. We will need to identify these and then replant them.

February Diary

This blog entry is simply a diary entry to remind me, at a later date, of a typical day's work. It will not be of any great interest to
a passer-by.

• Cleaning the leat. Pulling out the dead leaves and re-establishing a good flow. The water coming out of the gold mine is an strong orange colour and the new flow also allowed the pond level to rise about 2 inches.
  
• Creating a new compost heap. This was manufactured from corrugated iron found in the shippon. We are going to try for a three bay system - (3) ready, (2)getting there, and (1)  being collected. It looks as if we can use the wood ash, in moderation, in the compost as it is quite alkaline. The sawdust we are creating also usefully adds  to the volume.
  
• Partition wall work. The Extractor hood has been removed and the kitchen cabinet has been dismantled and removed. We will need to also remove a breeze block wall which has been uncovered.
  
• Removing the nails from the recovered oak lintels. This will allow me to sand these are repair them so that they can become an architectural feature rather than being hidden behind plaster board, as had been the case.
  
• Creating another raised bed using scrap wood from the living room's skirting boards and window seat. We still have a surplus of compost to fill this bed (tomorrow's task).
  
• Logging (as usual)

Gracious Living

Building work starts.

The building work has now started. The project is already a day ahead of schedule and the pace has been hectic. Three white vans jostled for space on the drive at 8 a.m. yesterday.

The plaster has been removed from the living room, hall, and porch. It has been very revealing as it has confirmed the damp problem but also shown others we had not anticipated. The wiring was confirmed as idiosyncratic but in addition also very slapdash.  Wires joined by tape, and excess coils of live circuitry, were hidden behind the plaster.

However, there have been positive discoveries also. The old wooden door at the front of the property was hidden under the plaster as was a large stone lintel under the dated keystone (1790).

In the living room two large oak beams were found above the windows. We hope to integrate these into the decoration of the room. These, along with the other features, may allow us to start to bring back some character to the cottage.

The weather has remained cold throughout the day, it never really rose above freezing at any point. Unfortunately during this we have had no heating, limited water, and no electricity barring one socket downstairs and one upstairs. The wood-burner has proven its worth during this period as it has saved us from hypothermia.

The animals have coped but the chickens made an attempt for the warmth of the house but left after they decided the straw in their chicken-house was probably warmer than the shell their owners were using.

Sunshine, Warmth, Heat, we remember it well

Cader Idris

The weather has turned very cold. Last night was minus five and minus seven is expected tonight. It is even colder than Paisley and Dundee which seem to be a balmy minus four. It has been sunny during the day but the sun has not raised the temperatures above freezing and Cader has a dusting of snow. It is unfortunate that this is the week we have chosen to start our building works. The heating has been removed and all the electricity, barring a couple of sockets, has been disconnected.

The pond has remained frozen, the ground is as hard as rock and it has not been possible to extend the vegetable garden.  The day has been spent logging as it is the fuel that warms you twice. Once when you cut it and later when you burn it. In this weather the real beauty of wood fires has become apparent as this is all we have to keep Jack Frost at bay.

It is slightly bizarre that in the middle of this weather we have signed up for work on solar panels. We have discussed the power we will generate from the sun's rays and the gay abandon we might have when we put on the immersion heater while we shiver in the gloaming.