More Mud!

Sunday was mental. My dad and brother came over, it was a long hard day, we were all covered in mud in the end, but we got a lot done! Cables and pipes all safely under ground and lots of things ready for the future as well. We also had the right equipment which makes a big difference. 

More patio going. This time for a man hole as well, ready for the extension. 

This is 90cm deep. Pretty nifty! 

Robocut - the machine that made things a bit easier. A radio controlled trencher. An amazing bit of kit! 

Ducting, and a water pipe as a spare

Laying ducting for cables ready for the telegraph pole to be moved later in the year. 

The patio..

The way to the chickens is a bit muddier than it was!

Some of the garden! 

View from the upstairs window! 

More to come this weekend on this project! Wellies only! 

Making More Mud

Now the wall is nearing completion it's time to crack on with the back of the house so we can get the boiler in. 

 Unfortunately this means digging up more of the patio to put in a proper retaining wall. I'm doing this a stage at a time though as we only need to do the first section to get the pipes in for the boiler.

The boiler is going between the two pillars on the wall.

 Unfortunately the day we chose to do this it rained all day, both my dad and I were soaked through and were both ravenous by the lunch time, I think we were burning calories just trying to stay sanding up in the mud!

As usual we ended up concreting the footings in the dark, but I was pleased with the results in the light the next morning. 

Tomorrow we're doing more digging, again regardless of the weather, to lay all the pipes and cables that we need. I have a feeling it's going to be a long, wet & muddy day! 

Buying Garlic To Plant

I try not to buy too much in the way of seeds and other sundries for the garden if I can help it at the moment. I prefer to swap or save if I can but I always end up buying a few things and and sometimes it's good to introduce new lines to what I'm growing.

Suttons had an email offer the other day of their autumn planting garlic and shallots set, reduced from £25 to £10. 

I bought it on a whim, which is unusual for me, but when it turned up I wasn't disappointed. There was three lots of garlic, one bag had two bulbs in and the other two had three bulbs, then the two types of shallots weighed in at 500g each. A good amount of alliums to plant! 

I managed to get the garlic planted today and hopefully I'll get the shallots in tomorrow. With those three new types of garlic and my own saved from this year (as well as the elephant garlic) I'm going to have a couple of beds full (with the shallots as well) and that's before I've planted any onions in the spring! 

We do love garlic though and I think we'll always use what ever we grow, just as we grow more we might smell a little more...

A Day Out At Croome Court

My wife had a rubbish week with the girls over half term. As the youngest was poorly all week she couldn't meet up with her friends or go anywhere really. So on Sunday we decided to go out for the day.

Tricky to see when the little one is holding her map on my shoulders! 

First of all we went for an amazing carvery and filled our bellies to brusting point. I asked for a doggy bag for the girls meat they'd left, I think foolishly they thought the meat would be for a dog, little do they know that became last nights curry! 

We then went over to Croome Court, which isn't far away from us and undergoing some massive restorations at the moment. The girls love having a map and trying to find their way around, they also got their faces painted so really they were butterflies for most of the afternoon! 

I didn't take many pictures as it was such a grey and overcast day but I was impressed by the oak bridge, I'd love to make something like this! 

Look at the size of that tusk tennon! 

Even spotted some sea buckthorn by the playground. Nothing liek being able to spot unusual food sources when you're out! 

A great day out, and a nice way to learn more about our local area. The girls had a great day and just loved being able to run about (the play area was great as well!)!

Busy Half Term & Trying To Get Heating Ready

Autumn has come all of a sudden this year, the leaves seem to have fallen off the trees in the last couple of days. 

I've had a busy half term, working on a job in the local town and trying to mop up a few projects here (sorry no posts). I've still got lots to do before winter properly sets in. With such a busy summer my I've probably only got just enough firewood in store, but as I've been helping my brother some evenings he's promised me that we won't go short as he has about five years worth stored up - a good job because at the moment that's our only source of heat! 

Last year I posted about our boiler and whether we should repair or replace. Luckily it lasted the mild winter out but now I don't really want to risk turning it on again and even if it works I doubt it could heat the house much if it turned cold. The plan now is to fit a new external oil boiler, but I'm going to fit it about 8m from the house and duct all the pipe work in. 

This means lots of digging &lots of muddy mess! 

The new boiler will go down where the wall steps, that way when the patio is built up you should really see it and any noise or smells are away from the house

So hopefully over the next week we're (dad and me) going to dig up the patio (or what's left of it) and run heating pipes to the new boiler site. We're also moving the oil tank and running in new pipe work to that as well. and an armoured electric cable. I'm also going to install a couple of empty ducts so we can pull in extra cables if we need to. I have plans to install a generator down there and put a change over with in the house at some point so having the ability to install extra wires or pipework will be handy. 

Our heating system is just a regular heating system and I've no plans to change that at the moment, this means that pipework in the house stays the same and it also gives us the ability to install solar in the future should we ever want or afford to. 

So hopefully by the middle of this month(ish) we should have some proper central heating installed and hopefully that will be before it gets too cold! Lots to do before I start working full time again next year!