First skiing of the year

The ski area doesn't open until next week but we went up and walked up a little way, had lunch and skied down.
This shows the skins on the bottom of the skis, kind of like carpet with the hairs facing backwards so the ski can slide forward not back. The bindings lift up at the back for walking and can be clipped down for skiing

The area is ready to go! They originally said they would open this weekend, it is a shame they did not. But they are saying next weekend now.

You can't really see, but I am wearing an orange jacket and the dog is a bit in front of me. She loves running alongside when we ski. Eventually I managed to overtake her!

FINALLY - New electricity supply

Since we moved in nearly 4 years ago there has been supposed to be a new electricity cable put in aaaany moment. They finally got round to the new pylons a few weeks ago, but had not connected anything up. They turned up this week, during the wettest weather ever, which is annoying as it means their machines made much more of a mess - they seem to wait for wet weather before they appear.
You can see old pylon at left of picture (they still need to remove the cables from it although they are not connected to anything now.
The new pylon is in the middle of the picture in wood.

New insulated wire coming in to the house. All the insulation had come off the old wires - it was worrying when the roofer did the roof under it, and noone wanted to go on to the roof to render the chimney. We might be able to get someone to now.

We still find that the lights flicker a little when the pump for the water fires, but less we think.

Snow in La Mongie

I said a few days ago that there was no way they could open at the end of November. All it needs is another good dump and they might be able to!!
We were really surprised how much there is up there. We should have taken our skis!

Squash Harvest

They were planted a little late because of being busy busy, but in the end they did quite well.
We planted them on south facing slopes, one where we dump rabbit poo and the other horse poo.
Now what are we going to do with them all??? There is 1 a week for a year here :) although I don't think they would keep that long. That is a lot a LOT of soup. But great to have fresh veg for winter!

Ski area openning

They pencilled in, a while ago, the 28th of November but they do that every year - set an unrealistic date when there is no snow and then just wait until there is some. Last year it was mid December.

Overnight last night there was the start if the snow up there - although it looks a lot in the picture there will be no base, so skiing is still some time away. Good to see the snow starting - although I have mixed feelings as it makes it wet and muddy here, but skiing is good.

Winter has arrived!

We have had lovely weather for weeks but have known winter is coming...

Doug has spent this week preparing, mowing various things (the drive, round the chickens fence and the hay field) as well as clearing the ditch down the drive so that hopefully it will survive winter without being washed away.

We have wood at the end of house so we are kind of ready although we don't have in a very good hay supply (2 bails, which will last about a week of hard weather).

We went for a quick horse ride yesterday evening while it was still pleasant and warmish. Overnight there was a hugh storm and it is now very pretty cold (5C) with occasional pouring rain or hail. Eeeeurgh. 

One of the flocks of sheep have done a runner so we are waiting for a break in the weather to go and look for them. The fence blew down in the storm.

Busy weekend

We meant to have a quiet weekend after the excitement of the hempcrete. But there were so many things that we have been not doing because of preparing for the spraying we had to get ob and do some of them.

We took the dog for a walk (or rather we went for a picnic lunch and watched the dog run around like a maniac).

We killed (and plucked and gutted) a couple of cockerals someone very kindly gave us (because we are known as heartless killers!). We then ate one of them for dinner with squash from the garden. They weren't very big yet but we couldn't put them in with our cockeral so decided klonking them was for the best. This one was very tasty!

We picked medlars and made them in to medlar jelly (technically this task needs to be completed next weekend or by Doug during the week as we ran out of time...)

Doug fenced a new field for the cows on Friday - it has had horses in it before but fences need to have a lower strand to (mostly) keep the cows in. Despite a lot of chasing and trying to get him to follow his mum, Bif insisted on being left behind on the drive so had to spend the night there. This gave us the opportunity to catch him by bringing his mum out of the field the following morning as he was starving by that time. We took the chance to milk Buttercup at the same time - which we haven't done for a while. We then decided to put Bif in one of the stables to tame him a bit and get him interested in cow nuts. We will let him feed from his mum once a day. It will also be a good chance to feed Buttercup up a bit on cow nuts when she comes in each day, as she is getting a bit thin providing something like 10l of milk to a fat little (actually getting quite big) calf.

We then spent some time cleaning up the horses feet. Owen has a nasty crack where he got a scratch on the part where the hoof grows from earlier in the year and Daisy just has horrible feet anyway. We haven't been giving them as much supplement recently and plan to get back to that as winter is coming. After that we went for a quick ride as it has been months and also riding on the road is good for wearing their hooves down.

I don't have photos of all this but here is one of Lismore. We put cream on her horn buds a few weeks ago which should have burnt them out and stopped them growing. We will need to catch her soon and check. Love the topknot thing she has got going on - and what a cute face!

Early to the airport

I got to the airport an hour earlier than normal expecting tighter security checks after what has been happening in Paris. It was just the same here as normal though.

Hempcrete is done!

Hurrah the hemcrete is sprayed. It is a bit less flat than we hoped it could be, but that should be evened out by the plaster

In the end they only used about 2000l of water not the 6000l they said they needed and we had on hand (having bought lots of huge containers)

The machine sounds quite exciting. The water and lime are mixed in the cement mixer and poured in to the machine, and the hemp is added dry. Then they are both fired out and mix in the air before splatting on to the wall. This results in a much airier structure on the wall than packing it in by hand which is more insulating. Much quicker too - although the finish is less flat...

Now we need to prepare for the heating system install...

Nice view and lovely weather

We took a brief break from doing the house at the weekend.

Amazing weather, really warm and sunny, doesn't feel like November at all.

Lovely leaf blower

We have been using the leaf blower to clean the floor in the outdoor kitchen/dining area. Much easier than a hoover when outdoors!

However with autumn it has come in to its proper role.

The photos don't really show the number of leaves or the satisfaction of swooshing them out of the way. If the aren't removed the drive gets very slippery so is great to be able to do something about them now.

Thanks David for the lovely gift!

Progressing towards hempcrete

The wood on the walls is guides to help level the hempcrete as it is sprayed. They will be removed as the spraying happens when each bit is done so that the hempcrete covers the whole wall. It is slow progress fitting them as they all need to be carefully levelled so the wall comes out flat.

Working round the toilet and wires is quite tricky. The wires on the walls will be buried, but the ends all need to be free to go and connect to things.

At the bottom left here is the frame for the toilet with a wood surround which will remain because the frame is deeper than the hempcrete.

We discovered that they need 6000l of water on the day. I guess some of it is for cleaning the machine, but not quite sure - 6000l seems a lot. By my calculation it would be 6cm of water on the wall (if it could stick there). The depth of the hempcrete is going to be 8cm so it would be pretty saturated.

We have bought some 1m x 1m tanks which (obviously) contain 1000l each - and we will buy a couple more. The rest is in pil drums and the water but from the garden.

Even more travel trouble

I eventually made it to Paris many hours later than scheduled, to find that ALL flights to London had been cancelled.

I have now travelled across Paris and am waiting for a Eurostar train. I think I bought the last ticket available today!

Near the airport isn't very chic

Who knew you went through Luxembourg on the way from Paris Orly to Gare du Nord!

Gare du Nord looks impressive

but lots of seedy people and lots of police needed

Here's hoping one of these can get me to London today!

Mist not so mellow!

Fog (or heavy mist?) caused my flight to be cancelled last night.

Now I am on an epic (and late) journey via Paris -having spent the night in Toulouse.

It was chaos as the airport as a number of flights were cancelled, there were people waiting for 5 hours to get their hotel arranged. I was super speedy at only an hour and a half.

There are a lot of het up eople waiting for the very late flight to Paris.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

We have been having lovely weather, but it feels very autumnal with lovely red leaves and lots of chestnuts. Out squashes have done well despite a late start and it is looking like harvest time for them very soon too.