I’m putting these here so in other years where it gets a bit thin we can remember how much worse it could be!
Thursday, 22 December 2022
Monday, 19 December 2022
Sunday, 18 December 2022
First Silkie Egg
First Silkie has laid an egg. I suspect it was the middle one of the white ones as she squats for the rooster (dark one on the left).
They are small chickens, so a diddy little egg.
She laid it in the mud at the edge of the run. I am hoping she will get the idea and lay the next one in the nest box. I added a few more fake eggs to give her the idea. One of them has been digging around in the nest boxes and throwing all the eggs out (there are 2 legbar in this run already laying) for a few days, so I have been wondering if one if them might be thinking about starting laying. So exciting!
More snow needed!
It’s been lovely sunny weather for a few days, and before that a lot of rain. Both of which have been hard on the snow cover. Pretty, but we need more snow!
Here is Poppy doing her best snow dance…
Thursday, 1 December 2022
Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Lots of joists
The old joist are still very solid, except at the end where they went in to the wall
Now on to laying the subfloor, sanding the beam and taking some plaster off the wall before moving on to the 2nd section of the 7 there are to do
Thursday, 10 November 2022
New ram called Coco
The previous ram is in the freezer as he was being mean to his ladies (and had a go at me too).
It’s hard because they get all fired up with hormones in breeding season. But butting the girls when they were heavily pregnant and in labour was the final straw. Hopefully Coco can be more of a gentleman..
It is late in the breeding season now, so it is possible that the ewes are all pregnant already. We will see as there is enough of a gap between the rams being with them for us to tell which is which.
White is quite rare for the Ouessants, so it will be interesting to see what colour the lambs come out…
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
Monday, 31 October 2022
Saturday, 29 October 2022
First blue egg!
One of the cream legbars has FINALLY started laying. I am so eggsited!
Sunday, 23 October 2022
Fixing up the floor
You’ll notice some of these don’t reach the wall, not ideal for holding up the floor. There was a chimney breast here and we had to have it removed before it collapsed, which is why the joists are hanging like this.
The floorboards have basically been giving this bit the strength to stay up. They are pretty rotten and are coming up. We can then do something about replacing these joists with ones that do reach the wall…
Tuesday, 11 October 2022
Saturday, 8 October 2022
Good year for mushrooms
Penny bun and Orange Birch bolete, this is about half of the ones we have found recently. We don’t normally get so many, they obviously liked the drought the. rain…
Monday, 26 September 2022
Clearing some fence lines
We have some help clearing the fence lines which is much needed and appreciated.
This is a photo of the cows helping them out - I’m not sure their help was appreciated as it involved eating branches before they had finished being cut and tossing around the ones neatly piled for burning!
It looks green in the photo after a little rain, but the grass is really in a bad way after the drought. We will be getting hay for the cows very soon I think. A month or more earlier than usual.
Friday, 16 September 2022
Rendering the end wall…
The end wall has been getting damp because rain drives on to this wall and goes through cracks in the render and doesn’t dry out.
We’ve had it all taken off and redone. Looks much nice, we will lime wash it eventually a warmer colour.
We helped to the extent pf getting sand and lime, but we cannot claim to have done any of this ourselves. Expert plasterer was needed for this job!
Before
Thursday, 15 September 2022
View of the land
Monday, 5 September 2022
Windows/doors structurally complete
Unfortunately we are now going to have to board them up for. while until a few things are finished so we can put the new windows and doors in…
View will be amazing!
Tuesday, 23 August 2022
Nearly finished (hahahahahaha!)
Work in progress…
Just a tiny bit of squaring off the edges and a bit of a hoover to clean up the mess, and job done!
Monday, 22 August 2022
Not one, but three…
The front opening is the biggest and the most stressful - because of already having been mangled about and huge amounts of super hard concrete in there, but there are two others being done at the same time…
One here in the end wall from what will be kitchen/dining in to the outdoor kitchen
The supports are in for both of these now too. Just waiting for the lime to dry a bit before hacking them out too…
Thursday, 18 August 2022
Destroy! Widening the door…
Graham the builder seems very confident, but I am a nervous wreck! I don’t want my house collapsed and I don’t want Doug to be squished (in reverse order of priority of course…)
That beam you can see on the left is just supported by 3 acrow props. It holds not only the floor upstairs up but also the A frame supporting the roof. Glup!Building back better - 2 of the new beams in place. Feels less scary now. The old beams will sit on these new steel ones. The door won’t be this high in the end as under the beams there will be a roller shutter and fly screen.
Saturday, 13 August 2022
Nearly ready!
Monday, 8 August 2022
Frenzy of preparation!
A builder is starting work next week (working with Doug) to add a new door and window and enlarge an existing door. We have been in a frenzy of preparation for what feels like years now.
Taking some floor boards up because we need access here to support the wall while we widen the door below.Ceiling below that gone too
Sunday, 7 August 2022
Bloody cows, bloody neighbors, bloody heatwave/drought
Wandering around a really steep field well after sunset chasing the neighbors cows out of one of our fields. AGAIN. It wouldn’t be so bad, but it is still hot given the heatwave and this field has pretty much the only grass left for the cows, the rest has shriveled up in the heatwave.
Pretty though…
Saturday, 6 August 2022
Drought!
Normally the sheep refuse point blank to eat hay, even in winter they prefer to scrape around for what little grass they can get. The last week they have been begging for hay and scoffing it down enthusiastically, all the grass has frazzled to a crisp. Really hoping this is a one off, else we are going to have to cut down numbers.