A day off, and we've spent it on the ramp, more-or-less, shifting several tractor buckets of rubble with Chris, which has really broken the back of that job. The remainder we've managed to bag up into the bags from the gravel for the land-drains, and it should now just take a couple of hours more with Chris taking the tractor back and forth, and we'll have reclaimed our herb garden.
After lunch, we've sawn, split, and stacked a load of firewood. It appears we still know how to do it, fortunately, although this is only the second load in months.
Wednesday 25 February 2015
Sunday 22 February 2015
Mulch Preparation
We've got a load of mulch arriving this week, ready to spread on the beds. That means that the first weeding of the year is now urgent, because the mulch does an excellent job of reducing new seedlings, but just gives existing weeds a boost, which isn't quite what we want. As well as weeding, we've also pruned the apples and pears on the hillside, tying in the slow winter growth in the apple walk as we go; pruned the fruit bushes; and admired the emerging snowdrops.
We also potted up ten new hellebores that arrived this week, which are now in the front garden growing on; six Chocolate Cosmos; and the 20-odd tender yellow things I can never remember the name of. Argyranthemum/margeurites, possibly. We take cuttings of them each autumn to over-winter, and they're out-growing their modules, now.
The other thing we managed was to tie together the willow growing down the sides of the septic tank, to start forming the arched tunnel over the mini-sheds. There's some way to go, admittedly, but you finally get an idea of what it will eventually achieve, which is nice.
We also potted up ten new hellebores that arrived this week, which are now in the front garden growing on; six Chocolate Cosmos; and the 20-odd tender yellow things I can never remember the name of. Argyranthemum/margeurites, possibly. We take cuttings of them each autumn to over-winter, and they're out-growing their modules, now.
The other thing we managed was to tie together the willow growing down the sides of the septic tank, to start forming the arched tunnel over the mini-sheds. There's some way to go, admittedly, but you finally get an idea of what it will eventually achieve, which is nice.
Monday 16 February 2015
Seeds
It's been a long weekend off, enabling us to spend Friday in Scarborough with Liz's grandparents, and then staying with my parents until Saturday evening. All very relaxing, and set us up well to get back into some wood chopping. We've been burning wood all winter, but haven't been tackling our backlog of firewood for some time, distracted by work on the house, and put off by bad weather (swinging a splitting maul in the snow isn't the safest activity). The weather's been better, though, and so we spent a few hours yesterday sawing and splitting a couple of cubic metres worth, and stacked it today. We're also making progress on getting the rubble from de-plastering the house walls bagged up and carted away, to build a terrace/silage access ramp for a neighbour.
We've also started sowing seeds in earnest: I did a load of sweet peas at the start of the month, most of which have come up well, so today we've sown all our RHS seeds, some cauliflowers (All The Year Round), some more sweet peas (Orange Dragon, more Fragrantissima, Cream Southbourne), and the broad beans (Witkiem Manita and Green Longpod). We also potted up some bareroot shrubs that have arrived: two Viburnum 'Bodnantense Dawn', two winter honeysuckles (Lonicera fragrantissima), a mahonia 'Charity' and a winter box (Sarcococca confusa).
The RHS seeds:
Lastly: the snowdrops are doing pretty well, considering that it's their first year. Quite a few are up, but still small, so we're hopeful that this year will be them establishing themselves, and they'll be even better next February.
We've also started sowing seeds in earnest: I did a load of sweet peas at the start of the month, most of which have come up well, so today we've sown all our RHS seeds, some cauliflowers (All The Year Round), some more sweet peas (Orange Dragon, more Fragrantissima, Cream Southbourne), and the broad beans (Witkiem Manita and Green Longpod). We also potted up some bareroot shrubs that have arrived: two Viburnum 'Bodnantense Dawn', two winter honeysuckles (Lonicera fragrantissima), a mahonia 'Charity' and a winter box (Sarcococca confusa).
The RHS seeds:
- Orlaya grandiflora or white laceflower
- Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinacea
- Agastache rugosa or Korean mint
- Angelica archangelica
- Cephalaria gigantea or giant scabious
- Chaerophyllum aureum or golden chervil
- Erodium manescavii
- Scabiosa columbaria
- Succisa pratensis or devil's bit scabious
- Succisella inflexa
- Thalictrum delavayi or Chinese meadow rue
Lastly: the snowdrops are doing pretty well, considering that it's their first year. Quite a few are up, but still small, so we're hopeful that this year will be them establishing themselves, and they'll be even better next February.
Sunday 8 February 2015
Land-Drains Completed
Having got the dining room wall plastered, we've got it painted: a watered down sealing coat on Friday night; a proper coat of white base on Saturday morning, and the 'Timeless' topcoat last night. It looks really good, and Liz's plastering is excellent. You now wouldn't know that that wall was newly insulated, boarded, and plastered, when compared to the two unaffected walls next to it.
Almost all the rest of the weekend has been spent installing proper land-drains on the hillside, to drain the orchard. When we planted the trees, two years ago, we only had time (and money) to dig open trenches to drain the ground, and they've remained so. That's been a little unsightly, but also made it awkward (even dangerous) to walk around the orchard, so it was only ever a temporary measure. The winter's the ideal time to do something about this, as the grass is dormant and shorter, the mess of sorting it out will be grown over in a short while, and the ground is wet—making it easy to check things are working.
The land-drains comprise an 80mm pipe, which comes with 15mm slits in it (two opposite each other, offset 90° with the next pair, about 10mm apart). The pipe gets covered in a polypropylene geotextile sock, which stops large particles getting into the drain and blocking it. Small silty particles pass through and get carried away, and the idea is that a permeable layer of larger particles builds up, improving water flow. Once this is laid in the trench, we've partly backfilled with 10-20mm gravel, and then covered it over. It looks a bit of a mess now, where the spoil stacks next to the trenches have been removed, and the trench is obviously bare soil. However, the grass will start growing quickly soon, and soon the lack of trenches and hummock-y spoil heaps will be a massive improvement. More important, practically, will be the much safer footing as I cut the grass with the brushcutter!
While we've been out, I also popped up to the birch clearing, and saw that a number of the snowdrops we planted last year have started to come up. Hopefully there'll be even more by next weekend.
Almost all the rest of the weekend has been spent installing proper land-drains on the hillside, to drain the orchard. When we planted the trees, two years ago, we only had time (and money) to dig open trenches to drain the ground, and they've remained so. That's been a little unsightly, but also made it awkward (even dangerous) to walk around the orchard, so it was only ever a temporary measure. The winter's the ideal time to do something about this, as the grass is dormant and shorter, the mess of sorting it out will be grown over in a short while, and the ground is wet—making it easy to check things are working.
The land-drains comprise an 80mm pipe, which comes with 15mm slits in it (two opposite each other, offset 90° with the next pair, about 10mm apart). The pipe gets covered in a polypropylene geotextile sock, which stops large particles getting into the drain and blocking it. Small silty particles pass through and get carried away, and the idea is that a permeable layer of larger particles builds up, improving water flow. Once this is laid in the trench, we've partly backfilled with 10-20mm gravel, and then covered it over. It looks a bit of a mess now, where the spoil stacks next to the trenches have been removed, and the trench is obviously bare soil. However, the grass will start growing quickly soon, and soon the lack of trenches and hummock-y spoil heaps will be a massive improvement. More important, practically, will be the much safer footing as I cut the grass with the brushcutter!
While we've been out, I also popped up to the birch clearing, and saw that a number of the snowdrops we planted last year have started to come up. Hopefully there'll be even more by next weekend.
Wednesday 4 February 2015
Ethernet
Before we plaster the walls, it's an ideal time to mess about with wiring in the house. We've sorted out switches and sockets as we've insulated the walls, meaning that there are more sockets (and in better places), and more logical switches. However, I also wanted to install ethernet cable, wiring the house up for a working LAN, because the walls (two feet thick sandstone) have always made wifi signals too weak to penetrate into the kitchen, or out to the garage (more of an issue now that's converted into a living space). That's been compounded by the insulation, which appears to have the effect of a Faraday cage (it is, after all, metallized PET), and has even caused problems with the wireless doorbell and smoke alarms. I had considered using Powerline adaptors, and using the power circuits to propagate ethernet connections, but our multi-fuseboard wiring makes me fear that this might never work well.
Secondly, although we have a broadband connection, it's not exactly broad broadband, as we're on the edge of a rural exchange. Because of that, I'm keen to maximise the capacity of the connection we do have, rather than throttling it by passing data through mains wiring, or too many wifi repeaters. It seems to me that the best way of doing so, long-term, is by hard-wired ethernet; and the best time to do that is now, before plastering the walls.
Thus, I've spent today, and we've spent this evening, putting in UTP cables emanating from the back of our dressing room and running to the landing/study, sewing room, sitting room (front and back), dining room, and towards the garage (to be finished later: I've taken them as far as the porch).
I need next to punch the cables into Cat6 sockets in each room, and then I can fix all the cables into a patch panel at the back of the dressing room. From there, I'll patch a few of them into the router, which is also a four-port switch—and later, when we need more than four active ports at once, I'll add a 24-port switch. The sockets in the sewing room, dining room, and garage will mean I can put wireless access points in these 'compartments', if range extenders can't get to them, so that there's wifi throughout the house. Similarly, the Cat6 cabling to the back of the sitting room and to the landing mean that fixed equipment (putative future smart TV, or NAS and printer in the landing office) can benefit from a fast, stable connection.
Now I just need to check that the cables all work...
Secondly, although we have a broadband connection, it's not exactly broad broadband, as we're on the edge of a rural exchange. Because of that, I'm keen to maximise the capacity of the connection we do have, rather than throttling it by passing data through mains wiring, or too many wifi repeaters. It seems to me that the best way of doing so, long-term, is by hard-wired ethernet; and the best time to do that is now, before plastering the walls.
Thus, I've spent today, and we've spent this evening, putting in UTP cables emanating from the back of our dressing room and running to the landing/study, sewing room, sitting room (front and back), dining room, and towards the garage (to be finished later: I've taken them as far as the porch).
I need next to punch the cables into Cat6 sockets in each room, and then I can fix all the cables into a patch panel at the back of the dressing room. From there, I'll patch a few of them into the router, which is also a four-port switch—and later, when we need more than four active ports at once, I'll add a 24-port switch. The sockets in the sewing room, dining room, and garage will mean I can put wireless access points in these 'compartments', if range extenders can't get to them, so that there's wifi throughout the house. Similarly, the Cat6 cabling to the back of the sitting room and to the landing mean that fixed equipment (putative future smart TV, or NAS and printer in the landing office) can benefit from a fast, stable connection.
Now I just need to check that the cables all work...
Sunday 1 February 2015
Plastering
Over the last couple of months, we've done a bit of plastering here and there, but normally only a batch (~10kg of plaster, pre-water) at a time. This weekend, we've both been plastering (instead of just Liz), and we've made good progress. The sewing room is now finished, the external wall of our bedroom is done, the external landing wall is done, and all the external walls of the front and back guest rooms. The external wall of the dining room is also finished, which will be the first bit that we paint. That's only because our new sideboard arrived this week, and we want to get the wall around it plastered and painted before positioning it, as it would be a pain to unload, move, paint, replace, and re-fill.
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