Category: bottom field (Page 2 of 2)

Modifying the outbuildings

September 15, 2014 / stephen

We have been wondering for a while about the best place to keep the new John Deere mower. We had thought about building a tractor shed – you don’t need planning permission as long as it falls within certain constraints – but to get one that was big enough and looked half decent was just too much of a challenge.

Then Jo came up with the idea of widening the door in the end of the existing outbuildings. This is only currently used to store logs and this could easily be moved to an outdoor logstore (and might be better off outside anyway). The building is probably a couple of hundred years old and is built of a single skin of stone. Bits of it look very precarious. However, we are in the process of widening the existing door and installing a new steel lintel above the opening. The steel will be completely hidden from the front thus maintaining the look of the building.

There used to be a normal sized door and window here. Once reinstated it will be a 6ft wide door capable of housing the new John Deere mower.

The new lintel consists of an I beam with a steel plate welded to the bottom. From the inside you will see the back of the I beam, but you will not see any of the beam from the front. The stonework will be replaced exactly as it was and the edge of the steel plate will be lost in the pointing between the courses.

Bottom field looking better

September 1, 2014 / stephen

Now we have our own means of mowing the bottom field, things seem to have improved dramatically.

We have mowed the grass 3-4 times over the last month. On the first couple of occasions, we raked up the worst of the grass, but we are now getting to the stage where we can just leave the worst of the clippings to rot back into the soil. The grass in the bottom field does not grow as fast as the new grass in the top field.

Not quite a stripped lawn (and it doesn't look like much of a slope), but I did it on my own (and I haven't used a tractor before).

Here’s the bottom field as it looked like last year!

The guy riding the bike in the background has two paddles strapped to the top bar of his bike. He cycled back a little later, but this time he had only one paddle strapped to his bike. What happened to the other paddle?

This was the bottom field only a couple of months ago. We borrowed a tractor and topper to take off the worst of the grass. We are now using our John Deere Z425 to get a better (and quicker) finish to the grass.

This is looking a lot better than it was a year ago – or even 4 months ago!

We repaired sections of this wall last year and now you would never know that it has been repaired.

The grass in the bottom field is starting to look good. We have also had a go at sorting out the young trees in the far corner. We have removed the lower branches (essentially lifting the crown) which has meant that we can mow around the trees with the new mower.

Mowing the fields

July 21, 2013 / stephen

Second mow of the season. Each time the fields are mowed the quality of the grass seems to be improved. It is a big job, but it only takes a couple of hours using a tractor and a topper.

The bottom field has quite a slope to it and the best way to mower it is straight up and down the slopes. If you try and mow the slopes sideways, you get the distinct impression that the tractor is going to topple over.

The bottom field has quite a slope to it and the best way to mow it is straight up and down the slopes. If you try and mow the slopes sideways, you get the distinct impression that the tractor is going to topple over.

Jo mowing the grass on the top field where it is nice and flat!

Yup, it is a compact tractor. I haven’t suddenly grown!

Finishing off the corner of the wall along Hagg Wood

July 20, 2013 / stephen

Although much of the day today was taken up with briefing a kitchen designer (I have high hopes!!), I did manage to spend a couple of hours on the dry stone wall along Hagg Wood today. The corner of the wall is not in the best of shapes. While I have managed to get away with just repairing the top 2-3 courses, this part of the wall needs to be rebuilt. While some of the wall has a bit of a “wiggle”, this part of the wall is just lost to the under growth.

I have tried to keep the amount of rebuilding to a minimum and concentrate more on “repairing”. But with the corner, I have no choice. Yesterday, I spent some time digging out this part of the wall. Today will be spent rebuilding a 4m section. This is in comparison to spending a day repairing a wall when I can do 10-15m in a day.

The yellow string shows where the wall should be. Mmm…there is a bit of work to do here.

There is little option but to dissamble the corner of the wall and re-building. I tried to keep the amount of rebuilding to a minimum, but it had to be done.

At least it is now straight. It is amazing how much stone goes into the wall when it is rebuilt.

I have to admit that I did take the coping stones off and had a second go as the first attempt had a bit of a “wave” in it. This is not perfect, but better.

Dry stone walling – the wall along Hagg Wood

July 18, 2013 / stephen

I have been working on the wall that lines Hagg Wood today. Down in the bottom corner by the gate. Unfortunately, this wall is in pretty bad shape and the small wall that backs onto the road is pretty precarious.

It took me a while to trim back all of the holly just to be able to get to the road. The soil is much higher here, but a bit of investigation with a pick axe revealed that it was a pile of stones – presumably fallen off the wall – rather than soil. You can see from the picture below that there was a lot of stone hidden under the grass. Clearing the holly and finding the stones took most of the day. The heat (around 30C) was pretty intense and even in the shade it was hard work.

I spent an hour or so at the end of the day and rebuilt the top section on the smaller wall that runs along the road. Although it still bows a bit, it is a lot more solid than before. I did look back through my archive photos and managed to find a picture of the wall before I “fiddled” with it!

There is a little more to dig out tomorrow and then hopefully I can finish this bottom section of wall and move up to the other end of the bottom field.

The wall is in pretty bad shape here, but most of the stone seemed to be buried in the grass!

Apparently, Lurchers don’t do dry stone walling. That is for Jack Russells!

This section of wall was looking pretty precarious. There is still a bit of a bow in it, but the large dodgey stones on the top have been sorted out. Note to self: Make sure you put your steel toe cap boots on before playing with a wall in this state.

I managed to find this photo in my archive and it shows what the wall used to look like.

Repairing the dry stone wall along Hagg Wood

July 16, 2013 / stephen

The dry stone wall in the orchard is all but finished and with the fine weather I have been looking out for a spot to work in out of the sun. The dry stone that runs along the edge of Hagg Wood is a perfect spot. It is also the other end of the property from where the builders are working. So it is pretty quiet and dust free.

I had forgotten how much quicker it is to repair rather than rebuild a dry stone wall. It only took me a couple of hours to get this 7m section of wall back into decent shape. The trick here is not to let the wall deteriorate to a point where it has to be rebuilt.

Most of the stone had simply fallen off the wall, so it was just lurking in the long grass and nettles. I did have to use a little bit of extra stone, but stone is not something that we are short of at the moment! You can see it in the photos as the slightly lighter colour due to the amount of dust clinging to the stone. It will soon blend in.

Before the repair

And after the repair….

Not exactly perfect, but better than it was. After all, dry stone walling is an abudance of imperfections.

Mowing the fields

June 18, 2013 / stephen

With all of the nice weather recently, the grass has really started to grow. When I first got the new mulching lawnmower, I did have a go at mowing the top field. It took a couple of hours and was quite hard work. Now the grass is growing so quickly, this is not a sustainable approach. I would need to be cutting the grass on a weekly basis. And that is only the top field.

The bottom field has never had the grass cut since we have owned it, so this is a non-starter as far as a “push along” mower is concerned (even if it is a good “push along” mower!). Far to clumpy and lumpy for a mower.

Time to borrow a tractor and a topper (many thanks to Rob North at Pure North Cider for the loan of the tractor). All in all, it took a couple of hours to cut both fields – probably a couple of hours in total. It is a flail mower, so you aren’t going to get a “lawn” type finish, but it does do the job. The bottom field is on quite a slope and it takes a bit of getting used to as the tractor feels as if it is going to roll. The trick is to mow down the hill rather than trying to mow across the slope.

All in all, my first time using a tractor and I am pretty pleased with the results (even if I say so myself!).

Only half a filed to mow really as the builders are occupying the other half of the top field.

The bottom field with the septic tank, I was super careful not to put the tractor in the tank (no one would rush to fish me out!).

Not quite a stripped lawn (and it doesn’t look like much of a slope), but I did it on my own (and I haven’t used a tractor before).

Dry stone wall in the bottom field

June 15, 2013 / stephen

Next week, we will need to mow the grass in the bottom field. So it will be “Tractor Time!”

In preparation for this, I have strimmed the edges of the fields pulling out all of the large stones. The grass mower on the tractor seems to act as a magnet for all the stones. This seemed like a good time to have a look at the pile of rubbish next to one of the lower dry stone walls – large amounts of wood and old gutters, two ancient tractor tyres and some plastic crates. Once this had been removed and taken to the dump, it was time to have a look at the wall. It only took a couple of hours to tidy it up and hopefully this will stop any further deterioration.

Looking at the photos now, the right hand edge of the wall (the one nearest the gate post) seems to dip a bit. I will need to fix that tomorrow. Weather permitting.

The wall in the bottom field had quite a bit of rubbish piled up against it. The rubbish has now been removed and the wall has been repaired.

It looks a bit scrappy from this side, but it just needed to be repaired to make sure that it did not collapse any further.

Taken September 2012 before we had started any of the renovations.

Clearing the top field

December 10, 2012 / stephen

In the top corner of the bottom field, the brambles and nettles had pretty much taken over. It was very difficult to get access to this area in the summer due to the undergrowth. Well, a couple of hours with a metal bladed strimmer soon had this area under control.

This part of the field is bordered by a small crag. There are some trees that are growing either at the top of the crag, or in the crag itself. Because of the canopy of the bigger trees, the smaller trees underneath have died. I had one of these (an old Hawthorn tree) removed early in the week and cut the tree into logs. It is amazing how much wood has come out of such a smallish tree – there were 4 wheelbarrows of logs from this single tree.

Once the undergrowth has dried back a bit, I will burn this material on a bonfire.

Category: bottom field (Page 2 of 2)

Modifying the outbuildings

Bottom field looking better

Mowing the fields

Finishing off the corner of the wall along Hagg Wood

Dry stone walling – the wall along Hagg Wood

Repairing the dry stone wall along Hagg Wood

Mowing the fields

Dry stone wall in the bottom field

Clearing the top field

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