Hagg Leys Farm

Category: Uncategorized (Page 9 of 10)

Clearing out the orchard – Day 5

February 24, 2013 /

With the last of the sheds gone from the orchard, we can now start to clear out the last patch of the orchard.  This is the triangular piece of land furthest away from the house.  It had become overgrown with holly as was as a very old (and largely rotten) alder tree.  The chainsaw and a set of croppers soon had this area cleared out.  The brambles that had grown throughout the dry stone wall were particularly time-consuming to remove.

The larger pieces of timber were cut into logs, the rest was put onto a bonfire on the site of the old shed.

It took most of the day to clear out this area, but now we can start to see the state of the dry stone.  Despite it’s condition, you can see that the it was never really straight!  We will rectify this as it gets rebuilt.  With all of the undergrowth gone, it will be much easier to mark out the position of the new wall.

With all the undergrowth gone, you can see the true state of the dry stone wall,

With all the undergrowth gone, you can see the true state of the dry stone wall,

With the shed now gone, it is time to finally clear out the last part of the orchard

With the shed now gone, it is time to finally clear out the last part of the orchard

Scrap metal

February 24, 2013 /

With all the work on the smaller cottage, we removed quite a bit of old wire and copper pipe.  All in all, there were 3 rubble bags of copper and 2 bags of wire.  I took these to the scrap merchant today, along with a kitchen sink and a mixer tap.  Total value £117.  Much more than I thought.  Looking at the receipt, it looks like I got around £30 for each of the rubble sacks of copper and £10 for each sack of electrical wire (with the plastic casing still left on, but any plugs or junction boxes removed).

4th shed removed

February 16, 2013 /

The last of the 4 sheds was demolished today.  All of them were of a similar design and having taken 4 of them apart, we are getting quite well-practiced at taking them apart.  Take all the glass and metal out of the shed. Take the ridge off the roof.  Take the roof off.  Then the sides of the shed dismantle.  Use a chainsaw to cut some of the panels in half, if they are too heavy.  Put all the wood on the bonfire, everything else goes in the skip. Today, it took just three hours to take this one down.

Once the shed was gone, we could get to the triangular piece of ground behind the shed – lots of old chicken wire and an old steel bath were waiting to greet us!  This little piece of land was dominated by holly and an old rotten alder tree.  We spent a good couple of hours clearing this area out, but by the end of the day, there was still more to do – probably another 2-3 hours work here to clear out the rest of the undergrowth and reveal what is left of the dry stone wall.  This part of the wall should (I say “should”) line up with the other part of the wall that I have been building in the orchard.  However, much of this wall was covered with brambles and undergrowth, so when I set up the original line of the wall, there was a little bit of guess-work going on.  Once all this undergrowth is cleared away we will be able to see the entire length of the wall and will be able to tell exactly how accurately lined up the new wall is!

The 4th and final shed bites the dust.

The 4th and final shed bites the dust.

With shed #4 dismantled, we can start on clearing out the rubbish from behind the shed.

With shed #4 dismantled, we can start on clearing out the rubbish from behind the shed.

We found various things behind the sheed including this old steel bath

We found various things behind the shed including this old steel bath

This little triangular patch of land is dominated by holly and an old rotten alder tree

This little triangular patch of land is dominated by holly and an old rotten alder tree

Now largely cleared out, but still some way to go. I had to sharpen the chainsaw twice during the day!

Now largely cleared out, but still some way to go. I had to sharpen the chainsaw twice during the day!

Weather

January 23, 2013 /

Well, the weather this week hasn’t really eased up.  We had a large dump of snow on Sunday night – probably around 6 inches – and we have had high pressure (stable) weather since then.  So there is still a lot of snow on the ground.  The good news is that rain is forecast for the weekend.  Did I just say good news? A couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believe that I was looking forward to rain at the weekend.  However, on this occasion, it means the end of the snow!

In the snow….

January 22, 2013 /

This is a lovely location to live (which must explain why we bought the property!), but somehow the snow makes it just look that little more special!  Looks a bit like a Christmas card.

January snow

January snow

Snow (and stripping out)

January 21, 2013 /

Snow hit the UK last weekend and we got our fair share here in West Yorkshire.  Combined with the cold conditions, it effectively ruled out any dry stone walling this weekend – with snow on the ground you would have had to have found the stones in the first place!

Snow stops play on the dry stone walling

Snow stops play on the dry stone walling

With planning permission granted a couple of weeks ago,  our attention turned to stripping out the smaller of the two cottages.  We started upstairs.  Removing all the partition walls, central heating, electrics (all the sockets and lights), carpets and then finally pulling down the old ceiling. In old properties, the wiring can be a nightmare and the labels on the fuse box can often bear very little resemblance to what they really control.  The safest approach is to turn the electric off all together and make sure that you double-check that the wiring isn’t live (using an electrician’s screwdriver) before removing it.  Since the electric is now turned off, the central heating no long works.  This is just as well as it give using the opportunity to drain the system and remove the upstairs radiators.

All of the plasterboard and carpets went into the skip.  However, we separated out all the wood that is now forming part of a large bonfire where we burnt the sheds from a week or so ago.  With the cost of skips being so expensive, you only want to throw away material that you can’t dispose of otherwise.  Timber can be burnt and old stone can be used as hardcore with the foundations of the new extension are built.

The only thing left upstairs is the bathroom and we will remove that next weekend.  Some of the ceiling also need to come down too as we didn’t have time to complete pulling down all of the ceiling.  This is a difficult and awkward job as you inevitably end up with your hands above your head for large periods of time.  It is one of those jobs that will take longer than you think.  We will see!

Plasterboard removed from one side of the partition showing the wooden stud work

Plasterboard removed from one side of the partition showing the wooden stud work

Both sides of the plasterboard removed, next job to remove the stud work

Both sides of the plasterboard removed, next job to remove the stud work

Stud work gone revealing quite a large space

Stud work gone revealing quite a large space

Another shot from inside the stripped out upstairs

Another shot from inside the stripped out upstairs

Once the ceiling was removed, pine cladding was revealed. This forms the floor in the loft space and would have been the original ceiling i the farmhouse.

Once the ceiling was removed, pine cladding was revealed. This forms the floor in the loft space and would have been the original ceiling i the farmhouse.

Live weather station

January 21, 2013 /
Weathereye

Weathereye WA-22 weather station.

I have just managed to get our weather station onto the internet.  You can access it via the menu button above or directly using this URL: http://www.haggleysfarm.co.uk/weather.

The weather is updated every 5 minutes, but you will find that the wind speed and wind direction is updated pretty much in realtime (updated every 30 seconds).  You can access this data using the gauges page (found here).  The weather station is measuring temperature, air pressure, rainfall, wind speed and wind direction.  The weather station is also providing a forecast.

As soon as I get time, I will write up some notes on how this all works.

We have moved….and you have found us!

January 13, 2013 /

I decided it was about time that we had our own URL.  So here it is.  Haggleysfarm.co.uk.  I have moved the blog from the Blogger site and installed Word Press on the server.  Blogger has served us well for the last 6 months, but we had outgrown the site and I was starting to run into problems with the number of images that we had included.  Yes, I could have got around it, but in the long run it is just easier to move the site in it’s entirety.

The format of the blog has changed since we have moved from one blogging platform to another.  I must admit that first impressions of Word Press are very good and it would appear to be more complete than the Blogger platform.  However, only time will tell.

Moving to our own URL and server also provides the opportunity to do some more things on this site, including publishing live pictures from our bird cam.  But I am sure that there are a whole heap of other things that we can try. But more on this later.

This site is hosted by WebFusion in the UK. I have used them before and have always been very pleased with the reliability of their service – it is also very competitively priced.  More information here.

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