Well, it has been a while since we have posted on the blog. It doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy, in fact, quite the opposite. I’ll try and post some more updates this week.
The rain has eased up for the past week or so and the fields have started to dry out a bit. This has meant that we have been able to restart working in the bottom field repairing the last of the dry stone walls. We had to clear a reasonable amount of undergrowth before we could get to this area. When we first bought the property, you couldn’t get in here at all.
We had to take a 3-4 medium sized trees to get access to this area, but it looks a lot better now that the area has been cleared. It is amazing how many logs that we seem to get from so few trees. They’ll need to dry out over the summer before we will be able to use them on the log stoves. The main issue now is where to store them.
We believe that this is the boundary wall between the old quarry that was in the bottom field and Hagg Wood. According to the old maps, this quarry was no longer used from about 1899. Most of the stone for the wall was under the piles of leafs.
The area to the left of the wall was a small quarry in the mid 1800’s. I suspect that much of the stone that was used to build the house came from here. A number of the guys in the local pub remember playing in the quarry as kids. I believe that it was filled in during the 1960’s when a modern property was built next door and the quarry was used for landfill.
Rather than starting the wall from scratch we have taken it back down to where we could find the foundation stones. It makes repairing the wall a lot quicker!
The dumper holds about 3/4 ton and this was just about on it’s limit (considering that the brakes aren’t all that good!). There is probably amount the same amount again to be collected. It’ll take about a year before these are dry enough to burn, but they should be ready for next Winter.
Hey,
It’s good to see you guys posting again, just a quick note regarding wood drying. If you have the wood in not too large peices and store them so they get enough wind, keep dry all the time and get good sunshine then it’ll dry out over the summer. I can be a bit of a geek about it and i read a lot about the subject seen as though our downstairs heating is only wood. You can(i’m sure you will have already) a humidity meter to check it in early autumn. Anyway! good to see you back, nice dry stone walling!
Aaron.