We often joke that we spend half our lives creating piles of materials like soil or woodchip around the garden, only to then gradually move them on a few months later. And this weekend was no exception. Despite still (!) waiting for planning permission from the council before we can confirm our build start date, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to start building in the next couple of months, so we’ve started clearing our barns in preparation.
This weekend we started with the huge pile of stones and rocks that we dug out last year while planting the daffodils and vegetable beds, and that we’d collected in the semi-derelict barn. We’re trying to reuse as many materials in the build as possible to save money, so we’re cleaning the soil off the stones and then dividing them into two groups. Anything with a reasonably flat edge that could be used to face walls is being added to the pile of stones recovered from the demolished barn that we’d inherited when we moved. Everything else is going into a new pile – stacked in dumpy bags to be crushed and used as hardcore. It helped having a little bit of extra time on Monday, although we took the morning out to watch the Queen’s funeral – a very surreal experience knowing so many world leaders were in the same building because of her.
We managed to get through about a third of the stones throughout the weekend – it turns out it’s a pretty big job, especially separating the [clay] soil and the weeds that have started to grow. With the pile still c.2 metres long and over a meter wide, we can certainly look forward to a few more fun weekends ahead!
One of the other things we had to clear from the derelict barn was various bits of old stock fencing. As we dug out the side of the orchard last year, we kept coming across bits of old stock fencing – it looked like different fences had collapsed over time and been replaced, leaving the old metal in the ground. We’d just left it in the barn out of the way, so in an effort to tick one job off the list, we stamped each part down into small blocks ready to take to the tip. Always good to have at least one fairly easy job, just needed to avoid the rusty bits of metal sticking out…
We also moved the firewood we’d had delivered earlier in the week, moving it from the courtyard to stack it against the back kitchen wall. The previous owners had been using the shippon to store their firewood and we’d done the same until now, but having it next to the house rather than across the courtyard already feels like it’s in a more convenient location. We added the firewood left over from last year, making a start in clearing the shippon and removing another pile.
Now the nights are drawing in and there’s not enough light to complete outdoor jobs after work, we’re splitting our evenings between gradually clearing the boxes we’ve been storing in the main barn, and freezing/preserving our fruit and vegetables for winter. We’d been using the barn instead of having an attic, but as we’re very short on storage space (now stacking things in our spare rooms), we’re sorting everything again and being really strict on what to keep. It takes time but in some ways it’s quite therapeutic!
Ley Farm Cottages 