At 6am on Monday morning, our concreting contractors arrived to make the final preparations on site. And they continued working incredibly hard throughout the week to lay the entire yard. Each day they sectioned a part of the yard off with shuttering and focused on getting that section done. The concrete lorry would arrive and gradually empty its contents into a dumper truck, which someone poured out into that day’s section. The team would rake it evenly within the shuttering with giant rakes, and then brush it with giant brushes to get a nice finish on the top. It was fascinating to watch – they had to work pretty quickly because of the heat and the sunshine, which started drying the concrete out faster than they probably wanted. They had to get the levels exactly right to make sure any surface rainwater flows in the right direction – ultimately away from the barns. They’ve had to raise the level quite a bit around the entrance gate, so they’ve created a step down to the air source heat pumps and corresponding equipment shed. There’s also a large step down as you leave the gate, so they’re coming next week to stone the area up so we can get vehicles in once the concrete’s dried properly (which could be a couple of weeks for cars and a month for HGVs). It’s difficult given we don’t have much space outside on the lane, but we’ve decided it’s better to leave it and avoid any damage, given the effort and cost!!
We also had a very exciting moment on Monday when our electricity engineer finally arrived to upgrade one of our meters from a single phase smart meter to a two phase one, which means we can run the three-bed barn on the same supply as the communal barn (with the laundry and importantly the solar tiles). While we won’t be able to use the solar generation against the three-bed barn, at least it removes the need for another meter point and therefore standing charge. Because this type of meter is quite unusual it’s been a stressful experience trying to book the right engineer – with the first three appointments having to be cancelled. At least it’s sorted now though – the next step is to get the solar tiles connected up and switched on, which is also proving fairly difficult. Hopefully we should be able to get the work booked in soon though…
The other exciting step this week was to receive planning approval for our sixth planning application, which we submitted in November. This application was a ‘wash-up’ to include the third air source heat pump (for our one bed) and the corresponding shed, and to change the front doors from fully glazed to timber (something we’d overlooked in the original design we submitted three and a half years ago). The conservation officer is particularly specific about how we hide the air source heat pump from view – the rationale is because the site needs to look like a farm. We’re not allowed to use trellis with plants growing up It because this looks too ‘suburban’ and instead were going to plant a laurel hedge (we have pots of laurel that were dug up from the driveway); however the concrete has put paid to this, so we’ll need to look for a farm-like trough we can plant a hedge in instead. We’ll need to get the hedge approved by the council in any case – which is likely to take a couple more months based on their recent timescales, so at least we have some time to look at options.
We’ve been getting on with jobs throughout the week, as we’ve had a pretty busy weekend. The woodwork in our new house is now mostly painted, and we’ve started touching up the wall and skirting board edges, although we have a bit more to do which will keep us occupied next week. And John has painted the darker walls in the games room – which I still need to edge when I get a moment.
We’ve tried to catch up with some of our garden jobs too, and try to get the vegetable garden into a more respectable state at least. We finished topping up the potatoes (which in turn means we can now get access to the squash and pumpkin bed), and we flattened the [stony] space that was full of weeds last week to put up the pea and bean frames and plant out the seedlings which were starting to wend their way up the cactus and the fairy lights in the conservatory. We’ve also planted out a few of the courgettes, tomatoes and Brussel sprouts seedlings in an attempt to make some space in the greenhouse. We’ve already had to replace some seedlings due to slug damage – not so surprising as I did a couple of evening slug runs and found 213 one night and over 100 two nights later! This might turn into a regular activity!
On Sunday we went to one of our local farms that was taking part in Open Farm Sunday, a day where farms nationally can open up to visitors. It was a really well organised day, with farming demonstrations and local agricultural organisations supporting. We saw sheep shearing (by one of our neighbour’s nephews) and milking – where we learnt that cows have a preferred side of the milking parlour and that if you’re not careful, they will go to the toilet and spray anyone milking indiscriminately! It’s great to experience a day like this so we know that if any of our local farms take part in future, we can recommend the day to our guests.
Ley Farm Cottages 