I’ve been cracking on with the Land, but much slower than I’d originally hoped.
I kind of new this would happen, kind of knew I’d have to adjust from ‘achieving what I want in the time frame I want it achieved’ to ‘doing what I can when I can’!
No one else I know whose on a similar land-trip looks remotely surprised when respond to their ‘how’s it going with the land’ query with a ‘somewhere between 3 and 10 times slower than I anticipated’.
TBH I knew this would be a maximally long term process, slow going, so I don’t even know why I bothered doing an unrealistic timetable of what I wanted to achieve by the end of this year, a timetable which has since been abandoned.
The plans are still broadly the same, but now I’m just chipping away gradually and allowing myself to spend a bit more time on the land just walking and observing, as well as not being on the land, dicking about on Hive and doing a few other life chores!
What I have managed to do in the last couple of weeks or so is…..
This has progressed very nicely - working with another guy two days a week we’ve now got round the entire upper woodland area and cleared a 10 meter strip all the way round of broom and brashy pine trees, leaving any decent sized trees and the odd bit of show pony broom.
I have had to burn a lot of the brash, and have had about four pretty large fires, but now that’s done and I feel safe enough to distribute any further ‘crown lifted’ pine cuttings, brash trees or dead wood/ broom into the inner woodland area to let it rot down, like nature intended. Of course the ash itself will make a great addition to the compost too.
Next phase is to get a wood chipper in for the piled up larger branches, and I’m going to have a lot of wood chip - perfect for mulching smaller trees and bushes.
And I’ve got a lot of pine for firewood, making furniture and some which will even plank, if it’s worth the money to get someone in to do that for me.
We’ve just started working on taking out any large pines that are threatening the cork oaks - like this one which was leaning against an oak:
I had quite a lot of fun today helping out with winching and then cutting off the branches from some large (10-20 metres) felled pines.
I’m happy to report that IBC one up by the ‘house’ (although in reality I’ve now decided this really is going to just remain a storage building!) is now full - so it worked, despite the dodgy guttering - so at least I’ve got 1000 litres of water stored already - that's several showers!
I’ve set up a second IBC next to the old shower area, and that’s a much tighter system - the guttering is fixed more securely, the connections are more robust and I’m happier with the wrapping, basically it’s neater - not that I’m OCD or anything, but it looks so much nicer than the other one!
My proudest achievement because of its simplicity and functionality is my bucket shower - I simply drilled a hole in a bucked, fitted a hose connecter into it, attached a bit of pipe with a tap (I lucked out getting the right size of connection!) - and hung it on a trellis at the back of the stone building - it’s a discrete enough place, but would probably benefit from another screen at one point.
I just fill it with water from another bucket, warmed in the sun, and it’s easily enough to shower in if I’m quick!
I started on a base but only had two planks to make a start - I need to buy more to finish it - but I’m using a bit of cardboard in the meantime: you know the drill - reuse shit!
I've also done a bit more tidying, focusing on the stone building in the picture above - it occurred to me that roofing that is going to be a lot easier than the other one - this roof is only a few feet off the ground, so much safer, as the floor is dug down! (Not sure if that's gonna be so good when it rains however?!?
Besides this I've been sorting out a few wood piles, clearing the inner woodland area and drinking way to much tea, so cheers!
