September Heat

It's been ages since I collected my thoughts and recorded them here. I blame the end of the football season; my usual routine was to listen to games on the radio and get on with research and writing on-line. Tonight's England demolition of Moldova certainly isn't captivating but it forms the sound track to me getting back (hopefully) into the blog habit.

A lot has and hasn't happened since my last post in March. We haven't had a summer for a start... Thankfully more recently we've had a dry spell of weather and that's enabled a good run of work, including a program of major earthworks.

I often say I have a list of 27 things to do, but I actually had a list of 27 jobs for the three tonne digger and three tonne dumper I hired last month. Some tasks were easily crossed off the list, for example collecting up broken stone gateposts from gateways across the farm. Not only does that remove a hazard for stock (and us), but grass couldn't grow where they lay. Not a major loss, but an attention to detail matter that was easily dealt with, with the equipment we had.

Plenty of drainage jobs were done, but the most time consuming tasks were to landscape the veg plot, spread the soil produced previously by work on our house and filling depressions in fields left by sheds long since demolished. The latter was essential prior to our Front field being ploughed at some point in the future. The picture shows the second terrace taking shape.



We've gathered together a number of railway sleepers and we'll recycle these as raised beds, using a good heap of top soil set aside for that purpose. The first retaining wall, visible running up from the bottom right corner of the above picture, is set on concrete and is constructed from modern blocks and stone. This will prevent the land shifting toward the house had it had done in the past, to the point where at points along its length the earth was five feet high against the building. The next wall will be a traditional dry stone construction, subject no doubt to local comment/sarcasm as we build it!