Days 25 to 32 in isolation at Tony and Nicky's

Proper cutting of concrete blocks (without safety shoes Bill)

Our days have flown by, though much more of the same hard work. The block work of the porch is now finished (except for filling in within the roof truss on the gable). This became a three person job above a certain height as it was easier for me to pass, electronic bleepy leveller, mallet, leveller, long spirit level, short spirit level, bucket of cement, and that was just for Tony! I couldn’t pass the blocks at that point they were just too heavy, so they had to be stacked up on the working platform. Brian was putting on the mortar bed and cutting blocks to fit the gaps. Who knew I could mix cement? 4 buckets sand to 1 bucket cement to a desert spoon of plasticiser, into the mixer, mix, and then just the right amount of water. Mix, stand, into barrow or bucket. Wash the mixer, wash the barrow..... It’s been heavy work, and no good for our hands, all very dry!

Having finished the block, we’ve started on the internal woodwork frame as this will hopefully make putting the roof trusses on easier. It started off slowly yesterday, getting the floor plates right. As if these are not square and in the right position all the walls will be out! Today Brian and I

There's another row of blocks gone on since this photo

made the first of four boxes which will then be joined together. Nicky has started painting the outside in sticky black bitumen paint to make it waterproof, not attractive but it is going to be larch clad, which will be!

I’ve attacked internal walls in the steading with hammer and chisel, and chisel attachment in a drill (you can stop it going round, it just acts like a mini pneumatic drill). Very noisy and dusty. One corner was very bad, the plaster was relatively solid but had to come off as it was impregnated with diesel and smelt horrible. There is still a smell, but not nearly as bad as it was... I finally had to stop when I ran out of hen food bags, wood burner pellet bags, and cement bags

Jackie chiseling walls with an SDS drill

to fill. Tony has since been up to the local farm where they said he could add it to their pile of rubble as the tip is closed!

To make a change on Sunday, no, not a day off, but more lintel work. The two wooden lintels above a window in the gable end to come out and be replaced with concrete ones. Tony has done similar before but it’s still scary to take a chainsaw to wood that may be supporting the whole of the wall! The block and tackle came into its own again (though these lintels aren’t quite as heavy as the previous ones) and we persuaded them into position down a scaffolding bar and a piece of sturdy roof material (metal and solid, but neither of us knows what it

Brian preparing the beds, Nicky planting potatoes

is!) I can’t describe the process so it means anything, but it all went absolutely fine, though all Brian could say was “I just wouldn’t have done that!” Only the upper window to go then!

We’ve planted potatoes, early and late and peas outside, inside the same. The other seedlings are growing and will soon be ready to go into the ground. The chickens and geese are in full egg lay, and even the little old brown duck has produced, though we’ve still not had anything from the three younger white ducks!

Our eggs are doing fine in the incubator, we think. We looked at them all on day 6 and although we could see a fine network of blood vessels in some, the photos didn’t come out well. We can look again on day 12(tomorrow) and see what we can see and if it’s more worth photographing. On comparison with an unfertilised egg though they did all seem different, so keep everything crossed!

Add to that eating, drinking and cat fussing, lots of laughter and chats and we’ve filled our days! Time for a glass of wine then while B does the pictures...

Inspecting the incubating eggs with a very bright light. This shows an air sac inside which, apparently means it is growing

Progress on the porch to date. Internal wooden walls started, blockwork finished to gutter height, gable end still to be built, although first layer is done (extra row on left)

Gummy and Genghis cats on our bed. Don't know what happened to Teddy, who's on his head!

Time for bed linen wash and, this time Teddy got washed too. Here he is inside

And he got hung on the line by his paw with all the other washing 

Unfortunately it was quite windy and he got blown off. Lucky his paw didn't get left behind under the peg! 

This was one of the jobs Brian had been dreading. See those two windows on the end gable? Both have very old fairly rotten wooden lintels above. They need to be changed for reinforced concrete ones. The stone walls are 600mm (2 feet) thick and each opening has two lintels, one behind the other, together supporting two thirds of the thickness of the wall. The last bit, outside is a sandstone lintel that will stay. How to do it safely, bearing in mind the weight of the stone above is many, many tons?
 

Tony's idea is to saw through them with a chain saw! Madness? We thought so and stood at a safe distance. But Tony has done quite a few of these before and knows what to look for. No big hammers here, he moves them with levers to see what weight is on them, if they move the stone above is supporting itself. He cuts part way through, watching the walls, removing any loose stone. It's a softly, softly approach and it seems to work...

The first one's out and he's now sawing the second one deep into the wall, block and tackle ready with the new beams below, you don't want to leave it too long without lintels in place!

Close up of the second lintel nearly cut through, pausing to check for movement of the wall above

Jackie and Tony sliding the first lintel into place using metal runners

First one in, second about to be slid in. It all worked very well, just the one in the top window to be done!

Tufty and Genghis cats check out Big Ted

And chicken escapes into the adjoining freshly planted field for tasty seeds!

Look at this for a fabulous haul of eggs one morning. 18 hen eggs, the light blue one is a duck egg and the two larger ones are goose eggs

Look at the reduction in price here. This is not uncommon here and the reason Tony and Nicky have 8 freezers full of food

Here's a mixture of animals, Tufty cat in front, a chicken at the end of the patio and two Guinea Fowl on the lawn

And here's the Guinea Fowl wandering past the lounge window 

We took this photo today. It looks like its on fire, but it's Tony inside with a concrete floor grinding machine trying to flatten a section before we fit the internal wooden walls, which must be vertical. We had swept the inside out before this and after he'd finished it was like we'd never done anything.....

So he got his industrial vacuum cleaner out and sucked it all up. He didn't want his photo taken and tried hiding behind the walls, but Jackie managed to capture this one. We wondered if, in true Freddy Mercury style, he was trying to break free!