Getting to the root of the problem...

Gallileo once said "if you give me a lever long enough I shall move the earth". Unfortunately, the levers in this case were no longer than 7 feet. 
After an epic battle of man vs. nature, Joe and Jeff (our feller in residence) secured a narrow victory over 4 willow tree stumps. They hacked at the trees all day and then they were gone.

How did they do this I hear you ask:
1) Dig trenches around the base of each tree
2) Hack at the roots with a combination of an axe, a bow saw and a hatchet (and some brute force)
3) Lever the tree, and repeat step 2 as and when necessary until the tree frees up, chop it up with the chainsaw
4) Once the tree was dragged across the garden, hack up the roots with an axe (and gusto)

Clearing Willow Trees Part 2

Time is running out to have the pollytunnel operational by this spring, so spent today sorting the remaining wood into a pile for building things/ bean poles and bigger bits that we will use for firewood.

Before the sorting started I decided it would be much quicker to build a Jig to hold the logs, enabling us to use the chainsaw to cut lots of logs at once! IT worked really well, I am not sure how long it will last as there has already been a couple of accidents, but it is only a bit of pallet that we will cut up and burn eventually anyway.

Next stage will be to remove the tree stumps, level the ground, measure and start to build upwards!!

 Pallet Cutting Jig, worked really well! good time saver.

 Poor Chainsaw Posture, Will bend the knees next time

Storage of Bean poles/ building poles, all the stuff that is too small to use for fire wood, but too big for faggots.

Woodburners!!!

After much discussion we decided it was time this winter to go ahead and install a woodburner!
We had an open fire when we moved in, which we used a lot, however they are not as efficient as Woodburners, and also they are not as safe either ( you wouldn't want to leave the open fire going whilst you went out or to bed...)
So we opted for a charnwood 4 , which is a 4.7 kw model with a wide and less deep shape so you can fit big logs in ( less faff). Joe made us a mantlepiece out of an old railway sleeper from a local bridge which was being dismantled. It is made from an Australian wood. He cut it and lovingly sanded it to perfection!
We got someone in to install the burner in the end. The tiles were replaced with slate and the chimney was opened up to the exposed brick behind.
We still need to paint the surround but waiting for summer/ havent yet found he motivation...
I think you will agree the difference is pretty amazing!

Small things matter #2

So complete fail on letting you know about how changes went to suggestions in the small things matter post (sorry about that!) But have been having more of a think about how to be the most efficient we can be and how to run the cottage well. Have been continuing to make small tweaks as and when.

I've come up with a sketch of how our cottage is heated and kept watered. As you can see we have also made estimates of what thibgs cost annually.
Since we have lived here, we have made some one off payments which will see us through (loft insulation, woodburner installation). These help keep costs to a minimum.

We are also planning to build a composting loo this summer, which will hopefully reduce the amount of fresh water wasted by flushing the loo. Also a friend told me of a trick, any time you run water in the shower before you stand under it (10 seconds each time? ) put a bucket under the shower and collect the water, then this can be used from time to time to flush the loo.
We also use the ' if it's yellow let it mellow' rule...

Chitting Time + Willow Arch

Although the Garden is still far from ready to put plants into the ground, we have just built a chitting shelf in our new shed (soon to be Loo Shed).

We ambitiously asked for some seed potatos from Lous parent for a Christmas present, which we collected recently. It is a good idea to store them in a cool but light places to get them in to growing mode, encouraging little stubby shoots, so when they get into the ground they get off to a flying start.

 

After some discussions with some people at work, we opted for the drastic action of cutting our willow arch back down to the ground, copicing it. It was getting out of hand and too woody to weave in, so hopefully we should get lots of new growth that we can weave in as it grows. However, much of the arch was made of dead wood, so might be worth poping a couple of new sticks in aswell, we have a couple floating around!
 

Spring is also most here though, with buds on the bulbs down the bottom of the garden!

Funday

I have renamed Sunday to Funday... in the busy weeks of work, and currently working Saturdays on the big T, sometimes a gentle reminder to have some fun on a Sunday is needed....

So... today, well today was more of agarden workday but it was a fun work day... "fworkday" if you like.

Joe got me outside (step one...) and then we were really productive. We:
1) Mended one of the logstores so that it now drains the rain away more effectively
2) Put up new hanging baskets
3) Cleaned the egg off the wall which a child threw at our house not this Halloween but last...
4) Cleaned the roof of another logstore
5) Took all of the soil out of the herb trough (to our amazement, all of the horse manure had totally rotten down to soil!

 

The horse manure pile is pretty handy over the road..

So we replaced the trough with more horse manure (nice and warm for the plants) and then replaced the other soil and re planted the herbs.
6) Embarked on operation hedge (removed all the brambles from the hedge at the front of the house... easier said than done! See first trough pic and the last for an idea of how much of our hedge was bramble!
7) Weeded the front raised bed , to discover loads of curious bulbs lurking.

Right now that is all done we are going to do a 12 mile round trip cycle to our friend's house and then visit the lovely E & A on the way home for dinner.

Clearing Willow Trees

Over the last few weekends, we have been removing the willow trees that run down the edge of our garden. They aren't great as a boundry as they were Pollarded, leaving big gaps for people to look in, but bushy up high shading the sun in the evenings. They also occupy a 3m band down the edge of are already long thin garden.

The plan is to remove a section of them, then replace them with a Polly tunnel that will be our boundry, when the tunnel ends we will either build some more pallet compost bins (doubling as a fence) or invest in a bigger fence of some sort.

One thing we didnt account for is that trees are really big, it is amazing how a small tree vertically becomes a massive bushy mess once horizontal. After making a big pile of tree, we quickly reliased we needed a system.

At a winter sulstance party I was introduce to Fagots, bundles of dry twiggy material that are great on the bonfire! Our chipper trips our mains, and willow being so bendy just jams it up anyway, so this seemed like the ideal solution.

We got to work, felling bits of the trees saving the big lengths for either bean poles or fire wood depending on the size and bundling the rest up into fagots.

We have now removed all the the branches, and will get the chainsaw out next to remove the stumps, then we will be able to start mesuring up for our tunnel! We hope to make one from water pipe and scaffolding poles , so we can make any size we like!

 Morning

Afternoon

 Final pile of big sticks before sorting

First few fagots waiting in new pallet compost bins, its important to store then vertically so they dry rather than rot.