Hay

Crazy hot weather continues So decided to make the hay before storms arrive on Tuesday. The last few years the hay from the field in front of the house has been getting poorer. The grass is very fine and not at all leafy. So this year I decided to cut the pla d'artigue, which 5 or 6 years after clearing is now free of bracken.  Cutting, tedding and putting into rows went without a hitch except for the shear quantity of grass this year. Bailing is always a problem. After the first 50m of attempting to get a bail the knotters suddenly started working....often the case. Then suddenly a loud bang! One of the recently replaced tyres had perished over the winter and the inner tube exploded. The rest of the bailing had to be accomplished with a flat tyre, the last 100m without a tyre at all as it came off! Half way through the drive shaft also disconnected from the gearbox. A beer and a few blows with a lump hammer and all was well again. The bailer twine also snagged on a bolt head, so about 50 bails need retying on one side. Haven't counted yet but probably over 200 bails off about half an acre.....it's been crazy growth with the wet spring. That's plenty of hay for the sheep, the other fields will all have to be cut in the late summer and left to compost. Tomorrow the task of repairing damaged bails and getting it all n the barn.

New warp

With the completion of the warping wheel a new sectional warp has been put on the loom. The warping wheel is a big improvement over a tension box and bobbins for my kind of weaving with many colour changes in the warp.

This weave will be a long cushion for our iron bedstead, a scarf and some smaller items (maybe another cushion). It's an advancing twill which will produce 'fractal" type patterns.

A regime of cycling twice a day seems to be helping my knee recovery, albeit slowly.

Digger works complete, alas the space is for our neighbour.

Chicks all doing good, and out exxploring with their mother hens.

 Our retaining wall finished for the rear deck.

More digging and tree felling today. The space for the rear terrace is excavated and beside the barn too, where Alain wants build a covered parking area/wood store. Another day or so to finish removing all the soil/rocks etc. Once the digger has gone I can start building the stone retaining wall and reconnecting the storm water pipes.

Finally the void behind the wall I constructed from all the stones removed from inside the barn is full.

 

Windows!

Most of the windows have finally arrived and been installed and despite some incredibly intense rain, excavation of our neighbour's and land and some communal land beside the barn and our land behind, has started.