Concreting finished - 12 tonnes, four days!

...including three window cills.
 

sheep shearing

Two six hour concreting shifts and about 3/5 of the barn floor is laid. Another cubic metre tomorrow then I need more cement and ballast for the last section. 

Sheep shearing is tomorrow and as normal 4 sheep sheep refused to go in the barn. Two and a half hours of chasing them and finally they're in. minutes before the drizzle started, so we should be good to go tomorrow.

Managed to get a brand new scaffold tower on "leboncoin" and saved myself 300 euros. The seller was a bit dodgy, but as long as I paid cash all was good. The scaffolding is still in its original plastic unopened wrapping. The plans for the barn construction stages are slowly taking shape, hopefully we'll be watertight and re-roofed before the end of the year.

Pointing almost finished..

Outside anyway! Inside the DPM, insulation and screeding rails are now in place.

 

more progress

A trip to the natural granite sand pit with the tractor and sieve this morning, then a bit of pointing (still wet). Will probably mix and pour the ground floor concrete slab next week.

 

Cour Vic

A wander upto Cour Vic last week before Michiel heads off to the Netherlands.  It started out as a hot day, but a strong ici wind was blowing about 1500m and in the end we had to put every layer of clothing we had. A rare sighting of a cuckoo was a highlight!

Cuckoo

A herd of isards watching us from above, or were they just sheltering on the lee-side of the ridge?

At the weekend the pipework for the below ground services (water, electricity and sewerage) were put in the barn - hard work and another mountain of rocks removed. The floor is now levelled and blinded, ready for insulation, DPM and concrete slab.

Squirrel

With medium spotted woodpecker

 

Atelier progress

A busy and tiring couple of weeks. After the large stone retaining wall was built with the stone from the demolished wall and manger in the barn, the next job was levelling the floor. A huge amount of pickaxing, shovelling and raking, yielded even more stones and slabs. Several more walls were constructed around gardens, until finally after about 50 barrow loads of surplus material had been removed the floor was more or less flat.

The next task was a level survey of the tops of the existing beams which varied about 15cm. About 50 timber blocks had to be precisely made to sit on the tops of the wonky beams at each joist position, so that the they would be supported at the correct height to make the floor level.  New timbers were resin anchored to the gable walls to support the joist ends as there are no beams here.

Michiel had gifted me a days labour as a birthday present, so yesterday he and I set about installing the joists. This progressed fairly quickly where we had blocks to set them on, but at the high end the joists had to be notched over each of the beams to become level. It took all day but finally it was done. 

Today after some perimeter blocking between the joists, the OSB flooring was laid which will eventually support underfloor heating. About 85% is done.

Unearthed this stone with masons name and date....C. J-P Aout 1886 - probably "CARRERE Jean-Paul August 1886"

 

Booted eagle

Saw this splendid booted eagle dive and take a bird out of tree. Lucky to spot it eating its prey in another tree, given away by the feathers it was plucking blowing towrds me in the wind. It very quickly saw me and took flight with its prey in its talons.

Windy

The wall is almost finished which is fortunate as the wall inside which is providing the stones is nearly totally gone. Tremendous south winds today, hot, dry, laden with sand and at times very frightening. An enormous oak is down, crossing the chemin and entering our field. Another willow, also a good size crossing the chemin and entering another field crushing the fence. Lots of clearing up to do next week.

 

Pic de Cagire et Pique Poque

We had intended to climb Pic de Cagire and the neighbouring peaks from the Col de Menthe, but a notice on campdecamp.org suggested that because of nesting bearded vultures the route was off limits. We changed our plan to ascend Cagire from the north side - less interesting and with the same route route for ascent and descent. Alas the info appears to be out of date as there were no indications that any of the paths were closed.

It's a pleasant enough climb of about 1000m in beech, then pines, before breaking onto open hillside. Tremendously strong winds made for a tough time on col and the ridge between Cagire and Pique Poque. It's a celebrated viewpoint but the south winds were laden with saharan sand and everything was hazy. The strond wind made it difficult to linger and admire the view.

Cagire

Pique poque with its transmitter

We saw a solitary isard twice on the ascent, then again on the descent. This time I was quick enough with the camera.

It was a relief to get out of the wind and back down. A well earned beer in Aspet was reward for our toil.

 

More building works and RIP Clarence

More studio works today. Digging out muck, demolishing internal stone walls, moving rocks to make the retaining wall in readiness for the soil from the excavation beside the barn - there are a lot of rocks!

Level shave been taken across the tops of the beams and new rafters and a floor have been designed and costed. Having a platform to work from at first floor will greatly help all operations!

Having sold my shotgun, which I have used only once since moving to France, I ve purchased a new rifle (I ll probably sell my old one at the begining of the next hunting season). The Tikka is lighter, probably more accurate and weather resistant than my model seven. First some gunsmithing operations have been called for to make the rifle fit me better. So far I ve shortened the length of pull, altered the pitch of the stock, installed a new better recoil pad, adjusted the trigger and fitted the bases for ready for mounting the scope. A socket for a bipod is next.

Sadly, I found Clarence dead in the hay barn this afternoon. He's a wild cat that we've been looking after and feeding for about 4 years and have grown very fond of, even though he never let us touch him. He'd not been showing up to eat for the last couple of days, although we heard him meowing early in the morning. We have no idea how he died.

 

Etang d' Arraing depuis Frechendech

With so little snow this year and warm temperatures already here, walks into the mountains are possible without skis, raquettes or crampons (although today we took the latter just in case). The long walk from Frechendech to Etang dArraing, is always delightful. Without leaves on the trees the Chapelle d'Isard was clearly visible on the other side of the river.

As we exited the tree line just below the cabane d'Illau we could see that the snowline was only 50m or so below the dam. A light dusting of snow had fallen overnight above about 2200m and cliffs of Pic de l'Har above the cabane looked magnificent.

Iron staining in the shale cliffs opposite the cabane

When we arrived at the snow it was immediately deep, but fortunately mostly carried our weight. Below the dam there was just a dusting. We found somewhere out of the wind by the refuge EDF for lunch, gazing down on the frozen and snow covered lake.

The dam from below 

Pic de Crabère

The lake side of the dam shows how low the water is

Retrospect from below the snow

It's been a while since we had a longer walk. Including a leisurely lunch, we were out for 7 hours with 1100m of ascent and 18km.