RIP Clinton

It's been a sad few days. Lots of rain and on Tuesday when we went to close the chickens up, three were missing. Trisha was gone and I soon found Clinton and Maggie's decapitated bodies. A fox attack. It's heartbreaking.

On Thursday I took the rest of the kitchen apart. We can't live with trapping four or five mice a day. My efforts seemed to make no difference, but this morning I spotted another hole almost at ceiling level behind a wall cupboard. Today the mice have stopped thank god!

During a walk this afternoon I spotted four foxes in the amphitheatre field! The grey vixen we see sometimes on the camera trap has three cubs, already indistinguishable from adults. It explains the killings earlier in the week, she's probably teaching them to hunt. We ll have to keep our last couple of hens and any new chickens locked in the run until October unless I get a chance to reduce the fox numbers.

First scarf underway.

 

Bamboo

The Maurice brassard bamboo thread I ordered an eon ago finally showed up, so time to get another warp on the loom.  Three different scarves in Bateman boulevard.

Summer

Spent the last few days trying to increase the barriers against rodent entry and trying to find their ways in....without much success. I dismantled the kitchen cupboards and worktops to get at the stone wall behind it, blocked up tiny holes in the old stone wall under the stairs (almost impossible to reach), pulled down and then rebuilt the ceiling over our bed. Everywhere is much cleaner...and maybe the mouse numbers are slightly reduced...or am I kidding myself?

Oh well summer is here and it is beautiful.

 

Mouse apocalypse

This year the mouse population is exploding in the Ariège. We 've hardly had any mice for the last 3-4 years but this year it's bonkers. We're catching 3-4 mice every night and the cats are adding to the total. I keep trying to find and block possible entry points, but they keep on coming. At night they are in the kitchen, the utility room, the roof.....chewy on the wood, the insulation. Outside they are everywhere!

Trois Seigneurs

After some rainy weeks summer has finally arrived with hot and humid weather.

Tristan and Agi were up for a walk, so Trois Seigneurs seemed like it would be a good introduction to this side of the Couserans. We went in the clockwise direction starting from the Port de Lers and the ridge before descending to the Etang d'Arbu.

Tristan and Agi's lurchers made easy work of the rocky sections and loved the snow...the youngest had never seen it before!

The weather behaved, with far reaching views.  The heat built throughout the day and it was good to cool off in the Etang.

Below the Etang the scotch broom was in full flower and vivid yellow and perfume were overpowering.

 It turned out to be a long, hot, but enjoyable day with some new walking companions.

Steps

A lot of the bigger posts and beams from inside the barn were put aside to make these steps through the drystone retaining wall. Susie and I put them in yesterday and then another half tonne of concrete to finish them off.

We need another three or four steps to reach the upper garden, but they'll have to wait until I take the roof off the barn and have more beams to recycle.

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.