Digging

Hi Ho ! Hi Ho ! its off to work we go!  The last few weeks have been all about digging. For once everyone was able to help as well since its not a technical job. Start them young , even if they cant walk all the way to work!

The road crew set to work filling some potholes on the track, using a 7 tonne pile of tarmac scrapings that got donated by contractors after  resurfacing the local Dalhousie bridge. Unfortunately they didnt donate their heavy roller so wellies had to suffice in flattening the piles

  

 The kids were not really up to the main job for the week, digging about 80 metres of trench around 2 feet / 700mm deep, to run a new LPG  pipeline. The heating gas tank needs to be replaced and I have decided to completely remove the existing tank from the yard to restore the view of the original stone buildings. My current plan is to eventually remove all of the modern buildings and paraphernalia and restore something like the original look of the place. Even with the digger I knew this would be a little mentally challenging since the ground is heavy clay with rocks near the road. The trench runs to the right side of the track up the hill.

Two days later I got to the bottom of the hill, by the  yard entrance and it was all looking a little muddier thanks to some heavy rain which of course kept filling the trench up as I went.

  
Despite the obvious road cones warning me (and passing footpath users) of the big wooden posts, I managed to impale the hydraulics on one just after temporarily removing the footpath sign to avoid damaging the digger. Doh !

Last time I did something like this (the infamous lampost removing incident on TV), the Council came round straight away. Due to Council cuts in Midlothian, it was only some young buck that came for a nosey this time.(That was a stag-geringly bad pun!)

After getting the digger fixed , I started on the opposite side, immediately uncovering a hidden drain, which promptly collapsed and filled up with loose earth blocking the kitchen drains.
 

 For some strange reason the manhole was made smaller at the top than inside - making it only clearable by a thin person of height 5' 10" or smaller. Which meant I could not delegate the job to April since I just fitted ! (I did consider asking Willow, but its probably illegal to let your kids clean sewers)

Starting the trench again, I was immediately grateful I'd unblocked that drain - since I dug into and burst the mains water suppling the house !. Luckily its not really high pressure, but it soon filled up the new trench - and then poured into the drain I'd unearthed. I was not amused !


The drains are bizarre ! They leave the kitchen and go right around the house, meeting up with various downpipes and toilets, take a detour to the middle of yard then come back ! 360 degrees all the way around the house before ending up about 10 meters from where it started ! Not something you want to jam with earth!

I managed to solder the leak closed  and then decided to finish the top of trench while the flood waters subsided. Within an hour, I'd dug through the mains pipe again ! !  I didnt have the tools to fix this bit, but it was mainly just flattened and mangled so didnt leak too much. At this point I decided that I will re run a new water main as well while I've got the trench open.

The previous owner dug the mains all the way across the field (below) to the nearest  supply on his own apparently - it must be 800m away and I bet he didnt use a mini digger either in  the 1955. Having said that he probably had a better shovel than the kids used for the road !

Who would have guessed digging was so much fun !

Tonnes and tonnes

Almost a month since the last blog post ! The time seems to have flown by and been  entirely spent shifting very heavy stuff. Tonnes and tonnes of it.The majority of it by hand as well !

First up was all that scrap metal pile - six tonnes  of mainly mild steel. Six thousand kilos sounds heavier I think ! At least I didnt have to unload it all by hand. The scrap man said it was the best pile of sorted scrap he'd ever seen and gave me a  lightweight wad of £20's in return !

Then I reclaimed the old welding plant from alien rock that we used to build climbing wall frames with a decade ago. After lugging it,  the gas bottle  and a load of old scrap into the shed  Dad set to work. A few days later the worlds most robust linkbox appeared ! It was rapidly loaded up with about 80 concrete slabs , that I'd chopped up into thirds. Thats a third of a slab on top below ! Only 239 others to pick up. Aaaargh !

All the concrete we are recovering goes out of the walled yard to the top of the hill for future crushing into hardcore for the track. Unfortunately the linkbox doesnt tip so we were having to unload all the pieces by hand as well. Exhausting stuff.

A huge pile of scrap wood  had accumulated  so we used that to celebrate Dads 65th birthday with a big burn up (about 12 foot high) Maybe we were celebrating finishing moving those slabs as well !

 

For a change from metal, concrete and wood, April suggested we start a small veg patch near the house for ease of watching the kids while working on it in future. Great idea, but first we had to dig all the turf off which nearly did me in. Obviously I had a terrible technique since April did the second patch in half the time !

 

This gave the opportunity to try the new rotavator, which of course was heavy and felt like it was going to pull my arms off (not to mention  chop my toes off!). Did the job though !

Next up in the heavy dangerous tools league was the new (eBay) hydraulic road breaker. There's so much concrete to break up I thought I'd get the proper tool for the job. Shame they dont sell an instant body building course to go with it (actually they probably do on eBay) because its a beast to work with for more than ten minutes.

 The worst tool to use for any length of time was the old Stihl saw, my hands were numb after about two minutes. The trench I'm opening up is for the services for the big caravan. I've just got this up on blocks and level at long last after our massive insulation efforts last month.

The caravan was originally going to be for Dads benefit, however a slightly smaller one appeared locally and after a short Sunday drive along the A7 main road at 10 mph it was ours. It has already been installed and connected up where the concrete stables were. The big caravan will be available for visitors or us when we need to do major work on the house. (Please form an orderly queue: gloves, tools and job sheet provided, sore arms and deep sleep guaranteed!)

In return for the caravan, we have lent some space out in the lower field , our first (visiting) big animals at the farm. It seemed appropriate that they were mules, a stubborn persistence will be what is required everywhere. The kids are a little wary of them (Mickey and Mary Doll) , in fact I even saw April make a hasty exit from the field at one point !

 April and the kids have been working hard as well. They have taken on the garden in front of the kitchen.

 

Its all been tidied up and parts lined with rocks to stop me driving the tractor over the flowers ! Various plants have appeared and hundreds of vegetables have been planted as plug plants ready for warmer weather- its still frosty regularly at the moment. However it has started drying out at last - its been a real mud fest at times, much to the kids amusement.

The dry weather has made it much easier for moving all the concrete floor from the old "silo" sheds where the big metal silo bins used to be. The ground had subsided considerably, thanks to very lightweight construction and the effects of rats ,which fed on the grain, burrowing under the floor edges. When I say "lightweight" ,its anything but "light" - its just not reinforced with metal rods !

 This made it easier to break up the slabs although every piece has to then be loaded by hand onto the tractor front loader which Dad then shuttles up the hill to dump on the huge pile that is appearing.

 

Yes, every single one of these bits of rock has been picked up by hand (several times) ,almost entirely over the last month. Not sure how many tonnes that would be but I can sure feel it on my back ! Dad's worn out -he is officially an OAP after all ! ;-)

Shifting it all has been a bit inefficient, as yet we have no tipping trailer, however we did recover the original farm trailer from the field - its in a right state, but will be restored at some point soon. Trouble is we'd then need to lift the concrete onto it !

I've been saving many of the 200 year old handmade bricks as they get uncovered. They probably came from the entrance archway area and had been used as hardcore. This really annoyed me until I remembered I'd done something equally misguided at our last house when I built the foundation for the garden wall with many hundreds of "old rubbish bricks" that turned out to be 120 year old handmade bricks (worth over £1 each!)   I also remember that I'd repointed the sandstone church wall at the back of alien rock in cement rather than lime mortar when we first got there- an absolute "NO NO NO!" in restoring old buildings. We learn by our mistakes I suppose !

The borrowed digger has proved most handy, I'd really like a bigger one at some point since there's so much to do, but this still has a load of power

We have almost managed to clear the concrete and hardcore underneath the "silo" slab area and have even found the original topsoil is still underneath some of it, which will be a real bonus for restoring plants and trees. One of the original sandstone walls (from an early melon house maybe) has just appeared today - about two feet under hardcore under the 12 inch thick concrete slab that was on top !

It looks as messy as ever but underneath all those tonnes and tonnes of dereliction something fantastic is waiting to appear.

I'll keep you posted as it does !

some earlier photos and panoramas

I've just realised that I never posted any early photos of Grove Farm to the blog. I'd posted some of them to Facebook at the time. This post should give some general ideas of what the farm looked like when we first found out about it in June 2010.

We were somewhat in shock at the huge size of the possible project - which I tried to convey in one of the first blog posts.

For example this is the lower field - clicking on it should give a more detailed view if you're want to peer at the ruin in distance. The walls in the background are about 6 meters high at least. This would have originally been the main working part of the food production gardens for Dalhousie Castle. The pleasure garden part would be further along to the right, in front of and behind the ruined glasshouse wall / "folly". The walls would originally have had fruit trees all the way along - sadly only a few pears, a greengage and an apple tree survive.

The other walled section is now "the yard" but would have originally included the melon ground and general working sheds. Last year (June 2010)  it looked like this... (again click on it to zoom in further)

Practically none of the walls are visible - all hidden behind the tin sheds from the previous incarnation as poultry farm. These were all built over the last 50 years or so, apparently there were many of the fruit trees still in this section even then - unfortunately not one remains - just a few well rotted stumps.

However all is not lost , as of  now (Feb 2011) the  yard looks like this...
(In fact it looks a bit tidier since I just threw all the scrap metal in the skip)

The walls have started to appear , either side of caravan  and at the bottom of yard where the concrete stableblock was. We are planning on attempting to grow stuff by the caravan soon - after the concrete layer has been broken up and removed. Might not be the best condition soil straight away it must be said !

On the other side of the dividing wall (on right in photo above) is the glass house. No panorama just some interior shots from June 2010...

There are three 15 meter sections of glass house , all pretty rundown. Luckily it is a cast iron frame so it is structurally sound which was proven this winter when the snow came...

. Most of the glass will eventually need removed or replaced (over 2000 pieces I think) and re-sealed since it all leaks like a sieve. The grape harvest last year was destroyed by grey mould and the vines (4 well established ones) had got out of hand so I have almost finished giving them a severe prune to solve both problems.

The dirt floor has also had a good weed by Apes and the kids- mainly to remove all the broken glass as well as the nettles ! It currently looks more like this...

Outside the glasshouse looks onto the other side of the "folly" and long wall of the original big glasshouse mentioned in the original plans of 1810-ish. You can still see the flues of the heated walls on both sides.
 In June 2010 it all looked very green and overgrown. This panorama is a 180 degree shot through the main tractor-sized "hole" through wall...

We have managed to clear all the  hazardous rubbish hidden in the photo other than the shed on far right. The vegetation around the glasshouse has been taken down to ground level. We even found a large car-sized trailer in front of the flued wall - invisible in the weeds !

The ruin itself hasn't been touched - it would be a major expense to even make it safe since its in a  really bad way.

The  panorama below was taken in the first week or so of October 2010 - right after we moved in. The collapsed sheds to the right side were my first dismantling project .(They carried on towards the woods for about 45 meters). The "hole" in wall (centre of picture) takes you to the panorama view (above) of ruin.

Other than the sheds going this view has not really changed - except for some recent vegetable plots on the left side (more news on them in next blog or so)

I dont have many images of the woodland, its entirely native trees of various ages. Unfortunately the majority of big specimens have been chopped down for firewood over the years (the stumps tell the story), so most of them are quite small and closely planted - some woodland management is on the cards at some point.

There are a few nice little features in the woods. These photos were taken on our first visit in June 2010.

The original pedestrian entrance to the lower walled garden...

Just beyond it is a rather folorn cast  iron entrance in need of some work...

 Further still are plenty of rhododendrons (just waiting for a grant to be removed!) They do look lovely though. Aah !

Y

And further still a small area of river where there is easy access. Most of the river (the farm borders 800m of it) is protected by steep banks  up to 30 feet high in places with low sandstone outcrops. There are a couple of small islands worthy of a future Treasure Island game or two I suspect ! At the moment there is a raging torrent running down there.

Further along , the icehouse , a strange cylindrical cavern with hemispherical shaped floor and ceiling. It filled up and froze this year due to the proximity to river - presumably that what was supposed to happen !

That would be about the end of the walk in the wood, you could head back up through the "far" field - more a one hectare demolished woodland- which I would like to replant soon. Then back through the "long" field to the house or take the entrance driveway. If you were to then take the public footpath around the "back" of the yard wall you would see the rear archway to the yard (hidden inside furthest shed in  panoramas above)

It rather reminds me of the secret entrance to the "Bat cave"...

After all that walking about  (and all that blog article writing !) the discerning farm visitor should continue down the track a further half mile or so to "The Sun Inn"  for a well earned drink. 

Maybe I'll see you there someday soon?

Situation: stable

What have the last few weeks had in store for the intrepid team ? 

We had started on the concrete stables quite a while ago but after the roof had been removed it ground to a halt...

However, when I decided to demolish the concrete slab panels as a giant game of Jenga it became far more entertaining and I got on with it.

Eventually the last concrete slab was knocked out and down the wooden roof came...

You just cant beat smashing stuff up with "Sister Sledge"...

 In fact you dont even need a sledgehammer to enjoying smashing up stuff - heres a bit of video of the newly emptied "rubbish" shed being demolished.

We managed to get all the rubbish out first, which, coupled with all the foam insulation that wasnt required from the roof panels made quite a pile - hence the requirement for a big forty cubic yard skip - now stuffed to the brim. Only 4 tonnes of rubbish in total for the landfill , but still the least interesting £500 I've ever spent !

This might explain why I still happily take a plastic bag or five at the supermarket without being overconcerned.

The insulation foam was originally sandwiched in between two sheets of metal roofing- but they still needed lifted off the roof and then split apart - there were foam particles everywhere after it had been chucked down - there was no really neat way to do most of it,  the panels were all falling apart internally and most could not be reused.

 We did recover enough for the main big job of this year so far, insulating under the caravan. First layer (last blog) and then a second layer to build up the thickness. What a right pain it was too. It took about 4 days in total hours to do it all spread over two weeks. Dad cutting up  300 pieces of recovered foam...

and me lying in the mud, swearing away installing them, while stuff fell in my eyes...

 Other rubbish that needed chucked were all the old gas bottles - thirty of them eventually ! I found five lying in the woods where they had been chucked down from the hill above. Like that was going to get rid of them ! They'd probably been there for over thirty years easily and looked like giant rusty bombs !

Theres a few left scattered about even still , I've just spotted some lying thrown down the bank into the river ! Or maybe those ones are torpedoes !

Grove Farm is not the only piece of local history that has suffered badly at the hands of time. Whilst taking the glass we'd picked up  to the local recycling yard we discovered the original stables for the local Dalhousie Castle - shortly due for demolition apparently. 

A crying shame really , but it is due to be partly rebuilt elsewhere as a selfbuild house by the current owner of the yard so at least some of the 'embodied effort' will be saved I suppose.

Maybe he might have some stone arches left at the end - I would like one (very similar to this one on the other side of the former Dalhousie stables) to eventually rebuild the entrance to our walled yard . Our one got smashed down so lorries could get in and out.

Which I suppose is quite lucky since this one has just turned up ready for (some of) the pile of scrap thats built up...

The yard has started to look a bit like a "travellers" camp so it would be good to get it cleared up at last. The weather hasn't been helping , the tractor has been churning the track up so I'm trying not to use it too much at the moment. 

Once the ground dries out not only can the tractor come back out to play but it will have a new transport/ link box which Dad has started fabricating out of  'old scrap' (the  roll cage for tractor!).

while I was happily chopping up scrap with my newly restored (inherited with farm) oxy-acetylene cutter . Yowzers thats hot, hot, hot ! 

I've always wanted one of these for some reason - must be a Marvel Comics Super power thing , the ability to melt through steel plates ! Maybe I'm just easily pleased by being able to use tools.

On that note, I also acquired a hydraulic road breaker,  rotovator and welding plant so we can now break stuff up, mix stuff up and put stuff back together.  What more could one want ?

Oh yes, a reason to do all this !

April and the kids have been getting out and clearing some of the glasshouse area amongst other things. Willow has even been picking up bits of rubbish and shards of glass to assist ! I suspect there will still be pieces lying around when she's an adult so its good practice for the future !

Despite all the mess ,everything is still going successfully. 

The situation: stable