Brambles, Balsalm, Bracken and Building Regs

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Listening to: Son Of Dave – Leave Without Runnin’
via FoxyTunes
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Listening to: Ludovico Einaudi & Ballaké Sissoko – Chameaux
via FoxyTunes
Well another month has just flown past, sometimes it scares me how quickly the year is slipping by. As usual we have been busy, poor James has cleared about an acre of Himalayan balsalm – and that is no mean feat!

It’s hard! The plant itself is feeble, or so it seems. The wretched thing can be hanging on by a thread, it looks dead at the cut and then you look up, healthy leaves and an enthusiastic flower bud. Now I hear you cry what do you have against Himalayan Balsalm? It’s pretty, it’s great for bees and the seed pods are fun to burst! Well it takes over, everything! Of course it’s used to a more challenging environment, you can get that from the name, so it has an exuberant seed strategy. It produces a lot! Each plant can produce 800 seeds! So the bottom valley is full of the stuff, we knew it was bad, but as the year has gone on we have realised how much this problem has been neglected.

We have a lot of bracken and brambles down there as well and whilst both are good local plants you don’t want them taking over. Bracken is phenomenal, it has so many tricks up it’s sleeve it’s amazing that the whole planet is not covered in the stuff. It releases a toxin from it’s roots which kills off other competing plants, it’s carconogenic to grazing animals, it’s spores have been implicated as being carconogenic, it releases a sugary substance at it’s base which guarantees it an ant army who will fight any insects trying to attack the plant and you can see why it’s very succesful. So whilst we want some we don’t want 2 or 3 acres. Onto the brambles, well I love them in many respects, free autumn food for me and the birds, but it’s also extremely invasive and is a bit of a pioneer species for woodlands. Now I also love woodlands but I think a mix of habitats is important, so we will be managing the brambles to acceptable levels.

With regards to the barn, our poor architect was broken into and all his stuff was stolen, so poor Dave was left with a massive headache of sorting out insurance claims, computers etc, he has still managed to provide us with drawings which are the precursors for our building reg application. He’s also going to be speaking to some builders for us so we will hopefully be able to report some progress on the barn in the coming months.

We have moved on in the luxury stakes, we have a solar panel on our yurt which will be able to power a lamp, a laptop, our radio and more to boot! We’re also on the grid at the caravan which means we have a fridge, we’ve managed ok till now but moving on into the summer months (however chilly they feel at the moment) is proving more of a challenge. We also have water in the yurt! Yes the tap in the sink works…

Our meadow also continues to develop – as James and I try to fathom out how to manage it in the best possible way. Meadows are very complex habitats which have developed over thousands of years, starting out as clearings in a wood man has developed them, woodlands eventually turning into the field margins of hedgerows, the plants that develop in the clearing have a very complicated relationship. As 98% of meadows have been lost since the 2nd world war we are keen to ensure we preserve this one.

Water, polytunnel, chickens and foxes!

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Well it has been a non stop few weeks since we last updated the blog! Every waking minute of when we aren’t working has pretty much been spent on putting up our polytunnel. The plastic is now on and we have 3 lovely large beds to work with, much to the relief of our seedlings which had been suffering terribly with just being in pots and shoved in sheds!

We also had (and please note the had) some lovely hens, they were the most friendly and ridiculous creatures who followed you round the whole time. We had just started to see them all laying eggs at about 1 each a day when sadly all apart from 1 were taken by a fox. Unfortunately it is that time of year when foxes have cubs and so are that little bit braver – 1 hen was taken about 20 yards from our yurt and I was sat out side at the time! I can’t be angry at the fox for doing something natural we are just both angry at ourselves for not taking better precautions with them. Anyhow we start again, we were left with the 1 lonesome chuck and we asked a neighbour for a companion which they happily helped with. With the addition of 2 Black stars as well we are rebuilding our flock.

We have water – we feel ludicrously posh at the moment – live for four months without running water and you get used to it! Now we have a tap which gushes forth very enthusiastically and we can even have lovely solar showers in this hot weather.

Our meadow is developing, we have found common spotted orchids, oxeye daisies, yellow rattle (good sign of an older meadow) and possibly some whorled caraway (which is quite rare and needs to be confirmed).

We have even found the time to do a bit of adventuring out in the area, we drove up to Llyn Brianne the other evening. The views on the way up are really beautiful and the countryside just begs to be explored.

The actual barn and a bit of an update on the goings on

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So of course this is all about the barn, not just our lives here. Our fantastic friend Dave is our architect (DW Enterprises Splott Road Cardiff) and as both Mags and he are so special the design work is our house warming present, there is probably no way we can thank them enough! We have the final designs and Dave is now working them up so that we can go to building regs to get all the final agreements. We are going to ask for a couple of small additions through planning permission but hopefully nothing that will freak the planners out. Inside is beautiful with the downstairs middle room open to the roof and a fantastic bridge between the two upstairs bedrooms. It’s becoming easier to visualise the whole place as time goes on.

I also have my dream of having a larder included in the design. When I was a little girl my nan from Yorkshire had a pantry, she was such a fantastic cook and she really inspired me to enjoy eating and cooking good food. So I want a cool larder where I can store all our home grown produce.

Talking of which we have also been busy digging beds and preparing the ground for a polytunnel whilst at the same time desperately trying to keep hundreds of seedlings alive!

The land is all coming to life around us and it’s such a different place now, all the different greens are quite breathtaking and exciting.

We have also met our other neighbours across the river and again we are so lucky to have such nice people living here. They have very kindly offered their shower and as they have it set up downstairs in their lobby we can use it whenever we need it. John and Pat have lived here 20 years and so have a fantastic understanding of the local wildlife. They have seen over their time here, an otter every autumn who follows the salmon up when they do their run up the river, dippers nest all along the river, pied fly catchers swoop up and down the valley and will nest in boxes put up for them, woodpeckers thrive as does the local gosshawk (especially on the local chickens!)

Finally on the matter of chickens we have 12 new inhabitants who are getting to live in our barn before us.. and I am already getting a sense that they are very naughty.. After escaping the one area we hoped to confine them to one managed to kick over a paint pot, she is now called Blue Foot.. still haven’t found out how you get paint off chickens!