Hedging, caravans & more

We took advantage of the Easter bank holidays to get a full week away for only a couple of days of leave.

Hedging: We had ordered more bare root hedging in advance from Hattens Farm nursery, again it had arrived a short while before us – only about 200 plants this time, enough to get down to the southern boundary on both east and west sides. It was similar mix to before and we had a few of our own that we packed in our hand baggage. It was all much easier than back in November. It was warmer, less windy, less wet and the soil down the garden is much less disturbed and built-on. We did exactly as before: used the fencing tool to make holes, water the holes, drop the whips in with a bamboo cane, heel them in and put on a tree tube. We did not bother with the microrhizal fungi, we will keep an eye on how well they do. What was a bit of a pain was that we ran out of canes and tree tubes before the end, about 30 plants had to take their chances with the rabbits & hares.

 

Windbreak netting: The existing netting was in good condition, sewing it on with garden twine seemed to have done the trick. So we did loads more until we ran out of netting, getting the east side done and most of the west side. It took days, but it was done. It was quite breezy whilst we were doing it and we were quite surprised how much warmer it felt nearer the ground.

Bothy doors: Our new doors had dried out properly and were fine, we stuck another coat of woodstain on. I borrowed a chunky angle grinder from brother-in-law Bryan and cut off the upper rail that held the old doors on. Then we were able to break the doors up, chucking metal on the metal pile and timber on our firewood pile.

 

Caravans: We had been looking ahead to when we would be up here permanently and wondered how readily we could get a good quality second-hand caravan. Where we live in Suffolk, there are loads of holiday parks and they are easy to come by. We tried several places. One was on Gumtree, where they said they had a caravan for sale in Fraserborough that looked a decent price. On phoning up, they were actually in Stranraer and only the first 100 miles were free delivery. We tried again and found sellers in Mintlaw and Newmacher both of which are OK for us. Once we were back in the area we took half a day out to go to Newmacher and twigged that it was a caravan park that we had noticed years ago because of its name – Nia Roo (try it spelled backwards). The sorts of caravan we could afford were very much hidden away at the back of the site. However there was a choice of at least 5, mostly about 20 years old. We could not really decide between them – they were quite different but never having stayed in a caravan, we did not know what was important. We took loads of photos, headed back into Aberdeen and consulted Jill’s sister Vicki. She graciously came out with us the following day, checked them out and picked the one for us. It almost certainly was the right choice, it was 12′, not 10′ and had three bedrooms, separate shower and toilet and a decent sized lounge & kitchen area. It was rather more expensive that we had anticipated, however ‘William’ did discount it and threw in transport for free – £3,750 in total. We left it with him, went back to the steading and marked out where we wanted it dropped off, close to the bothy. We headed back south before it was delivered.

 

Our Owl Box: A library borrower at Bungay library made us a an owl box that we brought up by car recently. This was the first time we had tools to fix it up in a tree, so we did. I believe owls are fussy about where they are prepared to go in and out of a box, we will see whether it the box ends up  occupied

 

 

Progress on our Building Warrant: The architect was true to his word and progressed the warrant queries slowly. He had fate on his side. The Scottish fire brigades had recently reorganised to a single national service. In doing so, they omitted to appoint any fire marshalls. Part of their job is to advise on fire safety in new houses and because ours is large, the architect was expecting that we would have to something out of the ordinary – for example install a sprinkler system, install fire curtains in the roof space or have a ready supply of water for a fire engine to access i.e. a pond or tank.

After a due period, the architect pulled in a favour from an old contact – he decided that we do not need to make any extra provision, after all.

Bothy doors and Woodchip

We went up to Aberdeen for 2 weeks over Christmas, on the understanding that most of it was social – our steading time was limited.

Replacing the Bothy doors: The main thing we wanted to get done was replacing the doorway of our bothy with something a bit more functional. The current doors should slide apart on runners; one side is stuck shut, the other opens a few feet only. They are falling apart. We have, up to now, used a bike lock through the handles to keep it secure – it is anything but.

I got hold of two ledged & braced pine doors, some more structural timber to make a frame and wood cladding and suitable door furniture – all from Jewsons in Aberdeen, because Ellon Timber is closed over the holiday period.

We could not remove the old doors with our limited toolbox, we forced them apart enough to expose the full opening in the wall. We will sort them out when I can get hold of an angle grinder.

Anyway, we made a simple framework to sit within the opening, screwed to the wall and to the remaining timberwork above the doorway. I hung the doors in their part of the frame, then we cut the cladding board to size and nailed it over the rest of the framework.

I was at least able to use the decent SDS drill that had been my Christmas present!

There were two downsides. The weather was pretty gloomy and we do not have power in the bothy, so we were literally working in the dark. The other was the temperature – it was too cold to use woodstain and for it to dry out properly, but we had no choice. So we put two coats on and left it all tacky.

At least we have a semi-secure entrance, with easily locking doors.

Woodchip mulch: We had searched for someone who would supply large amounts of woodchip at a reasonable price. We had been partly successful – Aberdeen Tree Services is, unfortunately, based in Huntly – they only occasionally operate in our area.

Fortunately for us though, they did a job just before Christmas near Mintlaw and were able to deliver a satisfactorily large pile just after we arrived – 3-4 cu m for £130. So we spent the best part of two days barrowing it over our weed membrane to a good 2-3″ depth. It made it look a lot better, will keep the ground damper/warmer and will keep weeds down. There was not enough to finish the job, though.