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Moriarty or ‘Arty’ to his friends has arrived with us.

We are opening the doors to Boskins and Speight Cottage between 2pm and 5pm on Saturday 5th January for anybody who would like to have a look around and see exactly what all the builders were doing for 6 months in 2018, through rain, sun and snow.

Lots more to do this year – with 2 extra cottages to decorate between changeovers!

But looking good and worth the effort

With a bit of careful positioning of electric fence tape, we have let the coowes in to our garden once more to eat the lush green grass and to rearrange the garden furniture

A glorious day once again in the yorkshire dales

Went out to one of our fields to move the donkeys electric fence – we keep them contained or as they will occasionally chase people out of the field (only if someone on the public footpath has a dog that runs ‘out of control’ around them – they have learnt by escorting (head down and push) the owner and the dog leaves 🙂 ).

Unfortunately we found that the ‘dry-stone’ wall to the road has half collapsed (some of the outer section still there). – I use dry-stone wall in quotes as the debris had a lot of concrete/mortar in it.

 

As with most jobs – it would have been easier to build from scratch rather than repair – but its a long wall!! – we also resorted to the assistance of some lime mortar to cushion some of the more awkward shaped stones – but the end result looks good and seems (fingers crossed) stable again.

A few bits left over of course (my packing in the wall was less i suspect – and the mortar will have displaced  some as well.

A little too windy for my cattle feeder/manger.

 

But a few nails and a hand lifting it back up soon sorted things out – and managed some much needed repairs at the same time 🙂

 

A back straining weekend of log cutting and moving – 18 small trailer loads cut and moved (and various branches still with the donkeys and cooes to chew on)

To put this picture in scale – the larger logs in the foreground at 18-20 inches diameter

A little more to come out of the river – if it stays low and my chainsaw sharpener arrives 🙂

Another first to deal with … our first big Ash tree down – and straight into the river

Health and safety people look away now – using a chainsaw whilst stood in the river either on slippery rocks or on semi-floating logs whilst removing the branches was not the most safety “aligned” thing I have done – but I suppose I was very aware of it – so each choice and cut took a long time to get sorted. Along with roping each branch to prevent it flowing down river when ‘freed’ from its anchor.

Managed to get 90% of the foliage in – and shared between the Donkeys and Highland Cows (they both love the leaves and twigs – and the donkeys chew the bark

 

A few large limbs left to remove – hopefully the river is lower this weekend – and we can complete the work and maybe roll the trunk back towards the river bank to create a ‘big seat’  and free up the small beach that people love to play on as they walk past.

[No way my chainsaw can make it through the main trunk .. too big]