Terraces

Paul has started making terraces above the three we have already. (Where the Polytunnel is). We're doing them in decreasing length, so they make a sort of crescent shape leading up to the Smug Bench. Anyone can have one of these - it's just a normal bench but to make it smug, you just plant a Wild Service tree or two nearby. These are rare native trees, and "anyone who has one in his garden can feel smug about it!" say's our Guide to British Trees! You can’t see it in this picture, it’s just to the right.



The Extension and the Dam

Next, the big project is building the extension. We now have Planning Permission and some detailed plans have been developed by Mark Baggott (local Surveyor).

Electrical design to be done, then all can go to a QS for pricing. After that comes Building Permission and then we find a builder. Will it happen this year? I think so!!

The extension will snuggle into the bank behind the house, which therefore needed digging out. Paul's contract on the A46 has ended, so we now have Employee No.2 (Adam is No. 1) and a 3-tonne digger and a dumper here (hired).

Paul's done about 10 days so far and the results are quite impressive.

There's now a roadway through the Orchard, and a much wider gap behind the house. Not only will this allow us to dig out further, it will also be access for the builders later. There's still quite a lot to excavate, although I imagine it will only be a matter of days before that bit is done.

Those of you who are not asleep by now might be asking what we are doing with all the soil! Well, we have made a pathway across the soggy bit at the bottom of the left-hand field, that's what we fondly call the Orchid Field, although we haven't seen any orchids yet this year. Basically, if you are in the Orchard, it's below you bordered by the road. Anyway, this "pathway" rather cunningly encloses the wet area, which of course can't get its water out any more, and so is filling up!

Note the neatly weeded bed – Thanks Ju, it’s looking good!

You could call the pathway a dam, I suppose! But, spoilsports that we are, we've put a huge pipe through the dam low down, so actually there's only an inch or so more water in it than usual.



We'll let the pathway get overgrown and natural looking, then gradually raise the height of the inlet. Then, maybe, in years to come, we might do a bit of digging out. Eventually, we'll have a pond of sorts! And hopefully, the gradual raising of the level will encourage the beautiful marsh marigolds to migrate with the rising waterline.

The Wet Room

The Wet Room project is more-or-less done. It involved piping water from the second spring (in the copse top left of FR), into a pH corrector, then a filter and a UV steriliser. These bits are housed in a small enclosure attached to the back of the shed on the caravan side. This still needs finishing plaster and painting in the rather attractive Fron Rafel green that adorns the rest of the building.

Inside the shed there's a BIG boiler, with chimney poking through the wall, and this is fed from two large red gas cylinders outside.

The W-R is a white-tiled space with the usual sanitary ware, and a LARGE shower head. This delivers water at a prodigious rate (about 25 litres/minute actually) at a selectable temperature from cold to too-hot.

The RESULT is the best shower we've ever had, well worth running across the yard in your dressing gown for. (In warmer weather I might dispense with the dressing gown! Just hope Jean The Post doesn't turn up!).

Fron Rafel Birdcam 28th April 2012 "The eggs have hatched!"

A short Iphone vid of the birdcam at Fron Rafel.
The eggs have hatched!

Bird Cam in the Potting Shed is showing us 8 tiny Blue-tits being stuffed with blue-tit food by their Mum. Ah well, something has to feed the Sparrow Hawk!



Entertaining the Grandchildren

Although there's plenty for the Kids to do here in Carmarthenshire, We recently decided to finish the tree-house that we built when we first moved in.

We had been thinking of the safest way for the Children to Get up to the Tree-house and after much discussion we opted for a Cargo net. We popped over to the local 'Army Surplus' store to see if we could get one but with no success.

They informed us that they weren't allowed to sell them anymore as they were dangerous. :(

The next day we nipped to our local tool shop to pick up some supplies for the Business. We got talking to the Tool store owner and mentioned that we were after a cargo/scramble net. The owner sent one of His Minions into the stockroom and he came back our with SEVEN, two metre square Cargo Nets that a previous customer had ordered in and never collected.

After a heap of bartering he agreed to sell all seven to us for £50.00. BARGAIN!

Let construction Begin.

The first thing we did was to Bind two of the nets together to make them long enough to reach the platform on the tree-house without there being too much of a difficult climb to the top.

We then worked out how to connect the net to the ground. We drove two stakes into the earth and stretched the loops from the net over them, harnessed the sides in the centre of the net to the branches above and fixed the netting at the deck with a good piece of 2x4.

We repeated this whole process on the next side of the platform to give the kids two means of access.

Next on the agenda was the lazy adults and babies hammock, this was placed under the tree-house, tied securely using the legendary blue nylon rope which we have used in the family for years.

On to the Beams.

For David's Birthday last year, Elaine got him a Gibbon Slack-line.

This is pretty much a very strong and long Ratchet strap. (like the ones used to secure items to Ones 'roof rack'). This requires a VERY sturdy strut at each end. Point 'A' was easy as it is a very old tree, but we came across problems with Point 'B'. We had a 5 ft piece of old telegraph pole laying around so we used this for point 'B'. After a hell of a lot of elbow grease we managed to sink it into the ground far enough for the horizontal resistance to be high enough to support the weight of a small child.

We also set up a few 'Bench beams'. These were a very simple structure, built by hammering two old gate posts about 6ft apart and then nailing an old pole across the top of them. We made two of these in total. one at 1.5ft high and one at roughly 2.5ft high, These can also be used as seats.

JUMP.

The last thing we built was the tyre/pole swing. This is a good piece of climbing rope suspended up high with a long piece of plumbers piping over it and a tyre on the end to act as a seat or to cushion the landing. if swinging from the decking.

That's the Adventure playground completed, the new features make excellent additions to the swings and trampoline that were there before.

Thanks for reading.

Adam

Sparrowhawk comes to the garden!

We have a large and bustling population of the common garden birds active around the feeders. It's great to see 6 or more blue-tits and great tits on one fat-ball feeder!
Right now there are families of Chaffinches, Tree Sparrows, Green Finches, Blue Tits and Great Tits.
Frequent other visitors include several Nuthatches, some Greater Spotted Woodpeckers and several Blackbirds and Robins. We've seen quite a few other species too, but these are the "regulars"!

One visitor is much less welcome though - every day he swoops through the garden and makes off with one of the small birds. I'm pretty sure its the same Sparrow-Hawk every day - a male. And he is getting far too good at reducing our bird population!

His technique is to fly in and perch in some open position where he can see what is going on. He sits there until the initial fright he caused has died down and the smaller birds resume feeding. Once, he sat for at least 30 minutes on the bird bath with his tail well under water! Once the small birds are back, he swoops - and off he flies with a morsel in his claws.

Should we intervene? We haven't so far, although when he decided to take a bluetit that was inside one of the cage-type feeders, it was quite upsetting to watch. Now, it's "That bloody Sparrow-Hawk's been again".
I can understand why they were shot, but the RSPB says that it is a sign of a healthy bird population!

Introducing....

Fron Rafel Beetroot Jam! Grown from seed using Welsh un-treated soil & watered with Carmarthenshire spring water. Our Beetroot is carefully selected and cooked to our family recipe.

Fron Rafel Beetroot Jam is a superior preserve.

Spread lightly over freshly toasted bread or as an accompaniment to a ploughman's lunch for maximum taste satisfaction!