Gold! Well… Clay! Which you must admit, is just as exciting (and far more malleable at ambient temperatures).  When we got home I referred to the self sufficiency book my dad bought me and it provided detailed instructions on how to test the clay for PH balance, treat and process it… that book is so good. If we ever loose the internet/civilisation, we’ll be okay.  So, we ignored the instructions and got straight on with making stuff. Rosie did a ceramics course recently – so she’s the expert!

The next day I got out my enamel kiln. The kiln is not large – in fact you could just about fit an apple in it. It was given to me by a friend of my mum’s – when I was a teenager – because she knew that I liked all sorts of crafts – and I’ve kept it ever since.  Apart from a little smoke it seemed to be working fine and the (dinky) pots were successfully fired. The clay turned from grey to fleshy pink – with lovely sparkly bits (which John says are puwer gowld!).

So far I’m a little stuck on what we can actually make from the clay – smaller than an apple, yet not tat. We’re fine for tat – we can make loads of it.  I could make ends for my home made knitting needles… bottle caps to keep wasps out of beer in the garden… John says that literally anything can sell in his gift shop in Bechyne – so the challenge has been laid.

The problem was that a plug in the bathroom (which was part of the old wiring) had been wired the wrong way – reminiscent of the copper wire that had been used to bypass the fuse system (which we discovered in the early days). Luckily nobody died either time – but it does leave the lingering impression that the house had been booby trapped.

So, yet again we are without hot water and a washing machine. When the weather is good we’re fine as we have the solar showers and bath outside. The repair cost for the boiler was greater than the cost of the boiler itself – so we’ve ordered a new boiler with three inputs – meaning that we can heat the tank from a back boiler on a stove, from a solar system input as well as a backup in the form of electricity.  That’ll be arriving next week, and the Whirlpool washing machine has been repaired – they phoned us to ask us what the maximum we were prepared to pay for the repair would be – then they charged us this amount. Our cheap second hand washing machine has stopped being.

Still… we hope to rejoin the 20th century again this week.

The individual value of each item would not have been high – an antique mangle for squeezing out washing, various mechanical parts from vehicles and from the old mill – these items were part of the history of the house. I imagine that they have been taken for their scrap metal value, without a consideration that we would have put things back together, or wanted to use tools that were so old.

We have not reported this to the police because we are not 100% certain what was taken by whom. However I am not going to be recommending this firm to others.  This is a massive shame because the work was excellent, and we now have an unsurpassably sustainable and ecological roof covering. I thoroughly recommend a Larch roof (like Cedar, but produced in Europe), but I cannot thoroughly recommend a firm to do it.

This experience leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and has rather dampened my spirit concerning the project.

We seemed to have some kind of mental block with clearing the orchard/garden between the house & barns. Mostly because I expected M to do it, and also perhaps because I was waiting for us to have more sophisticated tools to hand. As it is, our domestic lawn mower and strimmer clearly weren’t up to the job… we’d discussed getting a more specialist bit of kit (after seeing Jerry’s ride on mower & inch long lawn), but it’s kind of low on the priority list. In the end, I was driven to cutting the meadow (that sprung up in the mean time) using the scythe. Driven by apples… which have been falling for the last month.

After day 1 I was completely knackered… and the garden looked like it had been pushed through a hedge backwards. I then did a bit of web based investigation and found this video of scythe technique – obviously not exactly what I’d spent hours doing the day before. So, we watched, and practised, and the grass now looks like it’s been pushed through a hedge backwards still. Luckily, we have ample opportunity to practice this skill.

Though my arms now feel like someone has dipped them in cement, I am sure this is healthy. On the plus side, the grass is now shorter and we can see the potential of the garden area. Also, I’m bound to have a tan (which is great seeing as we’re going back to whitey blighty tomorrow).

I also discovered a nest of sorts in a patch of nettles I was cutting down… 12 hen’s eggs courtesy of our neighbour’s chicken. I would like to invite her back, but now her hiding place is gone.  So, M has been making the most delicious eggy bread using potato bread (unlike anything I’ve come across in the UK, really lovely) and fresh free range eggs from our own farm.  It’s giving us ideas… I would love to have some chickens… perhaps legbars, and have also been investigating Alpaca. We have enough land to support a small group of Alpaca.  I need to work out how they would fare in the winter if there is heavy snow.

It has been lovely spending so much time outdoors… really not the same as working on the house inside with the windows open. I saw the most amazing caterpillar – really punk with 4 tufts and an extraordinary feathery fan:

Obviously, the above is not my own photograph, which turned out like this:

Also – ever seen an argiope bruennichi? Well here’s one (my own photo!)

Also known as a wasp spider, it’s huge (at least 1cm body) and it’s awesome. I’m beginning to develop an appreciation for insects after seeing these two examples. Here’s a better image of the spider:

though just thinking about it gives me the creeps!

Anyway, so I’ve cleared the fallen apples from the (at least) 7 trees in the enclosure. We need to prune them back quite substantially when we return. I’ve discovered that apples here are divided into summer, autumn and winter… with each having a different propensity for time of ripening, sweetness & hardness. I just need to work out what’s what. I only just caught the large white summer apples in time… they were delicious but turned floury and lost their crispness rapidly. Now the very small red apples are ripe – they don’t seem to keep for a long time either but don’t bruise as easily as the white ones. The pears are still a little crunchy, but sweet with it… and I quite like crunchy pears. I counted the number of pear trees lining the road between here and Tábor the other day – about 100 trees. I think my pears will be the next fruit in season so I’m keeping an eye on them. We have a good couple of tons of cooking apples here. We may end up with another strudel mountain – if I can figure out how to cook it.

At least now, I will be able to gather the apples as they fall ripe from the trees, instead of simply loosing them in shoulder height nettles.

Need to stop typing now because of my cement arms. But I think it’s been worth it.

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