Category: Summer 2012

More stove fettling

Another morning with no alarm, I could get used to this. I think that we shall be back to the normal wake up calls on Monday though. We still have a long list of things we want to get done.

Speedy breakfast and straight onto the computers again. Breezy took a booking and sorted out more enquiries for the winter chalet in Chamonix. I updated the blog and sorted a few things on Clive’s website.

Before we had finished Alison and Peter called in for coffee. It was the first time Alison had been up this year so the changes were quite impressive. Managed to get Peter to give me a hand to get the cast iron fire plate out of the van and onto the mucktruck. This is the fire plate we salvaged from Clive to go under the Godin Colonial stove. It has been outside his house for several years so needed a good clean up. After an hour or so with a hammer, screwdriver and a wire brush and Breezy had it ready to paint. The paint only just stretched and even then we had to thin it out but I think it will be perfect (as long as the floor holds the weight).

Made a sub frame and used floorboards to make a frame for the outside. All that is left is to get it in place and connect a chimney to it (which will have to wait until next year now).

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

More wood chopping

Saturday morning and no alarm. Wall to wall blue sky and not too windy so after a short internet session we gathered tools and started coppicing.

Worked all morning and then another hour after a late lunch. Now we are starting to see the impact as the area outside the entrance to the main barn is opening up. At first yesterdays fire was sluggish in relighting until Breezy tore up a cardboard box and fed the pieces into the ash.

The log store is starting to look healthy again too.

I had just started to reseal the stove in the outbuilding when Anouk and Rene came by for a cup of tea having mountain biked over Port D’Aula, into Spain and back via Port de Salau.

Finished the stove, showers and a tidy up before heading down into the village to pick up Rene & Anouk and head into St Girons for supper at Olivier’s (donkey man). Great food and company and a lot of French which is good for us.

Back at the barn at 1 o’clock in the morning. Good job we remembered a tourch.

Some random pictures from the last few days for you.

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Missing Piece

Another glorious day but the fire now goes on every morning to take the chill out of the place, no shortage of wood so not a worry about that.

A little bit of internet, Ski Breezy work always on the go…. before starting work with fitting the wood burner. We managed to get the framework for the steel plate made a bit ago but we still wanted to face it. So Al set too measuring and cutting whilst I got the scaff ready and created space for the wood burner. It is going to be a tight fit but should work!

The stove is so heavy and my back was not feeling great so Al made a quick trolley we could put the stove on and wheel it over to it’s new location. We got it all level and looks like it will fit in well in it’s new spot.

Sadly when we came to getting all the bits and pieces together looks like we have one wrong piece of tubing which does not fit so sadly no more progress till we exchange that. Al is planning a speedy trip to St G tomorrow morning and all being well will be back with the right piece and we can get it installed, we will see.

A lovely smoked salmon salad in the sun and a quick forage before afternoon work. Successful the birch bolettes seem to be appearing and so had a couple to make a starter with tonight and a good load of brambles for brekky. We like free food!

Then we attacked another couple of clumps for coppicing, all went quite speedily and looks good, but it just takes time. We are seriously thinking about some Help Ex folk next year for a couple of weeks coppicing so it is on the list to look into.

Al got rid of some weeds/berries at the back which seem to be taking over and the donkeys don’t seem to like and I attached the final outdoor shutter attachment which keeps the shutters held back rather than flapping around.

Quick showers as sadly the shower  bag has ripped and is making showering a dodgy experience, another attempt of glue tomorrow before we have to revert to bucket washes!!!

Al was chef tonight so we had a delicious starter wild mushrooms on a croute followed by roast chicken, marmite potatoes always a winner and roasted cabbage fresh from the garden which really worked well and was delicious.

An episode of Spooks and an early night.

 

 

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Accounts

An early start for a trip to St G. A quick brekky and then we met Henri on the way down, plus all the donkeys from the otherside of the piste are now on the piste so think we will be seeing Olivier later.

It was raining in St G and sunny up in the hills makes a change.

Very little to do a bit of DIY shopping, laundry and food shop then home.

A quick chat to Clive to arrange a RDV for website stuff.

Laundry on the line, food in the fridge and we heard it was rain later so we went for a quick forage before lunch. A load of brambles which we are really enjoying and at last a mushroom albeit just one a nice orange birch bolette!

Delicious prawns in the sun for lunch before we started the Ski Breezy accounts which have been looming for a while but need to hand them in when we are back in Chamonix in 2 weeks time. Sat up in the main barn for most of it until we needed the internet and moved down the hill to the log burner and the warmth! Would be good to get the other wood burner in upstairs so we can huddle around that on chillier days with more space….soon to be.

Olivier popped up to find his straying donkeys, and then the storm has just begun so it is inside for us, fire on and fish for supper.

 

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Coppicing

The sun hit us about 10:45 while we were still on the internet in our little cabin. I was still catching up on the blog while Breezy was sorting email enquiries for the winter at Ski Breezy. We had got up early and had a fried breakfast with a huge Parasol mushroom and eggs.

Top of the list of jobs for the day was coppicing. We had already decided that cutting the woods back about 10-15metres by the gable end of the barn would make a significant impact. Having said that we could start coppicing anywhere as there is so much and always will be so much to go at. So choosing the areas that are going to make the most difference to us is as good a criteria as any.

We did stop for lunch, Breezy had some fruit and yoghurt (normal breakfast) and I had some terrine and bread.

The afternoon started with me sealing one of the stoves while Breezy made a cheese board from the sink cut out when making the worktops for the kitchen.

Then back to coppicing. No pictures as it would be a little like spot the difference. “In the 2nd image the small trees are missing.” We do have a small mountain of ash though. That will get spread on the garden later once it has cooled down. Any wood that will make logs has been stashed in one metre lengths in the wood store to season and anything else is burnt. We work well as a team leaving everything neat and tidy as we go.

Duck salad for sups and shopping tomorrow!

 

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Finished Light fitting

Today we have finished the light fitting made from the walnut Ian gave us. We found out that Ian was given the walnut that was in a barn when he bought his new house at Seix in exchange for him doing some architectural drawings for the vendor. As there was a whole tree planked in the barn Ian gave us a piece.

In suspending the plank in position some more salvage came useful. This time some old cables and rigging from a yacht.

We finished the day with an hour of coppicing before a bucket wash (solar shower has a leak and is being mended) and an omelette salad supper.

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Ticks off the list

Saturday morning and only a few small wispy clouds in the sky. Quick breakfast of fruit and yoghurt then straight on to the web for the usual hour and a half of sorting Ski Breezy emails out and the website for the winter. It is definitely autumn now and the mornings are cold so we have started lighting the stove in the mornings as the sun does not reach our little cabin until gone half ten. Once the sun did hit us the mist slowly crept up the valley until it burnt off again.

I started by getting the strimmer out and clearing the slope immediately infront of the main barn which is gradually working it’s way towards the river. Each year the path around the front gets a little narrower as bits of wall tumble. Clive has offered to give us a quote to rebuild the wall next year if we can clear it so that he can see. Next I was on to mixing mortar in buckets and filling some of the larger cracks in the outside of the gable end wall. There were a few holes that were good placements for blocks of oak to screw vine eyes into for the Jasmine so they got fettled at the same time. Breezy set about hand sanding and varnishing the walnut we got from Ian and then moved on to painting the outside of all 3 windows with wood preserver. A couple of years ago someone in the village cleared out a garage or shed and threw out all part tins of paint and preserver which we are gradually working through as needs arrive.

Breezy also went through the dry stock of food working out what we have to use up before we leave and what will keep until next spring. Again time just seems to speed past.

After lunch we both weeded vegetable areas for an hour or so and cleared out a lot of alpine strawberries which seem to spread with abandon. Another bit of salvage from a couple of years ago was Raymond’s old front door; big, blue and very heavy. We have been working round it and shifting it about when in the way, and now we want it on the ground floor so it is another move. Slowly we managed to get it to the stair well and attach it to the chain hoist. I am so pleased we made space for the chain winch as it would be impossible to get it down between the 2 of us without it.

Before showering we armed ourselves with a bucket and trowel each and collected donkey muck and filled the Mucktruck. The Mucktruck of muck was then deposited on the last raised bed, to be dug in another day.

All in all that was a load of ticks off the list which is rapidly diminishing in size.

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

A very productive day

Iain got a cup of tea in bed after a sound nights sleep (or so he said). The usual fruit and yoghurt breakfast with tea and coffee before Breezy took him back to the village to collect his car and make his way over to Provence. I stayed at the barn and cleared up.

Breezy got back having done the rubbish, recycling and filled the water containers from the fountain. Then boot up the computers for a web session before tackling any other jobs.

I am now starting to feel a sense of urgency to get through the list of things that we want to get done. We have 3 weeks left and still not done any coppicing at all.

First off, an hour of sawing and chopping firewood. Next cleaning up and painting the fire plate that Lee kindly gave us plus making a wooden frame to hold it. Not got enough good wood to finish the frame so that is as far as we can go with it before the next shop down the valley. Then breezy got the power tools out to plane and sand the Walnut plank that Ian gave us to make a lighting feature out of. I got on with a few little jobs in the meantime. The walnut looks fantastic now that Breezy has put a coat of varnish on it.

Once cleared away we filled the Mucktruck with donkey shit and dumped it on the last raised bed. Still needs digging in but should provide a few nutrients for next year.

Forage for brambles, a shower and we have duck salad for supper. Also got to make a pork curry for tomorrow before the meat goes out of date.

All in all a very productive day.

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Another miserable day in the Salat valley

It is such a shame the weather has not been so good for Iain’s visit. Today we collected Iain from the Auberge a little later after a quick check on emails and responding to some enquiries for Ski Breezy. We also made up a bed in the main barn as Iain is staying up with us for his last night. Headed up towards the Cirque de Cagateille to see a different area. It has suck a different feel to it than the Salat valley with open fields and far more agriculture. Stopped for a coffee at Gite L’Escolan before heading on up to Guzet Neige. As we got there a gap appeared in the clouds which gave us a view, although limited it was nice to see further than 200m. Iain and I sat in the front of the van and were fed pate and cheese on bread by Breezy in the back. After lunch we headed back to Salau and on up to the barn where the weather had improved enough to sit on the terrace and have a mug of tea.

A drink of fizz and a few hands of cards before lamb and salad for supper. Went to bed with a clear starry sky.

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project

Long French Lunch

Sadly the forecast was right and we woke to low cloud and mizzle. Al and I cracked on with a bit of internet before picking Dad up. Change of plan due to weather. We decided on doing some collecting of things with a long French lunch in the middle. So we popped down to Lee’s to collect the fire plate for one of the wood burners. Lee was not in but we passed him on the way back for a quick hello. He heads back to the UK for a bit tomorrow.

Ian had recommended a new restaurant for us to try in Oust which we decided we would give a whirl. What a fun place. Le Garbet is just in Oust and full of locals. A set menu for 13€ was great fun and even better value. The starters just arrived a lovely terrine with beetroot and melon on the side which actually worked quite well.

Then we had lamb and steaks which were excellent, some local cheeses and ice creams, coffee and local plonk all was good!!!! Dad treated us which was very kind too.

We then swung by Ian’s on the way back to see his progress and also to see if he had any walnut we could use for a light fitting. He very kindly gave us a lovely plank which we think will make a cracking feature upstairs in the barn.

Back up the valley and dropped Dad at the auberge for a shower and read while we got back prepped some food, did some internet and caught up a bit before collecting Dad for the evening entertainment.

We played chequers and had nibbles upstairs and then Al cooked some marinaded chicken and BBQed courgettes on the BBQ and some cards to end the night. Not quite the same as sitting outside but upstairs worked quite well and was warm too.

Categories: Summer 2012, The Project