Our beautiful stone barns are now mainly hidden by scaffolding and weather protection. With the recent hot spell it seemed ironic that we were weather proofing part of the project to protect the schedule. We were tempted to take a risk and forgo the tin roof and weather sheeting. However, knowing the unpredictability of West Country weather, the risk of massive delays and extra costs if the weather was to turn were too much to gamble, so the decision to forge ahead with the weather proofing wasn't really a choice. It's strange not being able to see the 'whole' any more, but we console ourselves that when we finally 'unwrap' our parcel, we should have a water tight and recognisable home!
The major steels went in this week which is another milestone and no easy task. It's not been possible to get a crane into the right position, so the good old tele-handler along with hoists and brute force of the guys on site, located the large steels in their positions. Not only does it make those freestanding walls feel more secure but now we can get a feel for the height and size of the mezzanine level in the long barn.
Lintels are being inserted in the newly created openings for doors and windows and we can now walk through the whole building as all the separate barns now connect. There are block walls going up to divide the internal space into rooms, and our skilled workmen are following the original stone laying patterns rebuilding when necessary.
So as Andrew and I (but mainly Andrew!) plod on cleaning roof tiles, lots of other more exciting things have happened since I last blogged. So, to retrace the last month or so:
The milking parlour progress I showed in my last post has changed a little. The south wall where concrete was chipped off started to splay a little as they'd been chopped about and replaced with rubble in the past. It was decided it was better to dismantle and rebuild from window sill level upwards to ensure they were safe and in the right position for the roof to sit on top - quite important really! The added benefit of this is that we can now standardise the size of the windows which will look much better and be slightly easier construction.
We finally said good bye to the largest hay barn and got a westerly view. It has been slowly dismantled over the past few weeks but at last the blacksmith came to dismantle the steel frame, which sadly he wasn't able to reuse for his wife's new stables - disappointing, but scrap metal is fetching a good price at the moment, so not all bad. The main thing is the barn is now down - tick one more box on that list of planning conditions!
We ticked a few ecology boxes too this month. At last, after 8 months, we finished the dormouse survey and guess what - not a dormouse to be found. Not sure how I feel about that!! Hmmmm... We have also had some rather large 'little owl' boxes placed in our two rather small oak trees. I don't actually think we have Little Owls, so unlikely they will take up residence in these large luxury coffin-like boxes. The stipulation that we put up these boxes for Little Owls was, like a lot of our conditions, decided by someone behind a desk with no site visit but just looking at a map. Little Owls favour woodland and there is I believe no evidence of them living in our rather open farm yard. We did see a barn owl once, but she wouldn't like these boxes as they are just not right for Barn Owls... Still, I'm sure the jackdaws will just love them! We do have ducks happily nesting on the pond which was a delight when we realised. They are rather shy and certainly not used to being fed by humans! The lambs are growing fast and their mums are now shorn - cool and happy in the shade of the dormouse free hedgerows. So all in all, all is well and nature of one sort or another is thriving at Old Dairy Barns.
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