New Donkeys
The Four Old Ladies have gone to the Donkey Sanctuary and have been replaced by Three Boisterous Boys. They are named Tristan, Stanley and George after places in the South Atlantic; namely Tristan da Cunha Island, Stanley the capital of the Falkland Islands and Georgetown the capital of Ascension Island.
Replacing Marvin Windows
We have replaced the Marvin Windows which were Aluminum Clad, Wooden Framed, Double Glazed Windows with triple Glazed Plastic in the North and East Sides and Double Glazed Plastic in the South and West sides.
They look like Oak on the inside, and really do! They are a nice deep red colour on the outside.
Interestingly the house was at least one degree higher in temperature following this, so this has proved to be more efficient at reducing heat loss.
Rotting Window Frames
Over the 9 years we have had Marvin Windows in the house, they have been busy rotting in the wet Irish climate to a point where they all need replacing.
Marvin have already pulled out of Ireland, but were willing to reimburse nearly the full price we originally paid for them. Here you can see how bad things were in the Lounge which faces west when we came to replace them.
Three Sheds
We now have the Donkey Shed at the back on the left, the S]heep Shed at the front on the left and the Trailer/Boat Shed on the right with a load of '3/4 down' stone, always essential to have around!
We have built a large shed to house the trailers, the boat and hay. It is 7 metres square.
Here we have a Wwoofer Sean from Australia putting the roof on, so the job is nearly finished.
It will be good for the trailers and boat to get them out of the weather.
When we get a good bit of rain, the waterfall is great, but we can get flooding as seen in the next post
This storm nearly floated the boat away! The Wwoofer House is flooded, and the shed behind the Garage, fortunately the garage was JUST above the flood and so was the Toy Shed.
What a relief! The water soon goes down as does the flow over the waterfall.
For the safety of our Ducks and Chickens we have bought a long run for them which can be covered with netting and contain their houses for a double barrier against the foxes at night.
We have built it up on some old sleepers, The Wwoofers are busy removing the old runs from the front of the houses prior to putting the wire netting across the frame.
Happy Ducks and Chickens!
We have a 5kWh array of 18 Photo Voltaic Solar Panels to generate electricity, feeding the excess back to the Grid.
For more detail on this project go here.
The Wwoofer House is now a Hay Store for the time being. Our own hay from the Orchard to feed to the Donkeys, and small animals.
