Less than the minimum wage......

We have just had a great visit from Lisette (Bee's sis), Rich and Charlie. We managed to almost finish the 3rd bedroom before they arrived (just flooring and one wall to wallpaper) and 3 bedrooms and a kitchen appears to be enough living space to survive in: although to be fair the kids spent most of their time in the garden herding cats, chickens and the dog. They all had a ride on the tractor which appears to be the highlight of a stay here - we have realised we will have to incorporate a "test drive" field in our land-allocation plan  - no offence guys!!!

We enjoyed lots of time outside in the very warm autumn we are enjoying and trips to a kids tree climbing centre which was a big hit.

But we have to dedicate this post to Rich who should have realised sooner his "holiday" wouldn't be one for sitting on his derriere doing nothing......Al and the plumber Klaus had been flummoxed by the boiler not working properly but Rich came to the rescue with his multimeter in hand.  He spotted a wiring problem, fixed it and we were able to get our wood-burning system fired up to provide us with heating and hot water when a couple of overcast days had left us with no solar-heated hot water (we were getting a bit whiffy!). He also wired up a new electrical system to the "hole" and the barn so we could do away with the scary treble-adaptor contraption that had been fizzing away and we can now run the sawmill off a new plug without frying the system.

Rich is a highly skilled electrical engineer but even the best can succomb to the odd error - see if you can spot what is wrong in this photo;

Not sure what was more funny - that the chair had become an integral part of the electrical system or that he had needed a chair to reach it  - he is very tall!  So the central heating system and hot water supply are now sorted. Hooray! Of course the outside temperature has now risen again to 20 degrees.......

It is amazing the amount of work you can extract from visitors in return for 5 minutes on a tractor - easy on the accelerator next time please;

We have made the 3rd bedroom habitable last week - we were sweeping rubble out of the door the day our visitors arrived but at least the creepy crawlies are now contained in the attic and we are airtight and watertight (5 panes of glass needed replacing). The walls took 3 coats of lime plaster to cover their imperfections and the ceiling 2 coats but now it looks like a stick of dynamite has gone off in a tin of white paint and the room is much lighter and seems much bigger already. We insecticided the 2 main beams and joists for beasties so hopefully what we have left will survive the capricorns and woodworm for the next decade. Al also boxed-in all the central heating pipework in the bedroom - on 3 out of 4 walls - and has now launched a new and exciting competition for the 1st person to find a straight or perpendicular wall in the house....having said that we are going with it - if we put in a straight wall or skirting it would look positively out of place!  Here is the work in progress;

We have also broadened the gene pool in the chicken run - we acquired a hen and 5 chicks in exchange for some plonk and preserves. The hen is now laying and the 5 chicks have taken up the newly-recognised Olympic sport of mincing around the perimeter of the run winding up the dog. One of the chicks has really hairy feet  - that is just plain weird we reckon.

While we're on the subject of trading we bagged some new flora for the veg patch this week. We raided our neighbour's garden for strawberry shoots for next summer and traded aubergine tapenade for some raspberry canes, goji plants and Jerusalem artichokes. A passing comment the other day made us think twice about buying fruit trees and plants from garden centres - it was a top tip that suggested rooting through garden centre skips at this time of year as they tend to bin what they don't sell. Genius. Top marks for saving money but zero marks for dignity! We haven't plucked up the courage yet to rummage through any skips but watch this space.....

Last weekend we went on a mission to get roof tiles and insulation for the extension onto the main house.  The current tiles are nasty looking mechanical ones which don't really go with the lovely hand made canal tiles on the main house.  We hauled home 297 new under-tiles (best to use modern under tiles with built in hooks and older tiles for the more visible covering part of the canal), all the roof insulation we need and a roll of waterproof membrane. No scrounge would be complete for us without acquiring a few preserving jars and kids toys at the same time! The tiles are neatly stacked outside the chicken coop awaiting the week we find free to replace the roof but we hope to do it during a dry patch this autumn so that we can carry on work inside during those wet and cold winter months ahead.

Finally this week we cut up all the wood that the previous owner had accumulated.  Thankfully the boiler takes 50cm logs which means a lot less cutting sawing and without having to cut a tree down we think we have one winters burning stacked outside the barn.  We plan to fell more trees in the next few weeks to start our ever rolling stockpile of firewood.