Restful Sunday plus Humanure

Today I managed to have a lie in, all the way until just after 7am even though barking dog next door was at it from early; I am starting to get used to his incessant yapping now.

Sassy escaping the confines of her cage

The first thing I did was go and make a brew as I was gasping for a drink and then I went and let Sassy out of her cage so she can run around for as long as possible. She didn't waste any time at all hopping out of the opened door and legging it around for a bit. I have kept checking on her and she has definitely established her favourite places to be; under the windows which form a tunnel to one side, and in the boiler box. A couple of times I have also seen her sat in the cage asleep so she hasn't totally rejected that. I'm hoping her toilet training is still holding strong however it doesn't seem that she is using the toilet tray like I want her to.

Over cast skies this morning

The day today dawned without clear skies and with quite an overcast, for the first time since France/Belgium on the trip over. I snapped a picture from the window in Sassy's room and then went out to hang the washing out; this washing machine seems to be doing a really good job with it running on a delay and saving my electric. There has been a slight breeze today and the sun has come out more or less through the day so hopefully it'll all get dried before I need to pull it in tonight. There is no great rush however.

Cheese and ham omelette

Having done that little chore I sat around for a bit wasting time and enjoying relaxing and then decided breakfast was in order. Very quickly I knocked up a cheese and ham omelette and ate it on two slices of bread. It was lovely and particularly good washed down with a second cup of tea.

Timer for the boiler

I had looked at the timer socket last night to try and work out how to set it but gave up because it has to hang upside down at the moment however today I found it does come with a battery so I unplugged it and set the time, and then programmed it to come on twice a day between 4 and 6am. I have almost no hot water in the boiler at the moment but it was enough to do a little washing up and clean the place a bit post breakfast. I think a shower every morning is definitely in order though.

That's the way to light it

After this I gathered all my rubbish for burning and took it outside to the fire drum. A couple of wasted matches trying to set fire to some paper that was already in there and I just held a match to the bin bag and without any more effort the whole thing was burning merrily very quickly.

Flames leaping

More fire sculpture

And again. What do you see?

I took a few pictures of the flames at the request of a friend so that is why THOSE pics are there :) To be honest I could stare at the shape in the flames for hours at a time and I did actually stand there for a bit doing just that before tearing myself away and on to other stuff.

My pear tree has leaves on it; they weren't there last week

The other day as I was taking the men back I saw my first stork and, as you'll know because you have done your research, this means that spring has officially sprung and I needed to make use of my Martenitsa in its next role; that of decorating a particularly favourite tree, or burying it under a rock to bring prosperity to the year.

Martenitsa in place

I took my necklace off to get the Martenitsa free (and then, more surprisingly, managed to get the necklace back on!) and tied it carefully around a budding branch on my favourite pear tree, a really old thing which I am worried will be badly effected by the drainage ditch I will have to dig near it, and one I really want to try and keep safe and alive.

External Humanure Collection Point

Having done this I pottered around for a bit, checking the fire and admiring the flowers which are blooming on my land and looking for a place to site my Humanure Collection Point. Now I know exactly where I want the long term one to be however this is in a location (near the back door) where a large amount of excavations need to take place for drainage purposes and so I don't really want to have to move my pile to do that. I circled the entire land looking and talking to myself about the merits of each location and finally set upon a relatively sheltered spot just near the long green building. It is close enough to both from and back door that I can transport my buckets easily, and it was already kind of concave.

Pole hole

At the two outer corners I dug a shallow hole with the pickaxe and wedged a broken broom handle into one and a chunkier piece of wood into the other, to provide the first upright supports for the retaining walls. I then filled the holes in and stamped them down hard; they aren't all that sturdy but they should do for my purposes.

Hammering the sides together

Next I went into the attic and pulled a load of old pieces of roofing timber down, all flat and about the same length, to act as the boards on the sides. These I nailed to another upright only at one end to hold them together. I used a bit of stone under the board I was nailing to provide me with a firm surface so the boards didn't rebound too much and this worked really well; I'm learning a bit already from the attitude of the workers here of just making do with what is at hand.

Two retaining walls

I did find the hammering hard work as my arms are weak and unused to such work so I took several rests including one rather long one when my right arm almost completely stopped working but, eventually, I had both walls completed and wedged into place. I don't have a picture of the stones which I used to line inside and out at the bottom of the walls, to provide a little more stability.

Underbed of hay

This complete I hauled five barrow loads of hay from what will be the kitchen (as I consider that the mess left in there is mine to deal with as I see fit) and put down the bottom layer of hay which will act as a biological cushion and soak up water and other liquids (ahem) while the composting is occurring.

Material deposited

I then brought the full bucket (though the one currently in use is also quite close to full) and the kitchen waste bucket and emptied them both into a depression that I made in the hay. Both of them emptied really easily and this bucket is the one from the trip over so that was a nice feeling to start off with. A quick swill with water, empty this onto the pile as well, and then cover the lot with more hay and the process was nearly complete.

And the final arrangement

Finally I pulled some of the branches my mum had cut the other day and arranged them over the top of the whole thing, weighting them down a bit with some more wood. Hopefully this will be enough to discourage any animals from disturbing it.

I have followed (kind of) the instructions on the Humanure Handbook and would highly recommend you read it, if you want to understand more about what I am trying to do with this experiment. A lot of people are confused and a bit scared by it, and definitely put off by the thought of rotting poo, but my research does suggest this is the best and most environmentally correct way of dealing with our output, and that it should not become horrible at all, if done correctly.

I have written up to here in the afternoon and am now out to do some food shopping and then bring the parents back here; I may even get to do some planting later which I am really excited about however I have managed to put off doing my accounts today which I'm not surprised about however I really should do it.

So I went shopping, bought beer and pork chops and tatties (a bit soft but yeah) and some salad for dinner, and then went to the electrical store and bought a printer because I really want to print the pictures for my neighbours. It didn't take me long and I was a bit early to collect the parents but that is cool; we just came back here and chilled.

I got the printer set up and then bounced off the printing onto photopaper quite substantially; no matter what I do I either get a printer jam, or print on the wrong side and smearing everywhere. Very frustrating and I'll look at it again another time and if I can't get it working, I'll take it back. Oh well "Ne Raboti" will have to work for me.

After giving up on that I decided to do a bit of a glass pick and got half a white bucket of pieces before the wind came up and it got too cold to really be out there not moving as much. We all moved inside to Room 13 and I started preparing dinner while they were reading and relaxing. The front door was banging in the wind so I went and put a couple of rings on the inside and held it shut with the padlock; another reason to get windows and doors sorted asap.

For some reason I went to check on Sassy and she had managed to get out of her room and into the end room; I do not know how she managed this as the door was locked shut but anyway; I grabbed her and put her into her cage where she will stay now until I work out how to stop her escaping again.

I got the petchka to light

Dinner was served and came out very nice indeed; I'm quite proud of myself really. It was still a bit chilly and so I finally have lit my petchka which took a firelighter but is currently happily roaring away in the corner and heating us up a bit, and sending most of its heat out through the chimney; typical. I am pleased I got it working though.

So, I'm going to sign this off now as I'll be taking the parents home soon and then may watch a film, may just hit the sack and read listening to the wind. It has been a really good restful day though. More caching tomorrow I think, weather permitting.