Argh, struggling to keep abreast of all the things I want to write online each day before laptop battery dies 🙁
Today we have barely seen the kids – Oaken has finished school so the four older ones were off for the whole morning playing down by the river – Davies definitely much happier with Oaken around aswell as Pip, they seem very balanced as a foursome, Oaken is just a few months younger than Davies although he towers above him.
Ady and I had a first task of getting chicken feed out of the car and taking it to the chicken house and feeding them. This involved wheelbarrows up and down hills so slightly more complicated than it sounds. I was issued with a red pencil to mark some eggs as when I was talking to Beth about chicken keeping and breeding she said one of the problems was knowing which eggs the broody hen had been sat on when she nicks all the other ones laid each day too, so I suggested marking the eggs (we don’t usually have to do that but have done in the past when that has been an issue). Scarlett came too and passed out the eggs to mark. Cool to think there will be chicks running around 3 weeks from now thanks to our help :).
Next we were told about some green building. There is a house almost built here and the tiny dwelling every one currently lives in which needed some maintenance / finishing off. It is timber frame with straw bale infill, covered with clay render, cob render and lime render. There are some areas which need straw pushing in to fill gaps and then the layers of render putting on. Our first job was to dig out some clay, which is simply the soil from here that was previously dug out to put the foundations in. That was mixed in an old bath having been saturated with water, 2 parts sharp sand to 1 part clay to create the clay render which will be a very thin layer over the straw. We did some of that, mixing it up in the bathtub by trampling on it, moving it about with a shovel and generally digging it with hands. Other jobs included spraying the current surfaces ready to take the render, which meant climbing up on a ladder against the side of the house with a 12l water tank on your back and spraying from it. Quite scary as the house is two storeys and the ladder is on a veranda which is about 12 foot off the ground anyway so the top of the ladder is a good 30 foot off the actual ground, with a very heavy load on your back! We learnt loads though and it didn’t actually feel dangerous. We were working with Beth (who is our favourite!) and Beth’s Dad who had come along for the day and is very nice, a retired vet, very posh and supportive, if slightly befuddled at how his daughter and grandsons live!
We had a late lunch, all very communal as we were all darting in and out checking on the bread baking in the oven and passing things out over the ladders tied to the veranda to each other and the children must have sensed it as they appeared just as we sat down to join us. Jo came back too, having had to go and open the hall for a home ed session that Pip had flatly refused to attend due to Davies and Scarlett being here but Jo had the keys for so had to go on her own anyway!
There wasn’t much afternoon left to work really so we did a little more of the same and that was our working day done :). The kids had been invited to go swimming with the kids here as Pip, Hollin and LLeu had swimming lessons but Oaken and D & S wanted to watch a film that Pip wasn’t allowed to see so that was the perfect opportunity and they ended up doing that instead. Ady and I chatted, read and had a walk and enjoyed being briefly childless :).
We cooked dinner and ate before the kids came back, so they had a later dinner than us while I caught up with Julie on the phone, then we had wash time and stories. This morning I had my first outdoor hair wash using heated rainwater and a tub and I am very much enjoying the feeling of clean hair :).
My (one remaining) wisdom tooth is moving about and rather sore so I am hoping it is merely a bit more errupting that kept clean will be fine as I am worried about needing to find a dentist on the road. I’m also feeling quite disproportionately tired which Ady is attributing to lack of meat!