Erm…. yesterday morning I didn’t get my lie in because it was super windy and the charge controller for the wind turbine caught fire 🙁 It is supposed to have a brake which obviously didn’t kick in so I have emailed the supplier to see if they will replace it but their customer service feedback reports are pretty poor (they are by far the cheapest place to get wind turbines so worth the gamble) – if we have no luck we will replace from somewhere else. We had the spare one from the previously damaged wind turbine which is inferior but works so Ady put that in but it stayed too windy all day to hook the turbine back up to test it so Ady spent the whole day fretting that the turbine might not work anymore. It does – we tested it today.
I did some baking – another weeks supply of Nic-ola (granola), some snickerdoodles and an apple pie.
We’d arranged to collect some paint from Ranger Mike so went to the village with the wagon to do that. Lots of ends of pots, many with just a dribble of paint, which we have brought back to the croft and I will rummage through in nicer weather to see if there is enough to repaint the horse box with, gypsy stylee like the honesty larder fridge. While we were down there I took my laptop to the IRCT office and Steve came to see if he could get it to talk to the printer. We spent over an hour trying but admitted defeat. In the end I emailed the newsletter to everyone for this month. I hate printers.
Davies and Scarlett stayed home and had showers / hair washes. Really noticing the changes in their hair and skin just now as they hit puberty. Not little children any more…
On the way home we bumped into Vikki who was heading up to visit us bearing banana and chocolate muffins to share so she came in to drink tea and eat cake which was lovely. Vikki left, Ady sorted dinner, I emailed newsletters, Davies finished a poster for his postcards, Scarlett got out her candle making supplies and we all had dinner and watched Friends.
Today Ady and I took our veg order down to the village and collected some bits from the freezer. Back home for lunch and then we went back out to do some firewood. The chainsaw is proving incredibly useful and in less than an hour we had filled our wagon and wheelbarrow with full loads – enough to keep us going for at least 4 days. It took almost as long to get it up the hill and stack it all up as it did to chop it up! The next plan is to start chopping, splitting and stacking for next winter, just wish I knew where the right location to site a wood store will be…ah for a crystal ball!
We emailed Gav to tack on our mortar order to a Travis Perkins order he is doing – next step for us on the chicken house is to fill in the trench with small stones. Maybe we’ll start that tomorrow, weather permitting. The fruit cage is looking great with buds on all the fruit trees and loads of the fruit bushes, it is definitely chicken proof 🙂 All four trays of peas have sprouted in the polytunnel and the salad leaves are all sprouting too. Spring is coming!