Heating and cooking thoughts

Only problem with our land is there are no trees and so we have to buy in wood, and oil for the boiler. Oil's going to get very scarce very soon, and everyone will be turning to wood heating as a substitute, thereby bumping the price of wood up.

It would be good to go into partnership with someone who has enough wood to spare but is no good at the gardening. We could provide the food all year (meat, fruit, veg, diary) and they could provide the wood. We'd need about 10 cords per year, which would cost E160 per cord, or E1600. E1600's worth of food equals about E31 per week - about what it would cost to get a bag of veg, a bit of cheese or eggs and a chicken from a market. Each week I could drop off the food and collect 10 cords of wood each winter. It would mean having a bit more of the field taken up with veg beds, but time-wise it wouldn't be too different as I'd be out there anyway.

Also, there's the hangar. The roof faces south-west and gets the sun full on it from midday. All corrugated iron, getting hot. Must be 200m2 in all, which is a big old solar collector. Paint it black, lay pipes in the channels of the sheeting, cover with corrugated clear sheeting and connect to a thermosyphon system with a big accumulator tank? Wouldn't be the world's most efficient system but who cares if you get at least some warm water from it and save on the electric bill?

Then there's biogas. Anaerobic bacteria kept warm enough will break starch down into methane and carbon dioxide, which happens in stagnant ponds, and cows' backsides. If you fill a vessel with slurry and put a lid on it to keep the air out, it ferments and gives the gas off. How long it takes depends on the temperature - 55C is thought to be the best. There is an interesting document at www.bioenergylists.org/compactbiogas about a system used in India that cooks a meal for 5 people each day from 2 kgs of flour. India tends to be warmer than here, but you could use some of the gas produced to keep a pilot light going under the vessel, and insulate it well. If chicken manure mixed to a slurry with vegetable waste could do the same thing, or Farmer Phil's slurry tank could be utilised, you could get a source of heat for nowt.

Why manual labouring types eat a lot of fried food.

Last week I weighed myself and was 12 stone 10 ounces. I was just under 15 stone before I left the UK, so I was worried that I might have been ill. Turns out I'm just not eating enough pies.

When I was working in the UK, I'd cycle to work 3 times a week (about 4.5 hours total), and I'd have:
Breakfast before I left
Toast when I got to work
Biscuits with every cup of tea I drank, of which there were many
My lunch at 10am
Another lunch at 12pm
Cake at 2pm
Maybe a pasty
Dinner and two pints when I got home, plus a samosa if I was passing the corner shop

In France -sorry, Brittany- I have breakfast, then chop and saw wood for an hour or two, then carry it inside, then lift heavy lumps of turf, then have a lunch of bread, soup, coleslaw, etc, then back to the digging, then dinner (bean stew or something).

Not ill at all, just not eating enough! Dreams come true after all - I can stuff my face with suet puddings, pies, fatty meat and drink as much ale as I can, confident that it's just what my body needs. Hurrah!

Gale force winds today, so spent it outside finishing the pond in the howling wind and rain. Belters.

Work in progress

It's been a busy week. Well, all weeks are busy but this time there's more to show for it than just another block of lifted turf, a sore back and hands like old leather gloves:

A 12x4m polytunnel (work in progress, obviously) at the top of the veg plot for tomatoes, chillies, peppers, aubergines, herbs and melons.

Two tonnes of topsoil from the pond to sift and dump on the veg beds.

Pond liner, which is now half full and will be tidied up tomorrow now that the fosse bods have ok'ed everything - we have our garden back at last! Whoop, holler, etc.

Just got to make 2 chicken and 3 rabbit arks, 2 top-bar beehives, 1 cat-flap, 1 herb garden, plant 6 trees, plant soft fruit, plant hedges, make gates, dog-proof perimeter, renovate 5 old apple trees, cut 1 hedge, make lid for 1 compost bin, make 1 goose shelter, insulate rest of house, repair gite beams, rebuild gite wall, rewire and plumb gite, make new kitchens for gite and house, make new bathroom for house, make a proper larder in house, sort out damp chimney stack, redecorate house and gite...

...and then relax. Oh, almost forgot - make 1 pergola and 1 tandoori oven in the wee side garden bit by the kitchen for cooking wors teas in summer. Can't wait for that bit.

More pictures of the Somme.

The required de-greaser (concrete bunker on the left) for the gite.

It's about the size of a pile of tractor tyres...

Might need a lawn roller at some point...

Pond looking towards the veg plot. Imagination required!

New pond

The trenches are for the rainwater from the houses, and the overflow (trench on right) leads down to the field (below to the left of the charming black plastic) and will pass under the rhubarb patch. Pond is about 8ft across and 5ft deep in the middle. Give it a couple of years...