Auchenstroan Wool

In the summer of 2013 when we moved to Somerset, Nicole was talking about getting a bow top gypsy caravan.  At first, I was planning to build one (no idea how, would have figured it out somehow) but, as chance would have it, I passed one that was for sale at the side of the road.

A quick phone call to Nicole first, then we agreed to buy it.  As we were getting married soon after, some of our kind relatives chipped in to make it into a wedding present.

In the spring of 2017, we moved to Scotland.  The caravan was already showing some signs of wear and tear and I had effected some temporary repairs to some of the paintwork.  Anyway, we had it transported to Scotland (a nightmare is it happened as the first courier, found via Shiply, simply took the caravan and disappeared – Shiply couldn’t have cared less – we had to track it down ourselves and ask a friend in Somerset to go and “nick” it back).  Anyway, I digress, the caravan finally reached Scotland in the summer of 2017.

I don’t know if you remember, but that was quite a wet summer.  Followed buy a wet autumn.  Followed by a harsh winter of rain, sleet and snow.  The caravan was struggling in the elements.  The paint was peeling off in a number of places and the canvas was ripped along the side.  It was also getting a bit damp and mouldy inside.

I had been looking for a large shed in which to put it and work on it, but that was proving tricky.  Then, without warning, we had a heatwave.

We took advantage and got to work.  All the woodwork was sanded back – that took a while, even with power sanders.

Then a coat of exterior primer was added followed by some bright red Dulux weathershield.  As you may have noticed, we also decided on a new colour scheme.

As the painting progressed, Nicole got inside and sorted out the interior.  There were some marks, damage in transit, plus the afore-mentioned mould. All of that was cleaned away leaving it looking sparkly clean.  Nicole has grand plans for the soft furnishings.

Fortunately, the weather held out and excellent progress was made.

All in all, it took 5 or six weeks to get all the painting done.  Weathershield takes quite a long time to dry, even in the sun, so that delayed things a bit.

The undercarriage was also a bit fiddly, a mix of wood and metal.  Fortunately, I managed to get yellow paints for metal and wood that looked pretty similar.

But, finally, all the base paintwork was done and some of the decoration added.

Nicole had sourced some stencils so we could add interesting artwork to the panels, but before we could get that done, the hot summer ended.  So we have put that back till next year.

We also have had new shafts made (as you may have noticed they are missing from the pictures).  The original shafts were broken in transit, mainly because rain had got through the paint and softened the wood underneath.  The new shafts are in the shed awaiting painting.

Finally, I added an electricity supply so we now have a heater in it through the winter.  That should help keep it dry and mould free.  Having read “The Stopping Places” by Damian Le Bas, we were inspired to build a base so as to help keep it dry underneath.  We also bought a made to measure winter cover for it, but a succession of early winter storms soon shredded that and it is awaiting repair.

 

We have a lot of dry stone dykes here which we really like.  They are basically stone walls made without mortar, just careful positioning and gravity holding them together.

However, there are a few bits of wall that need repair.  Last year, I did a course which gave me a basic grounding in how to build stone dykes.  One freezing and snowy day last winter, Nicole and I put this into practice by putting a gate inbetween two fields.  The course hadn’t covered how to do the ends of the walls, but we just copied what we saw elsewhere – basically use big stones.

Nicole has been working hard transforming the gardens around the house.  The flower bed to the left is close to the front door and can be seen from the kitchen window.  Nicole has reshaped it and cleared the mass of weeds including ground elder.  The plan is to plant roses (which are on order and will be arriving soon).

Now, many of the dykes around the house are covered in a mix of brambles and honeysuckle.  We are not sure if this is by design or simple invasion, but to us, it is a shame to hide these beautiful walls.  So, in a burst of energy over the weekend, Nicole cleared the above pictured wall.  Only, underneath, the wall had collapsed and had, so it would seem, been clumsily repaired.  It was, basically, a mess.

With the roses coming, it was time to act. Thankfully, we were enjoying a spell of bright, if cold, weather.  Perfect conditions for stone dyking.

This wall was tricky, as it turned out, as all the stones were quite large.  This meant the normal process of building two walls sloping towards each other was out of the question.  So, time for plan B – big stones on the bottom, smaller ones on top.

First, I pulled down all the bits of wall that were leaning and levelled off the base.

That done, I started on the end.  I poached a couple of large stones from other parts of the garden.  I then had to go and recruit a neighbour to help me lift the big stone onto the end (the one you can see pictured left).

That done, it was a case of building up the rest of the dyke.  I think, in reality, more time is spent pondering which stones to put where than actually lifting and placing them them.  I suppose that could be one reason why we do jigsaws as kids – preparation for building dry stone dykes!

I should really have stopped and rested, but completion seemed so close so I kept going.  My back has still not forgiven me!  Nevertheless, I got it finished and we are both very happy with the result.

Now all it needs is the roses and it will look amazing.

But for me, it’s on to the next repair job, the wall that blew down in the storm……

We have spent a lot of the summer dealing with brambles.  Our hen run was overgrown with them in places and large areas near the house are, well, just overgrown with the prickly monsters.

We decided to act.

We started on the stone dyke bordering the hen run.  It was completely covered in a mix of honeysuckle and brambles.  It took weeks to clear that.  Then the area behind the lambing shed was also bramble heaven.  Lambs can get caught up in brambles and get trapped.  So Nicole spent days digging them out.

And the other side of the hen run stone dyke was also overrun.  Nicole heroically cleared this area.

But still they come; and come; and come.  It can be hard to get the roots out, so you have to go back and keep cutting them back.  We turned our backs for a seconds and they were invading the lambing shed!

I reckon we’ll be clearing brambles for years to come!

We live in a beautiful part of the world (windfarms notwithstanding – don’t get me started), but in the year and a half we have lived here, we have yet to explore any of it.  So, as part of our scaling back, we promised ourselves that we’d make the effort to get out more.

Our first trip was to nearby Clatteringshaws.  Clatteringshaws has a dam (hydro electric, a loch, walks and a visitor centre.  It’s home to one of two Bruce’s stones sited in Galloway. I found a walk there listed on www.walkhighlands.co.uk and printed out instructions.  The dogs were ecstatic – new smells and new places to explore.  We walked up the hill  Benniguinea) through the forest following the instructions.  Of course, we missed our turn and walked all the way to the top!  But it was worth it for the views.

We found the turn off on the way back down and it was a lovely wee path through a mix of broad-leaf and pine forest.  Of course, Haribo found the smelliest fox scat in the area and proceeded to roll in it.  He managed to get it right under the collar and all over his neck.  Cue impromptu bath in a nearby ditch.  Boy, I cannot begin to describe how smelly that was!

Talking of Haribo, he really has chilled out lately.  He came to us with many problems but, aside from a bit of fear aggression, he’s a happy dog now.

Anyway, we had brought a picnic and came down to the loch and found a nice wee beach just down from the visitor centre.  We thoroughly enjoyed our tea and sandwiches.  A day out is definitely a great tonic.  We have, since, also located excellent walks down on the coast between Kippford and Rockcliffe.  These are helped hugely by the excellent we cafe in Rockcliffe.

Blogs are a blessing but also a bind sometimes.  The need to add updates sort of nags away at the back of one’s mind.  That said, I haven’t paid much attention to that inner voice having not posted anything all summer.  How did that happen – well, one day at a time!

Anyway, here’s a bit of an update.  I’ll add some more detailed stories shortly.

As you can imagine, the summer months were as busy as ever.  Looking after cows, sheep, dogs and hens as well as each other takes a fair amount of time.  Then there’s maintaining 27 acres of mixed woodland, keeping the house sorted, the gardens, the veggie patch – the list of jobs never seems to get any smaller!

So, what have we been up to.  Well, the hot summer months early on provided an excellent opportunity to refurbish the gypsy caravan.  It had suffered somewhat from last year’s long wet summer and then the harsh winter.  Paint was flaking off, the canvas was tearing – it needed attention. Desperately.

So, between us, we got to work.  I mainly did the outside.  Nicole sorted out the inside.  And over a period of weeks, we transformed it.  We still have some artwork to add, but the weather closed in so we’ll do that next spring.  I’ll add a more detailed account of this in another post.

Last year, one of our hens produced 13 chickens.  Four of these are females and this year all four of them took it upon themselves to go broody.  Between them, they managed a grand total of one chick.  Pipette, as we called her, has now grown up into a lovely hen.  We are looking forward to her starting laying soon.

The others, well one sat on two eggs all summer before giving up.  Another sat on a golf ball and the fourth lay her eggs under a bush and then abandoned them.  We’re not quite sure what happened, but our cockerel was getting on a bit and he was also their father.  Inbreeding can be quite a problem.  As chance would have it, one of our neighbours had a lonely cockerel (his entourage of hens having been killed by his ex’s new dog), so we took him on as a replacement.

Given we were being run ragged, we had a discussion in the summer and decided to scale back.  As a result, we have sold our cows to a lovely farm just west of Kilmarnock.  The new owners make amazing chocolate, so we’ll be keeping in touch with them.  We also sold our tups (we’re having some time off lambing and also, they are related to too many of our ewes).  They went to a lovely smallholding just outside Peebles.

Talking of lambing, we did well with our lambs this year, 18 in total (10 girls and 8 boys).  We have sold 4 lambs and two gimmers (also to the farm near Kilmarnock) so we still have plenty of sheep.  The 8 boys were castrated and that has made life much easier as we don’t have to separate them.

Other than that, we upgraded the sheep field shelter with a water system (gutters,  drainpipes and a trough).  We had problems with one of our tanks leaking so this gives extra water security.  Digressing, we had to hump a lot of water up during the hot spell – pumping out of the river into a 600 litre bowser and towing it into the fields.  Then the cows drank copious amounts, so it was an ongoing job!  Back on the shelter, we also added a lot of slabs as it can get a bit muddy at times.

Our veggie patch has been a success producing turnips, carrots, parsnips, onions, beetroot, courgettes, kale and brussel sprouts galore.  We did have to remove a lot of caterpillars, otherwise it might have been a different story.  The leeks are coming on nicely too.

Nicole has been doing a lot of gardening and is slowly getting things the way she wants them.  She has ordered a batch of roses to go into new flower beds.  Also, the small flower meadow continued to flower right up till a few days ago.

And, of course, with winter approaching we are having to turn the heating on.  It’s powered mainly by wood, so that means much chopping – we get through a lot of wood!