Silage 2016

Silage has been delayed by foggy drizzly weather through May and June, however when it did finally dry up crops were very heavy. This was cut 25th June and most of it was picked up on 27th.

Houlstons have a much newer Claas Jaguar this year, and it made quite easy work of the huge rows even on the steepest field in this video.

There was an extra eight acres this year and as expected the pit was full without it so that got baled and wrapped the following day - just before a very wet afternoon.

That was annoying as the second field of hay was just about ready - I got more than half baled but at 2pm a sudden heavy burst of rain stopped that for now.

Cattle to Malton

Suckler calf bullocks have been going to Malton through March and April - today was planned to be the last sale for now, but could not quite fit four in so I guess the last one might go on his own next week or I might take another of some description with him.

The remaining ones were going out any day now, but the line between go out and sell is rather arbitrary. It's strange but there are only four heifers of this age so keeping them all as replacements.

 Prices for store cattle are down a little on last year but still quite strong with most of them this year making around £900

Ruswarp Market run

Taking some last year's lambs.
The Hero4 camera behaved well but did seem to get very hot in the case.
There's an alternative open back I should use for longer periods of recording perhaps.

Mucking out calving shed

I got a GoPro Hero4 a couple of weeks ago, and am in two minds about doing occasional video blog style videos.

The quality from it is brilliant really, and I already had a selection of mounts which came with a much cheaper SJ4000 a couple of years ago. The problem is that even a 3 minute video at 1080p is about 500mb and our increasingly left behind broadband speed of 373kb up needs all night to upload that.

This will become increasingly exasperating with no chance of faster fibre being laid to install a cabinet nearer than Castleton 3 miles away. (unless we do it ourselves apparently!) They were given £1.5 billion to connect almost everyone to 10mb+ but it seems very easy to claim outlying villages are too difficult even when like Westerdale we also don't have mobile cover let alone 3G. Meanwhile York is getting upgrades from 50mb+ to 300mb and they also have 4G

Building update late August - almost done

The major re-build of pig-sty corner is all but complete after most of five months though not continuous work it must be said!
It has taken rather longer than expected mainly cutting the stones seemed to take forever, but quite a lot of fiddly bits at the end still not quite finished - almost another week maybe yet?

Gallery link http://postimg.org/gallery/1x9y779ny/
Those are a bit random and can't be moved about so some of the main stages below.
They've uploaded in reverse order so go down then come back up ;)

Final bits - more concrete, retaining wall, BIG stone gatepost. Pot Plant!

Soil replaced around foundations

Mainly doors to do at last

Inside larger room

Windows in, roof well underway.

Insulation all round seems a no-brainer in a relatively small building which will benefit from stable temperatures and minimal condensation

More stone. Lintels from Eskdale Stone near Whitby

Roof takes shape and stones going around from original wall remains

Mud hut stage

Early stages

Concrete raft foundation as there was all kinds of soft ground and rubble.

Rebuilding the corner bottom left

Rough shed over partly demolished stone pig stys

Building work

Through the winter the farmhouse roof has been replaced with new joists, slates and insulation.
This has made a surprising difference especially upstairs with much better heat retention when the stove is not lit, or not running hot enough to keep the radiators going.
By morning the weather station 'indoor' temperature has often only dropped about 0.5C but will drop another degree or so through the day if it's cold and windy(and stove not lit until evening)

The main reason for the work was increasing problems with damp and drips getting in at both gable ends and around the chimneys.
The stone capping on the gables did not have lead underneath so in prolonged wet spells the wall below got increasingly wet - and roof wood beams going into it were starting to rot.

A further tremendous improvement was installing a small roomheater wood stove in the always chilly front room. The chimney from that fire was always a bit suspect and would sometimes smoke upstairs so had not been used for years.
The stove is connected to a new liner so perfectly safe now.
It gets astonishingly hot  burning a bucketful of half a dozen small logs and the heat circulates through the hall and upstairs.
A room which previously seemed to chill half the house now gives out heat and helps the radiators out quite a bit.

Stove running while decorating after installation - a few bits on mantepiece to see how it might look!

So that all completed, something else causing concern was the woodstore stone wall,which has been leaning out at an ever more concerning angle.
I asked Chris about simply rebuilding the wall, which he could have done - but he pointed out it would make more sense really to rip the whole ugly thing out and make something more useful.

After a bit of thought I came up with more or less rebuilding how it was in the early 70s before being demolished as unsafe.
There were three little 'rooms' one had originally been a wash house, one a pig sty and one a stable.
These were all quite small and in an L shape.

1972

Log store just before demolishing

Wall moving steadily outwards!

Shed knocked down and debris scraped up to level site - Day One.

Part of the old wall fell down when the roof was pulled away!

The other part is not as bad but still needs rebuilding.

That end will be a lockable store and to the left will be an open fronted store for logs and bins.

Spring ploughing

Mark Robson for Houlstons with the new Case Puma.
At the moment he finds some of the controls a bit unhandy!