Our beautiful recycled life

 Can you see it yet? A new part of my brilliant, beautiful, amazing reycled life? Look to the right, squint in hard, can you see the hoops nestled in by the right of the house? Not quite finished but another day of work and it should be secure until its covered.

 A little clearer now really, the view to the homestead is now very much altered. I've such hope for this gorgeous recycled structure and such dreams to create in it. To stave off the harsh winds from the sea and grow our own version of heaven, what will it contain? An orchard? A garden? A fistful of hope, hard work and sweat no doubt, but it will come. As will visits from the maurading the chickens..............they will have to inspect it after all.

What was surprising about today was latterly the sun shone and shone and shone as we worked and the sunset on us, after a hard days graft by all. The first of many, I hope. Now we save, we obtain a cover and wait patiently for a still day, it might be a while (anything from 1-6 months to find a weather window to put a cover on it) but we're patient enough. We'll at the moment! You have to work 'with' the weather here - no point in trying to get in a stramash (argument) about it, the day will come.....

 What a delight of kindness put us in touch with a heartful person who had bought a new home with two of these tunnels as part of the land. They only needed one, they offered the other for free if removed and recycled. How fortunate are we, we had no idea how big, or small it might be, but were happy to help for the offer of sheltered growing on our island? And, to find something here to be able to use and be helpful for someone else, how lucky we are indeed! We've the opportunity to have something we would never have afforded, for a little labour and kindness its now going to be a huge asset to our lives. We'll make great use of it, all 148 square metres of its indoor shelter. We'll make sure we 'give' from it into our community, somehow, to recycle the kindness. And, fill our bellies from it! 

Our beautiful recycled life. 

Thank you to the kind donor, we're very grateful and will use it well.

Adventures in polytunnels part II - giant garden meccano in action

Carefully inspected by the chickens - polytunnel progress thursday, which is newly named 'mother and son bonding Thursdays', he has every Thursday off school, therefore we've decided to spend this day together playing with polytunnel bits!

This is a reycled polytunnel which means its a bit like a giant meccano set (without the instructions or the special tools) - we have it numbered from when it was taken down from the place it was up last and now somehow or other, as if by pixie magic, it will all go back together nicely.

(wont it?!)

And if all else fails, we'll pop along to the place where we got it from, where there is a twin of this tunnel, (not in bits) and we'll scratch our heads alot and make notes there.

However, so far so good - the other far side first hoop corner concreted in, five post holes dug today and the giant meccano laid out in rough order, we think, apart from the main long bar which we'd laid out cheekily at the side just for kicks!!

We left it like that for the day, side ways Orkney rain arrived, we ran, then of course out came the sun and the chicken troop inspecting the work, clip boards under their wings, pencils behind their lugs, demanding more biscuits.

And, so it began. Adventures with polytunnels...part 1

 All this growing food malarkay has got me inspired and hungry, so onwards towards the goal of producing more Orkney food for our 'eat local' challenge. With this in mind, I've dug out my own recipe for putting up a polytunnel......

The easiest recipe is to take one BRB (Big red beast) lawn mower, mow the designated polytunnel area rather than strim, its faster and more fun. After this operation attach a handy trailer and lay out your ground posts at suitable distances............

 Coax a teenage boy out of the house, give him a spade and after careful measuring out, dig your first hole...........

 Organise chickens into a supervisory team to check measurements of the local recycled cut to size scaffolding posts, now polytunnel ground posts (2m apart) and ask them to thoroughly inspect your work.....chickens are very good at this type of job, attention to detail is their forte.

 Don't forget the use of a well experienced garden dog is also beneficial, in supervising the tricky BRB driving and generally keeping chickens in order by overviewing their operations.....

 As you can see, chickens left unsupervised are likely to wonder if they can make a gettaway on the BRB up the track, thankfully the garden dog was at hand to make sure they didn't escape.

 Equip teenage boy with gadgets such as quick setting post mix concrete and levellers and allow him to have a go, carefully supervised by chickens and overviewed by a dog of course....

 Ta da moment, in goes the first post, perfectly level, chicken and dog and parent inspected! 1 done, 19 to go - excellent job! Retire for coffee and biscuits, whilst chickens write up the paperwork, supervised by the dog, of course.