Is it possible to get excited about cleaning? As recommended by our friends at Casal dei Fichi, Splosh will be supplying our cleaning products. Eco friendly, non animal tested and using refillable containers, it will mean less trips to the recycling centre and fits in nicely with our environmental aims. And they’re based in Wales. Something like this should be arriving through the post any day soon…… 
If you want to try them for yourselves use the code 2704A6 to get £5 off a starter pack.
Byd bach, small world
We have a new person on site. Eilir Rowlands, landscape gardener and stonemason, is building a retaining wall and creating new openings for windows and doors in the old stone walls. Eilir knows the house well as his grandmother, Kate Rowlands, lived at Ty Hen. Byd bach. Her diary is being serialised on twitter by St Fagan’s National History Museum. The tweets are in Welsh and often in the local dialect so they are a little difficult to understand (for me), but they do offer a fascinating insight into life on the farm 100 years ago. From taking a large sow to Bala (I may not have understood that tweet correctly), to the travels of the threshing machine and the news of a young man in Llandderfel dying of TB. And the weather is usually ofnadwy.
Eilir also gave us a photo of Ty Hen from 1960s and a picture of him in front of the pig sty. Eilir is on the right. 
Ffensio (Cymraeg for fencing)
December was busy and productive, January less so. Some concrete was poured then Gwyn went skiing for a week in Austria and brought back snow and ice. Not the requested cow bell. It gave us an excuse to test the new sledges and made for some very pretty photos but put a stop to anymore concrete work. Too cold. In the meantime, the rotten sycamore was felled (see previous post) and we had some fencing erected in the field in front of the barn.
That doesn’t sound very exciting but it is to us as it means we have an area of the field set aside for guest car parking and a separate garden and barbecue area. The natural/organic lawnmowers (sheep and cows) can continue to use the field until we turn it into a pump / cyclocross track. That’s next year’s project. We have lots of other ideas for the field including a sauna and pizza oven. The latter inspired by many happy, slightly drunken evenings spent at Bob and Ian’s pizza nights at Casal dei Fichi.
Wood chip, wood and more wood
A biomass boiler needs fuel. Thanks to Huw from Ynni Coed Cymru the chip store is now nice and full and should keep us warm for a few months.
If that doesn’t we have this.
With much reluctance, we had to take down the large sycamore in front of the house. It was rotten and hollow and was in danger of falling. On to the barn. Peter Hughes and Co arrived last Monday to do the job. I planned to take lots of photos but they were too quick for me to get my act together. We now have lots of firewood, an improved view of the Berwyns and enough room to turn around a plethora of VW transporters.
Warm
We’ve had snow, but that hasn’t slowed us down. The most exciting event has been the commissioning of the biomass boiler. After a year and a half of being cold, we are now luxuriating in hitherto unknown warmth. It bodes very well for the cottages as they will be much better insulated than our house and have underfloor heating as well as log burners. Thanks everyone at Raine or Shine for making us warm and happy.
Boiler house finished apart from cladding. Just need to get on with it.
Work starts on the Barn
The barn is a farm building the first floor of which had been converted into an office by the previous owners. The ground floor was used as a wood store and cow toilet. We are now transforming the building into a warm, comfortable and luxurious holiday cottage.
Our friendly farmer helped us again with the ground works. Using his digger and pecker he relocated the flowerbed, dug the footings for the extension which will house the new staircase and entrance, pecked a trench to house the pipes and cabling for the biomass boiler and dug out the floor of the barn.
Gwyn arrived just before Christmas the shore up the stone walls. He loved doing this in near freezing temperatures and with a horrible cold. Sorry Gwyn.
as it was
Before we have started work
It was used as an office by the previous owners
bringing heat and hot water to our lovely guests
Original ground floor
Barn from the house minus flower bed
no more flowers
digger at the ready
still some rubbish to clear
getting ready for the new entrance
Work starts on the Stable
It’s December, well it was when I wrote this, its now January.
The first job was to pull down the internal stone wall and remove the rotten floor joists and floor. The stone wall was a remnant from the old stable but it no longer has a structural purpose. The decision was made to remove it to give more space. We’ll re-use the stone elsewhere and we’ve left a few of the larger ones because we think they will look interesting. It has nothing to do with them being too heavy to move. We engaged a local farmer and his mini digger to dig out the floor. Much to our delight he discovered cobbles underneath the concrete. If we ever have the time and energy, our drive may become a Welsh Koppenberg.
The stable is now a ready for the next stage of works.
This is what the stable looked like when we bought Ty Hen
The first floor was used as storage by the previous owner
The stone wall had to go. We will use the stone elsewhere
There as some big stones in that wall
wall debris
Stairs have also gone. Nice firewood
Being over cautious with acro props.
Mainly demolition and removal at this stage
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