The dream bread oven

SO exciting. After years of wishing and thinking and reading, it was determined that this week would be the week to build a clay bread oven. No fancy schmancy purchased stuff, but all built from stone and clay from the farm. It's not finished quite yet - the door needs to be carved, the sand former scooped out and the lime render clarted on, but the majority of the work has been done. It's a huge clay tit. It's monstrous. It's wonderful. And I must be patient and let it dry out before we fire it up and stick in some pizza and bread and cake and lamb and.....
I had absolutely nothing to do with this, by the way, other than offering my gleeful mud-pie lovin' husband many positive comments and cups of tea. I've been busy preserving stuff from the veg patch to take us through the winter, not that you'd notice any diminution of the produce in the garden.
I will try to get rid of that irritating advert across the slideshow - bear with me - bear, not bare...

The delight is in the detail

How many times have you walked down a street, across a lane, through a building and been struck by a perfect detail? The curve of a banister, the sweep of a railing, the charm of a door knob, the gape of a gargoyle? I'm pretty architecturally illiterate, but it's the small things, those objects you can hold or caress with your hand that do it for me. I particularly enjoy carved text - the name or number of a house in simple font, in unflashy creamy stone or aged oak.
Cathedral Square in Exeter has many of these human scale features, somehow standing their own against the mammoth cathedral.

Getting there

Staying on the theme of building, I've not shown the progress on the cob barn for ages, and it's nearly finished!
Yes, the doors and windows have to be completed, the remaining downpipes have to go up (or should that be down?), and there is some fiddling around and general tarting up, but on the whole, the major stuff is done.
It has a roof! You can enter without taking your life in your hands. You can stand inside and dream and plan, and admire and chat, and think and pat the dogs, and grin. Lots and lots of grinning.
Those black spaces that are doorways will have doors, those top windows will have shutters, those heaps of sand and timber and stuff will go, and there will be a useful and used space. All those plans will be taken out of the head and put into practice. No more excuse for not getting an in-pig sow, cows, or delaying the breeding of guinea fowl and ducks.
Across the yard, the threshing barn has taken on the scaffold shroud shrugged off by the cob barn. And as a reminder of the sad ruinous state of the cob barn back in July 2007, here's the before shot:

Protection racket

For 31 days one of the geese has been sitting on a clutch of eggs and yesterday just three out of about ten, hatched. Whilst she has sat she has eaten practically nothing, although I put a bowl of fresh corn by her nest each morning. She gets off the nest once a day to grab a mouthful of water and a snatch of grass, and she is back to the job in hand.
Geese lose an enormous amount of weight during this period; their fat reserves gone, their feathers go dry and brittle, and there is none of the usual chubbily overfilled nappy effect dangling between their legs.
Two other geese have also been laying eggs in the same hut, but have not started to sit as yet; they might if the new births don't distract them permanently.
Today, the goslings came out of the hut, down what for them must be an Everest of a ramp, and onto the grass which they pick at in curiosity. The sitting goose is surprisingly not central to the outing; she is off, heading for food, like the starving animal she is. Instead, the eldest goose seems to have taken charge - that's her, tattered head, sitting proudly as matriarch. The tattered head is the result of amorous gander behaviour; he's obviously keen on the old lady as her battle scars are worse than those of the younger geese.
But now the goslings are here, the gander will forsake fornication and take up position as prime protector. Each time the goslings wandered through the stock fencing he nudged them back with his beak. I couldn't get any nearer without risking a major pecking and a blast of ear-drum shattering honking , so the image is taken from a distance.
The extended family of the goose is something to admire; a whole army of aunts and dad to keep you safe, and the hand that brings the chick crumbs and fresh water at bay, or at a safe distance. I suspect the rest of the eggs will go to waste as the excitement and duty rota created by the new babes takes precedence. But at this young age, I'm not counting my goslings; even with the best protection racket in the animal kingdom, there may be none left by the end of next week.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 8

My 200th post and I can celebrate knowing that the West Barn (sounds like the Chinese Room or the Green Wing) is wrapped inside and out with scaffolding, that tarps have been secured over the cob, and that demolition has stopped and building has started. If you look very closely on the left side you can see just a few new cob blocks in place. Click on the photo if you want a BIG view.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 7

Two reasons to be cheerful this morning.
Doing the animals is always hard work when the weather turns. I have to hump heavy hay bales about for the sheep and the lambs and I can't always put my hand on a wheelbarrow even though there are three of them somewhere or other. I think one is hiding in the polytunnel and I couldn't get at it first thing as the door bolts were frozen solid. One is full of farmyard manure and needs emptying and rinsing out and the other holds a heap of flower bulbs and echinops, dug out of topsoil (composted waste material of ages chucked behind the piggeries) that is being removed as part of the great barn works, ready for replanting elsewhere when the soil is soft enough to dig.
When it's frosty I have to check the water troughs in case they have iced over. And it is also time to start feeding the geese, who live almost exclusively on grass during the warm months, plus any windfalls they can snaffle before my apple crumble intentions leave them bereft. So sans barrow I slung a 20 kilo sack of feed over my shoulder and trudged up the steep track to put it in the feedbin closest to the orchard. Lastly, it's time to feed the llama, who gets a scoop of goat mix in the cold weather. He was covered in frost (click on the photo for a really good view). Llamas have hair made of hollow fibres, so unlike sheep they do not get overheated in summer nor require shearing. They have inbuilt insulation against heat and cold, so the frost that settles on their backs at night takes an age to melt. This always makes me smile.
And before coming in to start work, I had a quick peek at the builder's site hut area. From scratch they have built a composting toilet, and it is a thing of beauty, with a door handle made from a handy branch. If they put this much effort into the barns (and it has taken them two days to make the toilet) I will be beaming for ever more.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 6

Reasons to be cheerful - part 5

I could put my hand out and touch them - but I won't. I think there are six of them, but can't be sure. When the parent swallow goes off to find food they all rest their chins (do birds have chins?) on the rim of the nest. When mum arrives back they open wide their yellow maws. She goes off to seek further refreshment and the wide-mouths shut, Zippy fashion.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 4

Woody's back! (Photo taken through kitchen window so not crystal clear - he's a shy beastie).

Reasons to be cheerful - part 3

Reasons to be cheerful - part 2

Reasons to be cheerful - part 1