The Power of Publicity

We have been very unfortunate in our choice of some of the people we have done business with. As the law is very weak - the only option is to expose - just like Cowboy Builders does. Your average dodgy dealer is usually a good talker and often manages to survive exposure because there are always new targets for their business. Politically, Private Eye does a good job on greedy and hypocritical businessmen, MPs and councillors but there really isn't a co-ordinated equivalent for consumers. All the TV programmes are rather mild. We need a press champion exposing corruption and the ease with which business men can avoid proper regulation. For example, it is, de facto, a criminal offence to be late with your business accounts submissions - but the law seems to be rarely enforced  with only warnings issued. Politicians ignore the huge weaknesses in 
business regulation as anything else would be viewed as 'anti-business'. This is utterly feeble - when Rangers went under the losers were hundreds of one man bands and small businesses in Govan who have gone bust and lost their livelihoods - whereas the ex owner has just walked away scot free.

First Lamb

Our lambs are later than most folk as we delayed putting them to the tup. This has worked out okay for us as it is only now the ground is warming up - even last weekend lambs were being lost to cold. Anyway Jayne found one of our ewes with a large lamb when she went to feed them. Now we just need a few sets of twins.

Tree Huggers

Our 3/4 acre plot is pretty exposed to the west and north west and Gigha still gets a lot of salt laden westerlies - the hurricane of 31st May two years ago scorched all our young trees then, though most have almost recovered. Jayne has her own native cherry tree which is recovering well now, but almost every leaf was burnt by that storm. We also have too many rabbits and have to protect against them. Izzie does chase and kill rabbits, but they get their revenge by eating anything we plant unguarded.

We have a large strip of wet ground with rush (now sprayed) about 15m wide by 50m long. This ground has to do something useful so it might as well grow wood fuel for us.

We also need to provide shelter for our other garden ground without taking away from the incredible views.

There are two wee copses of trees on the adjacent Mill Croft about 25 to 30 years old so we have worked out what is best to plant for our own coppice on the wet ground at the bottom of the plot from what has done well there. The only species we don't have is sweet chestnut which seemed a surprising choice as it isn't a local tree but has done well there and is great for coppicing. We have avoided Sycamore too.

We've had to abandon our plan to plant a lot of Ash - chalara has done for us there. We planted fifty last year but can't plant any more. We've added fifty Hazel in the hedge mix instead. It is native and local.

The Alder has been very successful, is great on Scotland's west coast and is a good coppice firewood tree so we have a hundred of those. They'll put on two to three feet a year when established. Our first trees planted last year put on 30-50 cm in their first year.

Our 100 metres of hedging, all along our boundary fences,  has been planted as a double row of Blackthorn, Hazel, Hawthorn, Oak, Ash, Crab Apple, Elder and .... Swedish Whitebeam. This last species is salt tolerant and very pretty - I have seen them in gardens in Torshavn in the Faroes and they have to be very wind firm to survive there. So we managed to source some Scottish cell grown stock for our plot.

This year I have managed to find two of my own favourites, both Scottish natives - Aspen and White Poplar so we'll have wee clumps of these in the wetter corners - and they are fast growing and coppice too so can provide wood fuel for us in our dotage.

We have native Scots Pines in each corner and birch and rowan for show. Every house needs to have rowan near the front door. Keeps witches away. Pity we didn't plant it sooner - might have worked for our cowboy builder. Rowan is also Jayne's grandson's name so we have ten of these.

At the top of the drive is a large rocky area with lovely native heath/rocky plants - harebells and bluebells, wild primrose. tormentil and eye bright, wild thyme and now a dozen young Junipers in the sheltered crevices. We have a few broom for the odd dry spot too.

Almost all the trees we've planted will coppice so can be cut back every ten years or so and will provide enough wood for the wood fuelled Esse and our two Danish wood stoves and not block the views. In fact we ought to be pretty much self sufficient for fuel - just hope we have enough strength and energy to cut the trees down, and log them in our 70s cos that's how old we'll be by the time these trees are big enough. Luckily modern wood stoves work best on 3-6 inch diameter sticks, so no splitting will be needed.

We have tried to plant 90% natives - everything else is salt and wind tolerant except the fruit trees which we were given last year.

Tree planting at 60 is an act of faith. You know you're not going to see the full benefits but then if we have to leave a legacy a few hundred trees is not such a bad choice.

Better Late Than Never

Our many blog readers will be aware of the longstanding issues we have had with QF Tractors over the JCB 3CX we bought from them in November 2009. 

These mainly related to incomplete pre-delivery repairs.

We can now confirm that these matters have finally been resolved to our satisfaction, as of April 2013, and that we have no further dispute with them. 

KIT = Progress

Very busy measuring every single panel and timber spline in preparation for the build of the 9m roundhouse. 

The SIP panels are mostly cut okay though Tim Allan clearly can't cut  panel to reach 1mm accuracy. All the 24 roof panels are more like 4-6mm out in a crucial dimension.

Of the wall panels, we have discovered that one whole wall has the wrong window size opening and are having to work out what to do about that. This is a standard error in kit fabrication - the windows don't fit. Late last night I was checking the tolerances to see that we had enough space around each opening to fit the windows and discovered that we had a major problem. This means three new panels. 

I have had to recut about 50% of the splines for the walls but am now happy that 11/12 ths of the walls are within 2mm - only got to cut the rebate on one SIP panel now which had got missed out and get the new wall panels made up.

The hardest job will be making up the ringbeam that holds up the roof. Am about to get this started so watch this space.

The whole kit design is incredibly elegant in engineering terms. It is original and ground breaking, but the way it has been designed to fit together is so very neat.