Down on the Farm; Part Five

Despite much work left to do inside the farmhouse, our concern is momentarily diverted to the outside.

There is something fundamentally sad about seeing a house stripped naked. All layers of clothing and skin having been removed, revealing only bare bones and connective tissue.

Here we find an archeologist’s nightmare. The farmhouse walls are constructed with all kinds of materials spanning the centuries. Here; ancient earth bricks put in place over 300 years ago, there; newer terracotta bricks, here; concrete and there; rocks. A mix of old and ancient.

Herein lies the quandry. The newer stuff is at the bottom, the oldest at the top. Surely this is proof that geologists have led archaeologists astray?

Well, no. The truth here is that the earth bricks at the base of the old walls suffered more erosion than those protected by the eves. The eroded bricks were intermittently changed for newer materials.

No wonder nothing is straight in this house…

Hacking off the farmhouse’s clothes off takes time. Meanwhile ‘Le Snook’, geologically the younger of the two buildings, gets its coat of render.

And so, after waking each morning to the sound of pneumatic drills being pushed through my brain from exposed ear to pillow, as the farmhouse finally gave up its outer skin and integument, we moved on to the sound of hammering as grid was tightened onto the walls like a corset holding a complaining waist, then to the blasting of render into every nook and cranny, turning the skeletal walls into a crinkly skin, and throwing my sleeping pattern to the wind.

A month of noise and finally a calm hard fought.

The farmhouse and snooker room are finally are finished.

The calm was not to last.

In moved the earth movers, the terraforming machines intent on shortening our slumber once more. Our once green and pleasant land has become brown and somewhat stodgy. The land our farmhouse was built on 300 plus years ago has slowly, but surely, moved. Like some torpid but immensely powerful monster, it has accumulated detritus in some areas and shed its mass in others.

Many tonnes of earth have accumulated above the barn due to the rain flushing soil against its sides, whilst below us, the earth has moved, but not in a good way.

After much battling, we have our first but vital positive result. No longer are we surrounded by quagmire. We have a fresh clean gravel surface surrounding our newly blushing home. Not the final finish maybe, but mud has now been repelled from the borders.

The work outside goes on, whilst inside things are reshaping, changing, evolving. Becoming home… and so to part six…