Beside the seaside…

That’s how it feels here sometimes, even though we’re actually 70 miles from the coast to both the east and the west. But the path through our field is a bit like a cliff path in places, and the traffic on the bypass in the valley tends to roar in a bit of a sealike [...]

Hero son

Best thing a computer-addicted son could say to his mother, when she’s worrying about how to power his new off-grid house (heard yesterday):
“It’s ok. I’ll just read books.”
Bless! He would, as well. For a while.. then, when the novelty wore off, he’d want his old bedroom in the original house here keeping as a computer [...]

Shifting stone

This is a heap of stones which has been dumped, over the years, on the banking where Ali’s house will be:

You can’t even see most of them, actually. As the years pass, the ground grows over the top of them and they get buried in the soil. Nature is amazing really, isn’t she?
Anyway, [...]

Don’t read this if you’re eating

… or otherwise squeamish.
In fact, if you’d rather not think about anything to do with toilets, do yourself a favour and pass this one by.
If you’re quite sure you want to stick around, I’ll tell you that I’ve been reading about sewage systems and composting loos, in an attempt to work [...]

Studying and thinking

The bad weather has definitely kept me out of the field, these past few days, but we have been using the time to study and think more about the first build in Spring.
I think it’s probably going to end up being quite similar in size and style to Simon Dale’s hobbit-type house. You can [...]

Load by load, first footings

Some days, it’s actually very difficult to go out there and work, when it’s cold, windy, wet, and staying in the kitchen by a roaring fire is so much more tempting. Today was one of those days.
“Just one barrow,” I say to myself, on such occasions.
One barrow of wood from the demolished shed:
[...]