Elephant Task

You are currently browsing articles tagged Elephant Task.

BIG LIST update

April 15, 2010 in Frugal Living, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, The Build by fullmonte | 1 comment

Back in November last year we compiled a BIG LIST of all the high level tasks and I outlined them in this post, promising to update our progress every month… Mmm, I’ve been a bit rubbish, haven’t I???

Well, nearly 6 month later, here’s an update on progress and the latest news of what’s on the BIG LIST now…

drainage

Ur, well, the first item on the list & that’s where it all started to go wrong! The drainage ditch turned into our Elephant Task and no matter how much we broke it into bits, we got so tired of chewing those chunks! But the drainage on the main campsite is now DONE. We still get soggy patches where underground springs mysteriously appear when the water table rises, but things are better. It’s still a quagmire when it really buckets down but that’s mostly because of all the distrurbed earth which Nature needs to knit together again.

installing our rainwater collection systems

This is a tricky one. Water is so precious, of course we should be saving every drop. But unless we can salvage a couple of big water butts from somewhere, we simply cannot afford to invest in the materials needed to install the system properly. Our first check list for whether we do a task or not is: how much will it cost?

Thankfully, the water tank we filled up at the start of last summer is still half full! So having enough water for everything is NOT an issue, in fact we are desperately trying to empty the tank so we can fill it fresh from the spring before it dries up.

finishing our greywater irrigation system

We started with grand plans for this project but the cost of fancy joints and weird plumbing bits was crazy so we are going to make do with bits of hose and ’stuff’.

It’s been a stressful time on the greywater front. We were keen to cover the ugly pipes and protect them, but were concerned about piling mud on them and screwing up the levels. These pipes have been lovingly positioned and levelled to have a 2% drop all the way along – not too much or the water will rush through the system and not be properly filtered, nor too slight a gradient or the water will not run fast enough and stagnate. After enclosing them with earth we waited for it to settle and then had to tweak the system a little, straightening the pipes and inserting stones as rests in places. The system still works; the water flows through well. The problem now is with the last bath. We noticed a slight leak when doing the landscaping around the end of the system. It was too wet to use Plumber’s Mait or other good stuff so Steve cemented over the entire piece where the pipe exits the last bath through a rubber bung. Our mistake was then carrying on regardless, in denial that the fix may not have worked…

It still leaks, really badly. And now there’s a frigging stone wall enclosing it and a load of dirt! The only hope is to dig the bath out and attack the problem from the inside. Watch this space to see if this works or if we have to dismantle the entire stone wall:

levelling ground to create flat terraces for outside eating areas, a Boules pitch and lots more tent pitches

We’ve levelled a lot of ground dealing with the spoil from the drainage ditch. The area we played Boules on last year will be less lumpy & bumpy & sloped than before, if not pristine! Ideally, we’d like to build a proper pitch – a frame filled with sand maybe – but not exactly a priority for this year.

We’ve cleared the ugly pallet fence between the raised beds and the stream so there is a bigger space there for tents and Steve has great plans to use the last of our sleepers and level earth on the very lower terrace. But even if this doesn’t get done, with a little stumping, strimming, raking and mowing we can accomodate up to 30 people quite easily. More level ground would enable us to space the tent pitches out much more, but even so tents will still be less cheek by jowl than many campsites!

making a rough, covered outside kitchen near to the eating area and BBQ

No progress made on this at all but we have all the raw materials: sink (reclaimed from the side of the road); pallets to make rough decking; an old table for a work surface – and it will be one of those projects that just gets done because it HAS to (hopefully in time for the Full Moon Party!).

repairing the critical collapsed terrace walls with planted tyre walls

Mmmm. We have tyres. We have tidied up the area around. That’s as far as we’ve got and in truth we may not get an entire wall done this season. After all the inside jobs have been done, it’s next on the list…

tile the last shower & the urinals

We can’t put the tiling off any longer! We need to get the building functioning again. Everything was moved down to the basement or back to Topla and the shower block has been left empty and abandoned. We need to be living up there as soon as possible so that means finishing the last shower, tiling the laundry sink, installing the urinals and tiling around them and half tiling the loos so they are easy to clean. We also need to fix the position of the cooker so we can tile around it for ease of cleaning and that means fixing the position of gas fridges & more cupboards in the kitchen. Then we can lime wash all remaining bare plaster, move all the furniture and stuff in… and enjoy!

A new addition to the BIG LIST, all wrapped up in being able to move on site soon is:

clean, mouse-proof and limewash the basement

We need a proper usable space to set up an office, store clothes and things, have a cold store for food stuffs etc and the basement is it. We need to tell the resident mouse (there’s only ONE mouse, right Kirst?!) to move on and get it cleared, cleaned, painted and organised!

paint the outside of the buildings

This is one of the tasks on the list for our work day on 8th May. I painted a patch on the back of the workshop in limewash last year and it still looks great, even after all the ravages of winter. A bag of lime is pennies (in comparison to the price of paint here) and will make loads of wash, a real cheap option for us and less harmful to the environment. Having a sparkling white building will make an enormous difference – and help us sell the site in photos better!

plant the flower & veg beds

Made reasonable progress on this task. There’s still lots to do and there’s a bunch of plants queuing up to put their roots down but there’s no chance of doing much more until the rain stops. We desperately need some hot dry weather to follow the deluge of the last few days. We haven’t been on site for the past 3 days due to the appalling weather and I dread to think what’s going on up there….

Since we are determined this year to keep greedy cows and intruders out, there’s a new task on this list:

secure the boundary

In practice this means: running barbed wire along the edges of the boundary where a cow can possibly invade and electrifying the main fence to deter the village kids and travellers who got on site, poked around and stole stuff last year. If the barbed wire doesn’t get them, the x 1000 volts will!

Another key task is:

build a generator shed

We need a proper weather-proof, sound-proof, easy access structure to contain our trusty genny.

We have been gifted some great wooden stairs from Keith & Maja so now we need to treat them with wood preservative and install them firmly but that takes care of:

create safe, stable access at each end of each terrace

We now need to start making some rope hand rails or some such stuff to help support people safely down them!

Finally (well, never ‘finally’ because the list never ends but…) now we’ve dismantled the old compost heap we need to:

build a new compost

Gulp! Still a bunch of stuff to do. Thank God there’s no guests arriving until end of May! And we are feeling a little less over-whelmed since we’ve had news that a potential volunteer, Jaime, will be joining us in May for 1 or 2 weeks; a volunteer from Spain, Pedro, is looking to join us in June and will possibly stay for a couple of months if we all get along well and last, BUT NOT LEAST, Nik, dear Mr Nik, without whom it all wouldn’t have been possible last year, is coming back this summer. Hurrah for willing helpers! Anyone else fancy it?

Tags: BIG LIST, Elephant Task, grey water system, helping hands, limewash, organic gardening, tiling

Eating a very small Elephant – with a side dish of veg!

April 12, 2010 in Nature, Organic Gardening, The Build by fullmonte | 1 comment

The elephant task of dealing with the ditch and its resulting spoil is almost done. There’s just an ickle little (not-so) jumbo Dumbo left! We’ve been so busy working, my blog’s been abandoned and now I’m struggling to catch up with myself…

Most of the landscaping on the first 2 terraces (well 3, if you include the flower garden by the palm fence) has been done.

This is the view of the newly levelled ground, covered with as much top soil as I could find in the surrounding area (no budget for loads of bags of compost) and then sown with grass seed.

This terrace is doing ok, but the one below it has been ravaged by ants. The day after we sowed all the grass and watered it in, we arrived to find mounds of seed everywhere that the ants had found, stockpiled in one place and were ferrying down into their nests! We’re just hoping some germinate before the busy little workers get them all!

Steve continued his dry stone walling all the way to the raised beds, so all the greywater pipes are hidden under earth and contained within mini stone-walled beds. There’ll be a separate post on the greywater system, coming soon.

To finish the whole series of stone terraces off and link to the garden, he found a railway sleeper bowed perfectly to fit the space and give an attractive curved finish:

We’ve done a ton of stuff I haven’t got pictures of, including:

moving the pallet fence monstrosity that contained our compost heaps. We now have a bigger grassed area in between the stream and the garden, a perfect 4-man tent pitch. (No new compost heap yet though, a new addition to THE BIG LIST!)
tidying up the remaining soil and clay we haven’t had a place to put yet by cutting rough steps into it so we can more easily access the flower bed & orchard
raking, tidying and sowing grass seed all over
planting flowers (marigolds, cinias and geraniums) in the new bed at the bottom of the stream steps
making a start on cow-proofing the boundary with barbed wire

We also had a tidy up of railway sleepers but needed some hunky lads to help us shift the buggers. Shame we could only find these lot!

But they were super stars, helping chuck the sleepers down 2 terraces for Steve to use for his tent pitch project.

I’ve been busy planting flowers & herbs all over the place. You can’t really see much in this photo but trust me, this new bed around the first bath in our greywater system is full of aromatic herbs: basil, coriander, fennel, chive, mint…

My veg plants romped away well on our sunny terrace…

This year we have taken more care to harden the plants off before planting them out and resisting the temptation to plant them too soon. The ‘babies’ have become my new obsession, lots of veg on the menu to help digest the last of that elephant!

So far we’ve planted out:

sweetcorn
6 types of lettuce (might be too soon for them, but it’s a small window of opportunity before it becomes too hot & too late)
cucumbers, this time around a trellis so they will climb UP (the way the locals do it, saves space in the garden and makes them easier to pick when they hang down)
courgettes (ditto as above for trellis)
runner beans
marigolds – everywhere as they were the perfect companion plant last year to just about everything and were such good value, flowering for months

Pumpkins, cabbages & sweet peas should have been planted out today but the torrential hailstorm rather put a damper on those plans. Hopefully tomorrow!

Andwe have sowed:

peas (not a single one has come up having been planted direct into the ground – have sowed some in pots today as insurance!)
carrots
radish
rocket
various herbs: dill, parsley, oregano, basil, coriander, fennel, chives

(Beets should have been sown today after soaking overnight but they’ll get sown on the next dry day)

The melons, tomatoes, peppers & chillies will be ready to plant out soon and I’m sowing more sweetcorn and beans because I want lots of them! Failures this year were caulis (again!). Lesson learnt: don’t plant these in toilet roll tubes – that method is only for things that germinate quickly (like corn & beans). Also, parsnip seeds didn’t germinate – they were gifted by a local friend and I think they were old seeds). Successes: peppers & chillies using last year’s collected seeds.

Today I read a great post over at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op which is very timely because it’s given me some new ideas for companion planting and there’s still time to juggle my planting plan around to accomodate some ‘helpers’. Interestingly, I read that you should avoid putting carrot in the proximity of dill. I’m sure last year I read something to the contrary and planted dill in my root veg bed. The dill flourished but the carrots did not! Time to try something different and see if we get better results. Aliums are good companions apparently so will plant the last of my onions there; peas & chives will be fitted in too, as healthy helpers.

I have a few random pots with seeds of fruit I’ve collected (plums, dates, tamarind, japanses apple). Nothing’s really sprouted but a walnut that Steve stuck in a pot last autumn has!

So now it’s time to sit back and let nature do it’s stuff… let the grass grow over the elephant, let the vegetables flourish in a cow-free zone and let the flowers & herbs blossom to attract nicer beasties like birds, bees and butterflies.

Tags: companion planting, cucumbers, Elephant Task, grey water system, grow your own, growing brassicas, growing green, herbs, homegrown, marigolds companion plant, organic gardening

Eating an elephant – an update

March 9, 2010 in The Build by fullmonte | 3 comments

We’re getting a little sick of eating this elephant… it’s stuck in our teeth, we’re choking on it & it doesn’t matter how small the chunks, it’s still taking ages to chew.

But we are getting there – slowly but surely. We have had a run of dry days which helps enormously with this enormity. Here’s the view of the side of the shower block a couple of days agao – mud all levelled out & looking tidy:

However, there is still much mud to be moved and we have been agonising over what to do with it. The first priority was to cover & protect the grey water pipes that protrude from the baths and run our waste water to our gardens. First the pipes had to be levelled again and thanks to Nik we had a spirit level with blocks attached that give us the level for the 2% drop required. I am reminded again at what a legend Mr Paddison is. The grey water system is a triumph largely due to his patience, perseverance and effort.

Steve had a vision of a new terrace wall to give us an edge to level to and to hide the 3rd bath in an attractive structure mirroring the one he had built around the grease trap and first bath. I have to admit, I was not a fan of the idea. More rocks to move… my muscles ached just thining about it. But it was a great way to use some of the excess soil and it would look great. Here is the start of the sub-project that this elephant task has created – you can also see the mud heap to the right that safely hugs the greywater pipes:

We are in the process of uncovering terrace walls that have been hidden with mud for more than a year so we trawled through old photos to see what the walls looked like before clay mountain. It was incredible – the land has changed beyond recognition. That’s a measure of how far we have come…

Today was a beautiful sunny day and more things seem possible with the heat of those rays warming our bones. So we plodded on as the birds and butterflies painted the sky with bright colours – fragile wings beating orange; yellow wagtails; blue tits; red robins.

I set about prising the mud away from the terrace wall below the baths. I felt like an archeologist on a dig, gently chipping away at the piled up earth to reveal the stone wall:

Meanwhile Steve was building an awesome wall. Here’s the view from the side:

The plank was our makeshift ramp for rolling up some of the massive rocks. Jeez, I’m doing weight training++ at the moment shifting these buggers! Despite all the agony – cramping hands, aching back etc – it was all worth it when we reviewed our progress at the end of the day:

You can’t really tell from these photos but we have a reasonable wall here (saving us a lot of time as the tyre wall now won’t have to be so long) and we have regained width on the terrace itself – it will look sooo great!

And this is the really cool shot of Steve’s fantastic new terrace wall that made me thank him for insisting – he was right and it will look great.

At this rate we will finish filling this area in with soil on Thursday. We will sow grass seed and let nature be for 2 weeks (we are off to the UK for Steve’s birthday and fun with friends & family), hoping beyong hope that we will return to green shoots of growth everywhere…

Tags: dry stone walling, Elephant Task

Snow violets

March 6, 2010 in Nature, The Build by fullmonte | 3 comments

It did our souls good to wake to sun streaming through the windows this morning. But the snow laying on the vehicle windscreens warned of a chilly day. White stuff or no, with Steve’s cold much improved, it was time to get back on the campsite and get grafting. Little snowy scenes still lingered in Malta:

We had a great day, trying to stay in the sunny spots – shovelling & levelling mud. This may not look much, but this is another chunk of elephant eaten… another pile of mud gone (& check out the weird shadows of Steve & I):

And we drove home knackered but content, with the delicate smell of violets in our noses – here’s a bunch fresh picked from the upper plot where the wild narcissi are starting to bloom too…