Final Ladder Studs and Gables

After a spell of pretty good weather, sunny if cold but a bit windy at times, we finally completed the ladder studs in the gables and formed the necessary window openings. Nice to be making progress but as ever, things were a bit slower than we would have liked. We seem to specialise in slow and steady and getting there in the end.

There was a lot more timber in the gables than we’d estimated and we’ll need to rustle up some more to complete the internal walls. I think we’ll finish the dwangs at the rafter ends and see if we have enough bigger timber left over that can be ripped down to finish the stud walls. More work but better than having it surplus to requirements whilst still buying in new stuff.

After the dwangs, we’ll be able to sark the roof and at least get the structure locked up and waterproofed.

We’ve finally decided to use windows from a firm called NorDan. Not the cheapest but their estimate was very close to the drawings and also included aluminium rainscreens. Hope they don’t take too long to supply the frames.

Alistair Sloan came with his farm sized tractor and rotavator and did a really good job on the veg garden. He caught the last day of the dry spell and the manure was really well dug in. We also took delivery of our 2 wheel tractor and rotavator from RIKO. It coped very well with the veg garden despite it still being a bit soft in places. Suse has ordered lots of early and late seed potatoes and has bought onion sets. So, rabbits permitting, we should get a crop in the autumn. The tractor tow hitch also arrived but we’ll need to find a blacksmith to modify the existing hitch on our small trailer before we can try it out on the log piles up the top end of the plot.

We finally met Paul Jardine who along with Ali is building another larch clad house at Claonaig and we are both looking forward to seeing Emily and Kate and Nick at the end of next week. We’ve all entered the Gigha Walk next Saturday so fingers crossed for the weather.

On the wildlife front, we took to watering the tadpoles in the ditch to keep them alive. The recent rain has helped them no end. David reports that Great Tits have taken up residence in the small bird box – we’ve yet to see them, but all kinds of song birds have appeared and the trees have gone all fluffy as they begin to leaf up.

The best news of all, however, is the arrival of our new neighbour Kate Sarah Woodhouse on Friday morning. She came home later that day and we planted an acer palmatum for her.