January 2025 Monthly Update
Popping this one up now and then I'll work backwards as time allows, to get a little bit of a timeline on the go via written posts, phone snaps and screenshots! Pre-warning that everything is going to seem quite chaotic and you'll maybe have to learn what we call everything on the site, because our "pet names" for buildings, rooms and spaces can be tricky to figure out.
There are two sides to the normal written updates. Both are happening concurrently all the time, and relate to my (Jess) personal goals plus the farm project too! For this month, my personal goal focusses on Velia, one of our newbie horses, alongside the farm project.
Ah Janaury! The weather has been so random lately, and this month saw some interesting weather stats from the local weather station. 11C to -14.3C was our temperature range, with an average of 2C. We got just shy of 100mm of rain (99.4mm), with 19 days of rain, 21 ground frosts and 13 days of no sun whatsoever. The best part was the -10C days, because the mud gave way to firm footing and everything stayed clean for a short while. The horses preferred this part for sure!
The Farm:
January Week 1:
Although Dan's been making great progress in the Cottage plastering wall after wall, ceiling after ceiling, we did know this cold snap was coming so he's also been doubling up trying to get as many of the critical water pipes more covered than they already are. We've only hit -5C ish so far and we're expecting lower than -10C next week which might not go so well 🤞
Really this week was a bit of a disaster farm-wise but it all happened on one day. Friday. I'll spare the entire story which I've shared elsewhere but essentially, before 8am we had two heating-related issues in different buildings. The first was in the farmhouse, where Dan and I felt the cold the second we woke up (we're camping in here remember). This chill was caused by the biomass boiler burning through it's fuel inlet pipe (again, this has happened before!).
The second was in the cottage, where the entire contents of the central heating systems water had been deposited between the ground floors ceiling and first floors floorboards due to a leak. By the end of the day, the biomass boiler had been fully serviced and repaired with a 5-star sign-off from the engineers, and the cottage's system was repaired and repressurised, with the escape water pool released into the ground floor. Crisis resolved.
By the end of the day here, Dan had done nothing he wanted to get done, I'd got loads done including the vet and farriers mission with Connie (went well, all clear), and the heating was back working in both properties. The silver lining of this day was that we realised that this is such a small disaster day for us now. When we moved in here this would have been full-blown panic stations. We managed to fix both emergencies within a single day because we know either what to do or who to call, which we've not managed before AND we're better prepared for if it happens again.
Down side is that Dan has some additional ceilings to re-skim but we can't have it all can we!?
January Week 2:
Some progress this week but not as much as we'd have liked truth be told. We've been unfreezing pipes most days which took the longest on Thursday, with 8 hours spent on water pipes alone. The bits Dan had prepped and covered with the trees woodchippings were fine, but some sneaky sections caused a problem that took some time to solve. Farmer Ryan and Dan (plus me, Bryt and the Kittens), worked on it for hours with an industrial blow torch to make sure our guest in the Cottage had water there. Dan lost a day on the cottage here, but he's fairly confident we'll be ready for a milestone the week after next.
Whilst the ground is as solid, the guys cracked on digging more of the knowes (rocky outcrops) out of the field with the big digger and continued to level the next bit of the driveway. They ended up adding upwards of 1ft / 30cm of coarse rock onto the worst bits and are finishing up tomorrow with some finer stuff on the top. This will tip slightly to the south to offload water which should help prevent so many holes here. For those of you who have been down our track (there are a few!), this is the corner near the farmhouse 🤓 They did have to kill off a gatepost and a bit of fencing to get the rock out of the field, but that's an opportunity to widen the field access here - not a bad thing!
Camping in the farmhouse has been rough this week though. With how cold it is outside, this completely uninsulated, draughty, gigantic cave of a house has been bitterly cold on the inside too. We've not cracked how to get the internal temp over 12C, or 14C when cooking, and we can't light a fire either. Between Christmas and New Year I ended up ordering a massive radiator to replace a tiny teeny one in the kitchen (that used to just back up the now-RIP Aga), as that's where I work in the daytimes - with a hot water bottle, hat and gloves.
This room is particularly cold, as the pantry has an external door that isn't draught-proof, the porch door is pitiful at best and none of the internal doors actually close (they've been so wet for so long they're all swollen out of shape). Dan plained them all first so we could close them properly to try to block draughts a bit, and then we both drained the heating system to install this beasty of a rad, but it didn't go to plan (what does!). We did one night without heating and in 12 hours we went from 12C inside to 8.5C and dropping, but we managed to get the system running again the following day.
Sadly, in the re-fill and bleed process, an air bubble or similar must've been blocking the downstairs loo's radiator pipework, so the only bathroom we have was about 5C inside. I spent Wednesday doing a full day of repetitive desk work where, in every break, I fiddled with the bleeds, TRVs and lockshield valves of different radiators. I leant on the oracle - AKA, Dad - to assist with some brainstorming and by the end of the day, our bathroom radiator joined the circuit and I'd balanced everything fully 🥳
With this room on the circuit, our "living box" in the 'north building' of kitchen + bathroom + bedroom has been able to maintain a balmy 15.5C (we can't push it past 16C currently - it's still 25C more than outside!) meaning we've broken the original 12C temperature ceiling. We've calculated through wood pellet bags that this costs around £21 per day to heat. £21. Per. Day. 😱
Of course, with a single layer of OSB and a thin rubber sheet on the lid of the building (our bedroom right now), we can't expect any better at this time of year. Obviously, this will come down a lot both with insulation and warmer weather, but my goodness, she's scary right now!
Humidity inside hangs at 55%-60% so we're now happy with this. The cold spell also gives away today to swing us from -10C to +10C which will be mostly welcomed.
Next week I won't have proper updates first hand, as I'm flying south to the Societies Convention in London, but I'll make sure I gather information from home to share...
January Week 3:
Although I've not been there, because I've been here in London all week, Dan has been managing the situation at the farm where the driveway works were wrapped up (what a difference!) as well as some major works around the farmhouse (glad I wasn't there for the noise and mudbath!). Dan sent updates but the most we've managed in terms of communication is about 1 hour over the entire week which, with so much to discuss, isn't enough! The farmhouse works were split into two parts, groundworks outside and stone work internally.
The groundworks are absolutely essential because the rainwater drains have never gone anywhere other than onto the ground. There is no "drain" - the water sits around the feet of the walls and may or may not run off elsewhere. With stone walls and no damp proof course here, we knew we'd need to redirect water, ideally within the first year, to keep the base of all the external walls drier than they have been previously. The groundwork team began the morning I left, and ended with all the pipework in place to connect to the soakaway (left image). This will take about 180msq of water collection away from the building, improving its ability to cope in wet weather and reducing future risk of rising damp.
The internal team have been making some of the stonework structurally safe after stripping out earlier in the year revealed completely rotten, soaking wet lintels above doors and in the hidden fireplace cubby hole. The replacement lintels took AGES to install because the stonework needed to be reworked to accommodate them, and the walls are a few feet thick of solid granite-like rock. Alas, this is now done, and we have a much reduced risk of disaster when working in these spaces.
Dan has also been plastering and prepping the final areas in the cottage that still need to be carpeted. There's a huge amount still to do this coming week before that (fitting on Thursday!), but we're hopeful we can get it over the line.
January Week 4:
I don't even know where to begin. To update those who aren't in our secret spaces for photography, we'll start with the storm:
Our county was battered by Storm Eowyn, an extratropical bomb cyclone, on Friday. We get storms here often, and at the farm we know to only panic if the wind gusts go above 70mph because this is when damage happens. The local weather station is about 6 miles further inland, behind our bank of hills that we're perched atop, and its top wind gust recorded for the entirety of last year was 64mph, so we're really not used to anything hurricane-level at all. Dundrennan, nearby, recorded 86mph at 9am on Friday and up here our forecast maps climbed from 89-95mph until 12 noon ish. Those in Ireland and the central belt of Scotland will all have experienced this week and probably want to forget it ASAP.
Our priority was animals, so everyone stayed indoors in case debris started flying around, but because the animals (cats, horses and cows) were all on the south side of the farm, we didn't stay indoors. We checked them (mainly Dan) every 30 minutes to also assess if we needed to do an emergency evacuation of any of those buildings if they began to fail, but the Dairy and Granary B (the horses and cats houses), received absolutely zero damage and the animals inside just slept through the day.
Those two buildings, which are directly connected through a doorway, were the only two on the farm to sustain zero damage. Every other building has either minor or medium-level damage and a giant Scots Pine tree in the farmhouse garden snapped clean off at the base. A fruit tree also gave up towards the end of the day, and branches from the trees had blown 150m away and up a 40m incline to rest at the top of the horses field. I could run through the full list, and I probably should because this is now impacting the farm project, so to quickly log them:
Site: Debris site-wide, top of the smaller silo in the yard ripped off, apprehended before smashing into vehicles by Dan and stowed in the arches for now, Scots pine snapped, landed on the telephone cables (balancing on the pole at the moment), fruit tree RIP. In an arc moving east and starting with the farmhouse we have the following:
Farmhouse: Second story window latch snapped, battened and drilled shut 10am Friday, brand new gutter ripped off the wall on the southwest corner, slates missing but otherwise she did damn well.
Arches: Sheets loose, nothing to worry about too much here
Hay barn: Metal siding & timbers/bolts broken, hanging on for dear life in the end and could have been deadly if loose, urgent repair needed
"Car Shed": Part of fibre-cement sheet ripped off the front, landed 2-3 inches away from the front of the car, all good though here.
Cottage: All western eaves (3) have slate lift and some slips, fairly urgent repairs needed. Came off well otherwise considering her position! [Edited to add, worse than originally though, leaks on the eaves that need super urgent repairs]
Dairy: SHE SURVIVED! This was the one Dan & I changed the roof of and it got its biggest test ever, made it through and thank goodness with the animals inside. The eastern side which we replaced would not have survived Friday's storm before with its rotten perlins, damaged trusses and holy structure - glad we prioritised it before this winter.
Granary B: Also no damage, likely because it is sheltered by the cow shed
Cow shed (we're on the west side of the site now): Extensive roof damage. All 115 cows made it through unharmed, as the massive 6ft fibre-cement sheets blew off or down the roof rather than falling through. Damage here could have been much worse, and we were preparing for carnage - a positive.
Granary A: Roof ridge ripped off early on, lots and lots of slates all over, a grain silo shelters the middle section of roof, but the east side had a partial lift. Urgent repairs needed, we have temp covers for electrics inside to tide us over. This roof was just repaired in summer, so this is gutting for us. Water pump cable caught something and snapped clean leaving the cows without water. Repaired by Dan & Farmer Ben yesterday.
Log store: 1 lone fibre-cement sheet snapped. Dan, Grom and I plugged the gap with a new sheet yesterday (right image).
Stalls: Roof windows blew out and smashed on the walkway (all cleared now), slates missing, some mortar damage on the south side, some evidence of roof lift. Mild considering what could have happened here.
+ Every shed we demolished this year (wooden, tin can and ruins) would have failed on Friday, so we're absolutely counting our miracles that we prioritised as we did, because the damage of them flying about is not worth thinking about.
The county was closed for transport because hundreds of trees were over roads with power lines down with them. The main road was cleared overnight, but the smaller roads are still impassable though clearing slowly. Power is back on everywhere I think as of this morning, but some were without for nearly 72 hours. The locals say they've never experienced anything like it and all the farms have damage to sheds to repair, so at least we're not alone with that. Getting hold of roofers, builders and fencers will be very hard now though, and that may set us back.
Storm aside, this week the driveway was completed, the carpet was fitted on the stairs in the cottage (no photos, sorry, I've been elsewhere!), the last bedroom in the cottage has been misted with skirting board fixed, and the plastering is complete for the stairs (it looks AMAZING).
Because of the storm a surveyor we had booked in was cancelled - I have no idea if or when he's coming now as we've had no contact. Everything is a bit upside down right now so I can't say much more, hopefully next weeks update will have a bit more clarity and less unplanned destruction 🙏
[The day after these notes were written up, we filmed the mega update video here, for reference]
January Week 5:
This week was a weird one. Clean-up from the storm was more important but we haven't been able to get any trades on site because the cattle grid right at the top of the driveway was removed on Monday morning.
The earliest we could get roofers on was Monday, but they couldn't get down anyway, so we've had to hang fire and make do. This grid replacement was on the cards since October when, if you remember, the left side of the old, small, homemade-style cattle grid failed when we drove over it with the horsebox 😬 We've been waiting for the right set of days where we don't have a lot of people on site, and that was pencilled in for January. Allan & his team set about the replacement and honestly, they've done a fantastic job!
The new grid is a commercial-grade road-ready one, much wider, much stronger, and also needed a new hole to sit inside. That meant some excavations, drainage checks and concreting before it went into the ground. The bad rain on Monday lost a day for concrete, so the 3 day job became a 4 day job, and then the concrete needed longer to set too, so we were cut off from the outside world till yesterday evening when I returned from another work trip away. Thankfully we had parked a car at the other side of the grid before this work, so I could still get out to go to work.
Whilst trapped in the farm boundary, and with no other humans on site, Dan cracked on with the hallway prep in the cottage. This included popping a lintel in on the cubby hole we created (it'll be a cute coat/boot hole). The electrical work for this has already been completed in December when the bathroom re-fit happened, so it's just a case now of making good and decorating. Dan also laid the self-levelling compound on the floor ready for the floor covering, and he's keen to get this section wrapped up so that all that's left is the kitchen.
Slowly slowly once again, but we really do need trades back on site ASAP.
Side note: Ren (a dog, for those who don't know!) had a check-up appt on Monday too, just a re-exam 9 weeks post-implantation for her second set of stem-cell therapy. The vet is AMAZED by how well she's doing and her stats are 100% level, literally to the percentage, with normal dog range of movement. He said she's super fit, muscle mass is all balanced, and he's very, very happy with her 🥳
Horses:
This goal for me relates to Velia, our rising 4-year-old Knabstrupper mare and the aim is to back her over winter before deciding on what to do next. Pop in foal for 2026, ride away, or let her find a new home with a human who just wants a best friend? We're not 100% sure yet, but she's developing nicely and enjoying having something to do!
Still bad ground here, only this time it's rock solid and covered with ice and bits of snow! I've been doing more "jumping" work, pulling on her back/withers/neck in preparation for weight, and banging about near her whilst she's had rugs changed, grooming etc and I figured on a shoot day (the type with guns), she'd be in all day so at the end of the bangs, I'd see how far I could get.
I made sure she saw me in the other eye and repeated a couple of times on both sides then called it a day. When Dan is free and the ground isn't so bad, I'll lay over her for a few steps and we'll build up further from there. All in all, the most progress we've had in a while and a milestone moment reached! I'm actually super impressed with her because when she first arrived she was scared of her own shadow, you couldn't touch her legs, sides or lumbar area and she'd have gone into orbit at the thought of this moment, so we've made amazing progress even though I haven't spent as much time on her as I'd have liked ❤️
We were then super frozen for a week, the leg-breaking type, so the girls stayed out being horses with plenty of ad-lib haylage (thank you to farmer Ryan for dropping a couple of 4ft rounds in to save our backs morning and night). They came in for a day because the fence battery needed to charge, and they were keen to go back out on the frozen field later on.
We took the week off and Velia has been enjoying her herd turnout as she finally learnt how to eat flowers off the gorse bushes like Tuna and Connie do, without stabbing her lips on the thorns.
Following that, I went away for work but the day before I left she came up slightly lame on her front right. Rested overnight but still lame on the morning I flew, so I did full checks and palpations and took some videos to send to the farrier. No heat, swelling or reactions so I'm 99% sure it's just a bruised sole, which in our field of rock is fairly likely. The farrier agreed that she could go out on the now very soft muddy ground and be a horse, so she's "rested" in the field with her friends for the rest of the month, come sound quickly, and has been happy as larry!
That's January!