Thursday 22 November 2012

Granite Walls

For the past few days I've been shifting lumps of granite.  It's rather heavy.  1.6 kg per Litre (compared with water which is 1:1)  Each piece weighs about 25-30 kg (and keeps me fit)
The granite has been lying about in the yard cluttering up the place, so I've collected it all up into one corner to build a retaining wall.  Geotextile keeps the weeds out of the cracks, and a drainage channel filled with gravel runs along the front - here it is, "work in progress":
 
And here is one I made earlier...
CT

Friday 16 November 2012

Warming the Cabin

Preparations for the winter are moving on... 6 tons of firewood are chopped and stacked to dry, and a new drain has been laid the length of the driveway, to catch the rain and take it out and down the hill, instead of the previous arrangement, which brought the rainwater through the building.

What we hope will make the most difference, though, is the new jacket that we've put onto the cabin - turning another wall into a warm wall instead of a cold wall.  We took off all the cladding. filled the walls with 10cm of insulating material (the full thickness of the wall), added the jacket (a further 3cm which should also have the benefit of stopping the wind whistling through) and replaced the cladding.  Although it would have been even better to install a total of 20cm of insulation, the structural restraints made that impossible, and 13 cm is what we've got - with 13cm of insulation we'll  be considerably warmer than before!

 


We've also re-hung the black fleece blanket/curtains on all the windows, and will add a second insulating lining to each of the curtains

Monday 12 November 2012

Cake that's good for you!

healthy & naughty!
For the past few months we've been setting up a cake business:  My friend Tefi is the cake maestro, experimenting in her fabulous kitchen with new and delicious ways to make cake.
  • Some of her cakes are fat-free (so you can eat more! without adding to your fat-intake)
  • Some of them are gluten-free (not just for the non-wheat-eaters: you'll be amazed by the lightness of many of the gluten-free cakes - order one and share it with yourself!
  • Many of the cakes on offer are vegetable-based (Instead of boiled carrot for supper, why not eat cake? - Try the famous "Carrot King"
  • Some are not at all healthy - but full of delicious goodness and extremely naughty.
  • All are absolutely divine - take a look for yourself: www.englishcakefactory.com
You can choose to look at the website in English or Turkish, but it only went "live" this morning, so we're still working out some glitches.  And by the way, delivery is FREE - but only to addresses in the Beyoglu-Mecidiyekoy-Levent corridor (Beyoglu/Sisli/Besiktas municipality areas) 

Organic Cake, coming soon...
A secondary objective is to make the cakes not only healthy but also mostly Organic - so we'll be growing some of the ingredients for the cakes here on the farm... eggs, squash, strawberries, and buying Organic from other Organic farms for the remaining ingredients... (or follow the cake-blog, at www.englishcakefactory.blogspot.com
C.T.

 

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Caring for Bees

For the past month I've been learning about bees - three evenings a week and a practical session at the weekend.  So my confidence with the bees has increased - but unfortunately nobody has sent them on a course to learn about humans, so the other day they were very cross and we both got stung several times!  At the moment, they are busy getting ready for winter, and we're feeding them with bee-cake (made from honey, powdered sugar & pollen) each week to keep them nourished. 

We started off with two colonies at the beginning of the summer, then divided one at the end of the summer, so we're now taking care of 3 hives. Bees are social insects living together in a hive, and the care of bees is incredibly important, since they play a fundamental role in our sustainability. They collect nectar and pollen and turn it into honey, and while visiting flowers in their pursuit of nectar and pollen, cross-fertilziation is achieved,. Without this we would not have many of our basic food products, and, perhaps even more importantly, plants would fail to make seeds for future generations.  So caring for bees is not only a rewarding hobby, but actually our social responsibility.
CT
 

Friday 21 September 2012

Well cleaning

When we first discovered the well, a few years back, it was so infested with blankets of slime and nastiness, we poked it with a stick, decided it wasn't very deep (or exciting), made a secure cover, and then more or less forgot about it.  This summer there's been a water crisis in the village, so we decided to open it up and investigate what sort of well we have...
For the last 3 months we've been pumping out the water, removing buckets of slime/rubbish/plastic/glass/rubble/wire/mud, then letting it fill up again - and at 5 metres down we still haven't reached the bottom.  Soon our ladder will not be long enough, so we'll have to dangle off it to mine the slime pit..

As and when we do reach the bottom, the next question will be how we set up a management/pumping method to make best use of it.

Monday 16 July 2012

Gorgeous Garlic


How much is enough garlic? We planted some garlic in December last year - 2 kg: we ate fresh garlic all through the late Winter & Spring (probably about 3 stems every 2 days or so) and picked just over 5 kg of dry garlic heads in June.  That allows us approximately 100grams of garlic per week through the year - nowhere near enough!  Also, when I've got a basket of gorgeous garlic sitting there looking at me - I just feel like using even more than usual... so it may never be enough.  The moral of this story is that we should plant more next year...
CT

Saturday 14 July 2012

Ederli and the tea factory

Ederli came from Brazil to "workaway" with us last week, and we heard all about his family tea business back home in the South of Brazil, producing tea. So while he was with us we arranged for him to meet and tour two of the local tea factories in Yalova: Akdem & Evcay, both of which kindly hosted Ederli and sent him away with a heap of great ideas - and samples! He's a graduate in Business Administration, and after completing this trip, is expected to return home and take over the reins of the family tea business, so the experience of seeing "our" tea production will be invaluable.



Ederli's company grow Mate tea, and here in Yalova theycombine it with various herbs to make a number of different herbal & health teas. Both Akdem & Evcay blend and produce fruit, spice and herbal teas, as well as a range of other products made from the same ingredients. They travel the country collecting herbs and spices from the wild, and the Yalova model forest is one of their primary resources. The products are collected in the villages, and a comission agent is responsible for the local organisation, and sending to the factory for processing. Bulk orders are made up for the herbalists, and tea-bags for sales through the supermarkets. Buy them and try them for yourself!
CT

Friday 22 June 2012

drip irrigation

Getting the old drip lines out of the container: (Bruno supervising)

Three years ago when we moved, we picked up yards and yards of drip lines from the old strawberry beds, which were coiled round and packed into the container - now they are all working once again, connected up round the field and delivering water drip by drip to the newly planted trees. You just never know when something might come in useful! -again.
CT

Monday 18 June 2012

civ civ civ civ !!

Four chicks!  Pinky has successfully produced four beautiful civ civs in four colours: white, off-white, pink & grey-ish black.  Today they are 6 days old and have been out of the flower pot for a walk.



And another hen (maybe) is sitting on some more eggs: Darky decided she wanted to sit on eggs last week and she is adamant - attacking & pecking anyone who dares to steal her clutch... So each day we duly removed the eggs she had claimed, and each day she obstinately refused to come out of the loft and just sat there in the heat, brooding.  So on Saturday we decided to allow her four eggs - but to keep her separate I made a nest for her and her eggs in a large flower pot.  She ate all the food, drank the water, then took a flying leap, jumped out and called for Cocky to come and rescue her - which he did; she ran off after the other hens and I took the eggs & put them in the fridge. (scrambled eggs for lunch that day).
Sunday we had the same procedure, and I ended up chasing a delinquent hen, so today she's securely shut up inside the flower pot with fresh hay, feed, water, and some eggs and a roof she can't escape through.
All this means that there's not an egg to be had in the house - this morning's muffins had to be made with yoghurt to stick them together, no eggs left!
Cost per egg (CPE) also remains high, no longer reducing by the day, and our eggs are (thus far) at least 3 times more expensive than buying eggs from the shop. But so-oo delicious.
CT

Sunday 10 June 2012

Planting a forest

We've been planting trees for the past month or so... planting into unresponsive solid ground is heavy, slow work, and dragging water to them every couple of days is also slow, heavy work.  But it's so exciting!! We're planting a mixed forest garden, creating a varied mix of species around the perimeter of the property: lots of prickly things to discourage browsing by grazing (Pyracantha, Hippophae, Berberis), nitrogen-fixing plants to nourish the soil, (Eleagnus, Acacia), fruit trees (Almond, Pomegranate, Plum), firewood trees, forest trees, and loads of natives (Native to Turkey).
As well as the trees, we're also planting bushes to fill in the spaces in between, and together we're expecting them to give the field a rich hedge-row enclosure: to encourage bees, birds and other wildlife, without compromising the spaciousness of the property: The area being planted is 450 metres long, and about 3 metres wide.  150 trees & 450 shrubs.
They're going to need watering for the rest of this year (next rains are 4 months away), but after that will be on their own.  The planting mix is designed so that taller growing trees provide shade to smaller plants, which in turn shelter the base of the taller trees and keep the ground cool.  Mulching our young forest trees will be next winter's task.
CT

Thursday 26 April 2012

Sera saga sequel

Sera being Turkish for polytunnel
A couple of weeks ago having decided that winter might at last be over and with a crew of willing hands, the time had come to take down our somewhat wrecked polytunnel.


This was easier said than done.  First the extremely heavy , wet soil holding the polythene cover down had to be shifted  (Note four footed supervisor).


Then the polythene had to be rolled up and removed


Next all the carefully fitted nylon reinforcing lines had to be removed and coiled up.


Finally the framework was removed

In some ways we were lucky.  Because of the way the tunnel collapsed in the centre, it actually left us the equivalent of a long, rather low U shaped tunnel, which left most of our planted beds unaffected.  I did take to wearing an old builders hard hat when venturing inside after clanging my head on the frames several times.

Our local Sera frame builder tells us that some people lost ten tunnels in the winter, which was apparently "The worse for forty years".   The local gurus of such things have now decided that the reinforcing lines are not a good idea as they stop the snow sliding off. (These sages include the man who sold us the line in the first place.)

Many thanks to Aishling, Juan, Allen and John for their hard work taking the tunnel down and belated thanks to Val, Helen and Bruce for helping us put it up in the first place.

AG

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Tramping

Val introduced us to tramping : New Zealand-ish for going for a walk.
So today we went tramping: 16 km round trip to the next village for brunch and then home again.


setting off


en route

rustic bridge (to nowhere except a field)


A well earned Turkish breakfast


Return trip

On our way back home through the village someone noticed the dogs were looking a bit tired... the poor things.  We were a bit tired too.
CT

Friday 20 April 2012

Chickens

In theory (we thought) there are two easy ways to be sure of getting some protein into our home-grown diet:

  1. Fish
  2. Chickens
Originally the shack had been a fish farm, so fish seemed to be the obvious choice to start with, but unfortunately ground subsidence has cracked the ponds and they no longer hold water - so fish production is on hold until the little issue of leaky ponds gets resolved.

On to Plan B: Chickens.  We tried the market (day old chicks for a lira apiece - no staying power! None of them had any will to live).
Then we tried the neighbours: full of promises but no delivery - the promised chickens failed to materialise
Then I tried the butcher's wife, generally a reliable source for nearly everything, but she too, got distracted and hasn't got round to it yet.
Finally I asked the feed man, who told me about a customer (I'm going to call her the chicken lady) who wanted to sell her chickens, and today I visited her house, and we are now the proud owners of 6 chickens.  The chicken lady and I are the same age, and we got along famously.  Her son and Moroccan (French-speaking) expectant daughter-in-law live at home with her, but she recently lost her husband, and wants to go and visit (possibly permanently) with her daughter who lives on the South Coast, but she can't leave the chickens, and the neighbours and daughter-in-law are not sufficiently diligent in taking care of them when she's away, so she's been looking for good homes for them.  So we had coffee together and I was vetted and scrutinised, and eventually I must have passed the test, because only then was I invited to go and see the chickens! We were introduced, and I wrote down their names.
They were gently collected up, the chosen ones gathered up and popped into a sack, I paid, we said goodbye and the chickens and I came home.

CT


Friday 6 April 2012

Volunteering


We maintain a list for all the little and big tasks that there are to be done in, on, and around the property, all of which are deemed essential stepping stones towards reaching the goal of a low-maintenance & sustainable life (still some way off, I'm afraid - but we're working on it!).  
Last year the list was huge.  This year it's even more huge and daunting.  Enter the volunteers: through three websites, people who want to join us and take part in the work along the route can find us and we can find them - something like a dating agency without the romance factor!  So now we provide food and accommodation for a steady stream of people staying with us, in return for having many pairs of hands to work on the various projects that we've got going.  So far this year have been John & Allen from the US, Aishling & Joan from Ireland & Catalonia, & Callum & Cath from Australia.  Together we've dismantled the broken poly-tunnel, planted seed, built filled & planted a new raised bed, chopped & stacked wood, planted strawberries, sanded down and re-oiled the outdoor furniture, re-enamelled the gas hob, and eaten some wonderful meals together.


The internet has, of course, facilitated all this - it is what enables us to find one another and decide to spend time together - and everyone benefits.  Of the 3 websites we've joined, Workaway is, in my opinion, the best.  The website is user-friendly and it's easy to find out about one another (hosts & volunteers) and have sufficient information to make the right choices.  Helpx is similar, works equally well, and is an older website without the subtleties of Workaway website design.  Catching up with them both is TaTuTa, the Turkish representative of WWOOF (willing workers on organic farms).  If you are thinking of travelling, or learning how to do something, or if you have offspring setting off on the proverbial "gap-year" then these four websites provide a useful point of contact for hosts & volunteers - keep up the good work!
www.workaway.info
www.helpx.net
www.bugday.com/tatuta/
www.wwoof.org

Sunday 25 March 2012

Daisy chains

The sun has started to bring out the daisies in the fields and meadows, and after weeks and weeks of snow it has been a real pleasure to see the spring grass growing again.  The warm weather has brought everyone out into the sunshine.  The other day while marking out fencing and tree-planting positions in the top field, a group of very small children came onto the meadow, with their Grandma.  Grandma came over to see what we were doing, and to tell us how we ought to be doing it, and the children all told me who they were and all about their brothers and sisters.  After a while we picked daisies, and I showed them how to make a daisy chain - Grandma was amazed -"Oh! so you know how to do that - do they have daisies where you come from?" we all shared daisy chain stories, how you can make earrings, and bracelets, and coronets for your hair... and how everyone makes them everywhere.
CT

Thursday 15 March 2012

Living with wasps


These are the XXL wild wasps that were already living in the cabin when we moved in.  The photo is taken from the inside, after they moved out & we had removed the interior tongue-&-groove to find them (using a stethescope!).  They had their own entrance, through the outside cladding under the window edging, and apparently lived in tiers of residential units.  Previously we had tried enticing them out with baits and traps, because they were obviously uncomfortable with us moving in - they couldn't sleep at night, and dozens of them would kamikaze dive-bomb the lights and the window panes, only to be swept up and thrown out in the morning.  They finally moved out as the weather got cold in the Autumn.  The interesting part is that although it was hard living together, (we did so for several months,) we were neither stung nor attacked by them.
CT

Friday 2 March 2012

Boar-getting

One evening last week while getting ready to settle down for a winter evening by the fire, my phone rang. An excited voice (a neighbour aka young handsome crack-shot boar-hunter) asked if we wanted a boar - freshly killed.  Naturally we abandoned the cozy fireside, pulled on wellingtons, put ropes, a shovel, tarpaulin and torches in the car and raced off to the square to pick up "our" guide.  Three huge men piled into the back seat, and off we drove to the top of the village, left the car at the side of the road, and one party set off with the gear into the bush, while I stayed behind in the car with Mr senior hunter.  All in the dead of night in the freezing cold.  For a while we could see their torches flitting in and out of the scrub, then all was quiet, as we chatted together to pass the time....
In due course the boar-getting party re-appeared, seeming to race down the slope, and we set off in the car to meet them at the edge of the next field.  Negotiating a fence took a while, but eventually we were all re-united at the roadside.  Just as we were contemplating how to heave a dead animal into the back of the car, an audience arrived - three cars and the village bus all at once to see what we were up to.

We eventually got to bed in the small hours of the night, leaving the boar hung up safe from the wild things, eviscerated, decapitated & cleaned, ready for another day..  CT

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Wild boar

If you walk in the forest, you'll come across the traces and evidence of wild boar in the woods: their hoof marks in the mud or the snow, their droppings on the paths, or boar-sized tunnels through the undergrowth.  If you drive through the forest at night, there are so many of them that you'll probably catch sight of them in the headlights - they seem to be almost equally surprised to see you as you are to see them!
The boar scavenge and collect most of the forest-floor edible items, edible mushrooms, berries & edible roots. they get into the fields and ruin the crops by eating them but also by trampling over the whole field and destroying what they don't eat.
Among the village hunters there are several groups that hunt the boar on a fairly serious level, successfully killing a few each year, and since moving into the village we've been acquiring freshly killed animals on an occasional basis (generally at dead of night).  This gets processed into joints of meat, mince & sausages for us, as well as meals for the dogs.  Boar is lean, low-fat, tasty meat.
CT



Tuesday 14 February 2012

trekking

Trekking in the forest has officially been recognised and ten official routes have been identified and mapped, as part of the Yalova forest strategic plan.  You can look at maps and videos of the walks here: http://yalovatrekkingparkurlari.com/TrekkingParkurlari/index.html
enjoy!
CT

Thursday 9 February 2012

Why Compost?

Making compost seems one of the primary methods for us all to do our bit towards saving the planet!  If we could all reduced the amount of waste we created by processing it into a useful product (compost), we would each be contributing to maintaining the planet and saving energy.  Nowadays, even my friends, mother, and her friends who live in flats in cities, are composting their rubbish - every little helps.
So why should we all be making compost?

  • It keeps your rubbish in the kitchen more hygienic & clean - ie, not smelly and disgusting!
  • You can go for longer before you have to empty the bin (good for busy lives)
  • The finished product nourishes the garden
  • It can be done on quite a small scale, as well as at the industrial level
  • Reduces the volumes & therefore the energy used in municipal transportation

Anything biodegradable can go in the compost: ideally the target is to achieve a ratio of 1:30 Nitrogen to Carbon.  For every 1 unit of green stuff you need 30 units of brown.  Green is obvious: leaves, stems, pods.  Brown is more difficult to achieve, partly because you need so much more of it: dead leaves, bark, woody stuff, paper, ash from the wood fire, cardboard packaging etc.  The smaller it's cut up the quicker it degrades into rich dark compost (more surface area) which can go out to feed the garden.

How?
The easiest way to manage composting is the aerobic method, using air.  Any sort of container which allows air to penetrate will facilitate composting of the ingredients, but if you can get it nice and hot as well, this speeds it up.  A critical minimum volume of about 1 cubic metre seems to get best results, but composting will occur in much smaller volumes as well.  It works by employing the natural beneficial bacteria which are found in soil, and which work everywhere, making rocks into soil.  They love working in compost because the work is just so much easier!  So when you start up your composting, just add some rich brown soil/dirt/sod to the mixture as a starter, and the bacteria will start working straight away, processing the material you give them to work on.  The smaller the material, the quicker they can work (so shred your paper & cardboard) and the more air that there is, the better they reproduce, so turning the compost as often as possible is beneficial.  You can also add worms, if you want, which keep it aerated and also do lots of digesting.

We use a 3-box method like this: Fill up one cube until it's piled up, then start filling the far side.  Turn the first one into the centre, then the second one into the centre on top of it, while starting the process again.  Every 2 months or so, I am getting compost out to spread on the raised beds.
Here is another type that we're using, (this one is the Mantis brochure-picture) the drum method: you turn the drum daily, and get a barrow-full of compost after 3-4 weeks: Mantis ComposT-Twin is easy to load and unload

And at another scale, here is a picture of composting at the municipal scale at Eco-Solutions' yard in Southampton, which I visited a couple of weeks ago: (finished product on the left)
The Composting Association, whose head-quarters are in Wellingborough, has transformed itself - take a look at www.organics-recycling.org.uk
And also at WRAP, www.wrap.org.uk
CT

Thursday 2 February 2012

Cabin Fever

The snow just keeps on coming down.   There have been a few breaks but very little in the way of a thaw, before more snow falls.   It has now been snowing for a week, with only a few days interlude from the previous snowfall.


According to weather reports this is caused by an area of high pressure,  driving cold from Siberia down and across the whole of Eastern Europe.   There is no promise of any rapid change.
Istanbul, just across the Sea of Marmara,  had its coldest day for over thirty years on Monday.
Living up on the hill,  it is surprising when you get to the bottom of the hill,  down by the sea to find there is not sign of snow there,  although because there is more wind it actually feels colder.   We can also look up to the tops of the hills around us, when it is not actually snowing of course.   The trees up there are noticeably more caked in snow and frost,  there has been no thaw at all up there.


Temperatures here,  including -10 C last night,  are like a mild spring day in comparison to conditions in the Ukraine and Serbia where night time temperatures have gone down to -37 degrees Centigrade.
Although mild cabin fever is beginning to set in,  the only thing to do is keep putting wood on the stove and work on plans for warmer days.

AG

Monday 30 January 2012

See how they grow!

Once upon a time there were two little puppies.
They ate and they ate and they ate, until...




Sunday 22 January 2012

Firewood


Here on our Turkish hillside,  we are surrounded by deciduous woodland.   The local forestry work is carried out by the people who live in the village,  using horses for getting the timber out.   Our firewood for the house generally gets delivered by horse,  although we also get a trailer-load at the beginning of the season in the autumn.   We use two wood stoves,  one heating the living room of the shack,  the other being a range in the kitchen,  used for cooking (and warmth),  all year round.   We’re burning about 6 tons of firewood in a year,  and getting it,  chopping & stacking it,  collecting kindling,  and moving it around,  is a constant occupation.    Mike Abbott, author of “Living Wood” www.living-wood.co.uk  makes some useful remarks and suggestions about processing firewood,  most of which we have either discovered or applied:
  1.  You’ll be lucky not to handle the same piece of wood at least nine times before it gets burned – our target is always to get this number down!
  2.  Store the wood with an open side of the structure facing South: the drying effect of the sun more than compensates for any wetting from wind and rain.
  3. Cut the wood in February when the worst of the winter is over,  but before the sap rises.
  4. Split the logs a.s.a.p. to get maximum drying
  5.  Have a good log storage around the wood burner for final drying.
  6.  Combine your system with solar heating for hot water in summer.

Because we only moved here 3 years ago,  and that was just before a winter set in,  we’ve been on the back foot with firewood,  constantly trying to get enough to be able to store and dry it for the following year.    Burning dry wood is the target – but so far we’ve never had sufficient to be able not to use the fresh supplies  –  touch wood (!) this year we’ll have enough to keep some ready for next year.
The objective is actually to grow our own firewood, so I’ll be planting some saplings in 2012: 100 trees this year in a mixture of species.

Ponies going home, loaded with firewood

The wood shed
CT
PS: Found this exciting innovative heating system: http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

Friday 20 January 2012

Oh Dear!



Re think needed.       (Oh dear!  is the censored for publication version of what was actually said).

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Fur and Feathers


The other day I was standing at a table sorting seeds, vaguely aware of the cat playing around my feet, when she suddenly grabs me by the ankle, I shake her off and put my foot down again – on a dead bird.  Oh joy. There are feathers floating everywhere!
The bird population around here has a difficult time maintaining numbers, so it’s VERY annoying when the cats catch birds (their job is actually to catch the mice & voles, which eat my seeds before they can germinate, and to control snakes).  There are plenty of natural predators, and a good number of hunters who kill birds for sport, so it’s always sad to be disposing of another feathered corpse.
This issue raises a dilemma: should one put seed and food out for the birds when it’s winter?  Bird-food would attract the birds to a known location, the cats would lie in wait, and it would simply act as a trap for cats to catch more birds.  Bird-seed scattered about would also attract more mice.  And chasing the mice come the snakes...  To feed? or not to feed?
The two cats, Mica & Silica, work hard most of the day, hunting and fishing - except for when it rains, when they lounge about waiting for it to stop.  We bring them in at dusk for their own protection from the night-predators in the forest who kill cats (we’ve already lost two to the wilderness).  Thus we strive to maintain natural equilibrium..
CT
and sometimes they find something quite unexpected - toad vs cats: toad wins.

Monday 16 January 2012

Water


It’s all very well choosing to live in a forest, but you do need a little house for protection against the elements, and there are certainly plenty of elements around here.  The shack, originally built as a fish restaurant, has provided us with a place to live while we get ourselves organised.  This is the first item on the list to make living the dream a possibility.

The second need is water.  The availability of clean fresh water is not only a critical factor for our ecological sustainability goals, but also in itself truly wonderful and amazing.  High up on the mountain water is collected from natural springs and fed into a header tank, from where it’s distributed to all the village houses  by gravity feed (no electricity, no pumps).  Apart from a few weeks at the height of summer (when they empty the tank for cleaning) we can rely on drinking water coming out of the tap.  In addition, we’re also the proud owners of a well, completely overgrown, but full of murky black water, which we plan to clean up and use for irrigation.

There’s also a little stream running past the house, separating us from the forest, but creating the sound of running water at all times.  It helps to create the calm, peaceful and tranquil ambience of the place.  It also undermines our foundations and stops us hearing the telephone ringing or the bell at the gate – so if you come by, surrounded by all the silence and quiet, you must shout loudly to be heard...

CT

Saturday 14 January 2012

Then the snow

I said yesterday that the season that surprises people is winter, today it surprised me.
After yesterdays blue sky and sun, today dawned with rain, which by mid morning had turned to snow.
By this afternoon I needed the snow chains on the car to get home.



So far we have 5"-6"  (12-15cm), and still falling.

AG

Sun - In January?

If you tell anyone in England that you live in Turkey it is almost always assumed that you must be some where on the south or east coast.   The most common comment is usually along the lines of   "Oo! lovely weather, must be warmer than it is here."

For what we are doing,  that is growing things,  it is lovely weather,  but probably not quite what they mean.

We are actually in North West Turkey.   Here we get four very distinct seasons.   Spring and Autumn are very similar to England.   Summer is dry, and can be very hot in July and August.   The season that surprises people is Winter,  it rains a lot,  we get very cold winds,  directly across the Black Sea from the steppes of Russia,  and we frequently get snow as well.  We are only an hours drive from one of Turkeys main ski resorts.

The thing is, it is green around here,  the forest surrounding us is only here because of the amount of rain. The hills soak up the water like a sponge and the vegetation and trees look surprisingly green even at the end of the summer.
Bearing that in mind it would be churlish to complain about the weather..... but it was lovely to see the sun today.
Because of our location  "Up the Hill and Round the Bend",  we are actually in a hanging valley.  Rain clouds are blown up into the valley and then can't get out.
We have had one such "pet cloud" with us for over a week, sitting there above us and raining.   However the wind must have got up in the night because this morning it was gone, replaced by sun and blue sky,  and very welcome they were.

Please note I will not vouch for the accuracy of my meteorological comments, but they convey the impression you get from here.

AG

Saturday 7 January 2012

Do not get distracted

I should know better by now.   You start one job,  get distracted by something else and the first one turns round and bites you.

When covering a polytunnel,  whenever possible start with a nice even set of frames carefully erected and level with each other.  You then stand a good chance of getting a nicely tight cover that easily sheds the rain and snow.

If you like more of a challenge,  or as in our case you are using what is available,  you put up a distinctly secondhand set of rather distorted and mismatched metal frames,  which had already done their duty on at least two other sites.
The new cover went on well,  the carefully fitted nylon reinforcing lines strung at 20cm spacings down the length of the structure,  to stop the snow loading bursting the polythene,  looked good.    Because of the rather uneven profile, the new polythene cover did seem to flap in the breeze more than other peoples,  but it would be fine,  wouldn't it?

The first snow of the winter melted,  leaving a series of pools of water between the reinforcing lines,  the slack in the plastic was transformed into a series of distended pockets of water,  particularly on what might be called the "upper slopes" of the tunnel,  where the gradient naturally flattens out and even more so where some of the frames have become rather more semi-ovoid than semi-circular.

A solution was needed,  the problem was that parts of the tunnel were too low and flat,  it needed its ridge line raising in a couple of places,  this would also improve the look of it and might cure its resemblance to a broken backed sea monster.   A couple of posts under strategic frames should sort it out.

This is not a small polytunnel.  The frames span about 10 metres and are substantial 60mm diameter tube,  gravity and the natural spring tension in the frame were both resisting any effort to lift it.  All the convenient posts I had were rather too short.   So the plan was, locate the post under the frame,  put a hydraulic jack under the bottom of the post and pump;  up goes the post lifting the frame,   then replace the jack with a permanent support.   All went well, rather too well,  which was where the distraction came in.
Fascinated by the success of the plan I climbed a stepladder to assist the emptying of the pockets of water.    Sadly I had neglected the final step of the plan, replacing the jack with a more secure support.    Over went the jack,  down came the post,  down came the frame,  and down went I,  struck a glancing blow by the descending frame.

As I sat on the floor and felt the egg shaped lump growing on my head, I looked up.    It occurred to me that I had not only unintentionally created the worlds biggest mousetrap,   I had then tested it as the 'mouse'.     The lesson is "Do not get distracted"

AG

Thursday 5 January 2012

The Shack

We got here quite by accident - two people with over 100 years of life under our belts, find ourselves living together halfway up the "Straw Mountains" on the Pear peninsula in Turkey. Literally "Up the Hill".. then just keep going round the bend (bearing to the left) and you'll find us!

Living on the fringes of one of the world's "model forests" we are gradually upgrading our simple wooden house from "shack" to "cabin" (as assessed by the fond daughters). In keeping with the strategic plan for the Yalova Forest, our target is to set up a sustainable way of life. We hope you will share in our progress as we inch our way towards that goal.
CT