Dome sweet dome.
Joy of joys, it would seem like spring has sprung; sunshine and no wind, although up here it is easy to be fooled. Tomorrow is St Davids day so summer is still a month or 3 away!! We had a spectacular night sky yesterday with a large Trump (orange) moon, no clouds with what looked like 2 large vapour trails spread across the stars. Very special.
We’ve managed to change the look of Jane’s field this week with the erection of the frame for the “garden” dome and alongside it the start of the creation of a fire pit which will be available for campers to toast marshmallows on, bake potatoes or whet ever takes your fancy. Mulled wine anyone!
K has also planted up the new pond with pond type plants and finished setting turf around the perimeter of the pond and with the rain having gone for now the water level appears to have stabilised; now all we want is some visiting frogs or toads to drop by and populate the new water feature.
She's also been beavering away on the fire pit levelling of the site. I dragged the railway sleepers across the field with the quad and helped to get them into place. On Saturday we took a couple of trips out to “the yard” and loaded up with broken brick rubble to fill in the space inside the sleepers. This will be topped off with some nice stone and finally a large metal bowl will be set in the stone for the actual fire pit.
The idea of the garden dome is for our campers either in tents or in the domes to use as a shared space to chill out in. We plan to have some basic cooking kit, table and chairs and cold water tap. If time allows I may make a pizza oven in the zone. Assuming I can find some decent bricks in the rubble stash. Katherine is carrying out a major garden planting project around the dome in the next couple of months to accompany the trees we planted in the winter.
The last couple of days I got the frame for the garden dome up and we got the tent cover over the frame. At which point we discovered that the factory had changed the design and positioned the door in a different position from that agreed. Not a major problem although it meant I had to dismantle part of the tent frame, remove the door section and refit it in its new position. Frustrating but not the end of the world.
We let the warm sun soften the tent cover and then spent this afternoon pulling the fabric into its final position. Once it’s had a chance to mould itself to the frame and the creases have gone I’ll finally pull it tight down to the ground. Tomorrow I shall fit the solar powered extractor fan which will keep the inside cool in summer and I should also be able to fit the small triangular opening window.
The weather is supposed to stay set fair for the next few days so we hopefully will be able to get the cover on the Hafod dome having had a practice on the smaller garden dome.
With the change in the weather and the longer days our energy production changes from principally wind to nearly all solar PV. In a couple of weeks we will reach the stage where we start washing clothes every day just to use up the power surplus. Sometimes we even wash clean clothes ha ha!.
Solar PV 58.6 KWhr
Wind Turbine 8.65KWhr
Power Created on site 67.25KW
This Sunday’s supper is a treat as we have a haunch of venison that was a gift from a local friend who has some hunting prowess. It’s been in the bottom oven for a few hours slow cooking and smells amazing, just half an hour to wait. Accompanied by Goats Head Soup as a starter (Rolling Stones)
