Repaired.

 

Some repairs are necessary

 We've not had a lot of rain  recently . 

So there hasnt been an obvious  precipitating cause . 

But 

A bit of the perimeter stone wall has collapsed. 

And removing the loose stones leaves a slightly bigger gap.

And I found this in the wall as i removed the loose stones 

And cleaned up a bit........

 I wonder if its possible to date the can ?  . Which could give an indication of when the wall was last worked on . 

The wall and the ducks

 A wall was heightened to discourage the ducks from exploring . 

Over the last few weeks some of them have been getting out and it has taken a while to spot where 

But we think we found the low spot 

 

So ive added few stones 

A landslip

 It must have been some of the heavy rain,. but a part of  of the drystone wall next to the road has collapsed. 

 

 

 From the road the wall stops and then re-starts

 

 

And the gap from the garden

And this is the bit that has slipped down the slope.

Leaving a bit of wall. 

So there is a bit of work to do !

Moving a tree

 

 

So it was decided that we need to transplant a tree.  Not one of the bigger ones. But this one  - growing out of a wall . 

 

 

 

 And at the same time I could perhaps do something about the walling that was a bit iffy. 

 

 It hadnt actually all fallen off (yet) , but was probably a matter of time

 

So the tree : 

 First. take down the bit of the wall that is in the way. 

 

 

 see how deep the roots are  going. In this case, not very - in fact going horizontally. ive no idea why all the earth has built up on the wall, but the tree has made use of the fact. 

 Remove tree and transplant somewhere a bit more favourable 

  

 

And rebuild the wall. 

 

 

 

And the robin - it was  hanging around whilst all this was going on . 

The Wall

 We have 2 lots of ducks. The Indian Runner ( 'Jemima Puddleduck' ) ones, who lay -relatively-  more eggs and that we intend to breed from , and the other ones , that we have had for years - the Bugherov ducks. The latter lot are keen to explore and will go to extreme ends for food. This includes hopping over the wall that keep the Indian Runners separate. This could cause us problems when it comes to breeding.

So SOMETHING MUST BE DONE 

So we wondered whether we should get a fence put . But they can squeeze through the regular fencing wire . So the wall needed to be extended

 The excuses
- It's a while since I sent on the drystone walling course
- Im using field stone ( the stuff thats lying around) rather than quarry stone.
- I need to extend the wall and to take it down completely and rebuild would be a lot of work
- ( and im not very practiced at this)

And its an opportunity to sort this out - the wall just pokes out a bit . Not sure why
Perhaps to make it easier to step over ? . Or there is a hidden cache of something  in the wall?

So a couple of days later

 ( and the anomaly was just stones sticking out of the wall -  nothing hidden, no idea why it was like that)

The fist bit of the wall has some dense vegetation growing so I thought that would stop the ducks , so i didn't bother doing that bit.

Silly me

And here's where they were hopping through. 

This should stop them   ( i hope!)

Wall repair

And a bit of the dyke collapsed over the winter.  And weve got round to fixing it .

Before

After - a bit of the fuscia buch has been removed and  the wall rebuilt

And as always - there are a few bits left over .

Only 2 more to repair.

Keeping off the grass

Finished Product

 As part of the tidying up after  the building work, they put a load of gravel on the drive - it was getting a bit thin in places. And this was fine, except that it spilled over onto the grass. Come the summer  and grass-cutting the gravel and stones will will trash the blades of the mower. And also theis stuff will follow gravity and successive rains will probably wash the gravel downhill  and onto the grass ( again) . So I thought I'd better build a small retaining wall.

Before

 The first step is to dig a bit of a hole and then put some flat, wide and solid stones down to act as the foundations. I dug a hole. And found a cable. I suspect its the telephone line coming  into the house. I found it a while back , where it enters the property

 




So not sure what will happen if I (gently)  put a big slab over it , the wall was moved 6 inches further away. For a while I've  been making a big pile of stones suitable for walling  and now was the time to go and get them. In digging for the foundations I also found a couple of other large stones  that got dug out , relocated and included in the wall.

starting

and on a bit more

  Ideally Id have liked to have put in another course or 2 but haven't easily got access to the stones. So ive made do with what I had . I can always come back and extend it (upwards or sideways) when supplies of suitable materials improve