Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Showing posts with label gravel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gravel. Show all posts

Monday, 12 July 2010

It's looking more like a drive now and less like a bombsite!


Another day of stone and gravel and stuff....it is looking more like a drive now and less like a bombsite!



Diggerman arrived and set to work and we have been laying geotextile all morning on the dug out drive. We had a quick trip round the corner ( literally, it is just over the fields as the crow flies, although 3 miles by road) to a neighbour who sells gates, fences etc, to order new gates etc for the drive.



Our power went off all morning here, so when we got back from looking at gates Compostman retrieved the camping stove from the store, so I could make much needed mid morning tea for the three of us. It was soooooo frustrating, thinking of all that lovely electricity being generated by our PV's but which we couldn't access....

Then we went back out to do more fabric laying as loads of stone was being delivered after lunch and the fabric had to be ready on the ground!

But, when the lorries got to the quarry there was NO STONE ready.  Grrr. We had to send the lorries to another quarry further away to get the stone, so it didn't arrive until tea time, which delayed the work no end, and cost us more money.
BUT...it is here now and will be spread out tomorrow.

Friday, 9 July 2010

Digging deeper.




This is what our drive looked like earlier this year. Weedy, a mess and not very nice to live with.



So I contacted Ken and his JCB.  He does all sorts of stuff, including drives! This is Ken digging the trench a couple of weeks back, for the armoured cable needed to connect the PV's to the house. Can you see more of the horrible gravel and weeds?



This is today. Ken and a colleague arrived yesterday at 9 am, JCB, tractor and trailer in tow, to remove and reuse (as a farm trackway) all the rubbishy stone on our drive. When it is all gone, they will then lay a lovely new lot of stone and gravel (all local) on top of a geotextile sheet. That should keep out the weeds!



We have had two solid days of JCB activity, with them scraping and tipping and working very hard. We have been hard at work on it as well, shovelling and moving and taking out gate posts etc. The JCB has just left and it is lovely and quiet here now!

And it is already looking bigger and better, even though it has yet to have the stone replaced.

That will happen on Monday :-)

So what have you done today?
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