I’ve been putting the floor in the barn/wood shed joined to the house at the farm this week with my brother. The only trouble was when the floor goes in it ruins Dave’s climbing gym where he trains most nights.
Mum and Dad are both big softies so when I suggested we make him an area in the floor to carry on training they agreed, but it did involve quite a bit of extra work.
Once we'd framed out the loft hatch and the cimbing hole with the carcassing timber we completed putting all the floor boards down (this made it easier to complete the frame around the hole as well).
We lined the hole with fair faced WBP ply so it looked better than bare timber. The hole is over twice the depth of the floor and allows plenty of space for his head.
Dave then added his climbing holds and started to show off.
My spoilt little brother, playing in his climbing hole. Maybe I should copyright it!
The days I managed to go to work was the best bit for a change, I’ve got to admit its quite fun working for dad – the drive isn’t though (its not in a tractor!) 
I managed to do lots of little jobs, like putting tin up the side of some of the barns and sealing them up, also feeding the sheep (which aren’t ours) hay as they can’t get to the grass. On Firday I went to a farm sale to have a look and to try and take some photos for an article I’ve written, but it was far too wet and rainy. decided that my boots aren't waterproof as my socks looked like they had just come out of the wash.
I do wish some divine inspiration would hit me on what job I should do next!
We also needed some warming up so I decided to cook one of my childhood favourites – Jam Roly Poly. It’s really easy to make, just add 8oz of self raising flour, 3 oz of suet & a pinch of salt to a bowl. Mix it all with a bit of water, roll it out about 5mm thick and then spread loads of homemade jam on it. Roll it up and pop it in the oven for 40 minutes – Lovely & stodgy! 
Snuggled on the sofa with full bellies I think I ruined the moment by wanting to watch a DVD my Dad had lent me on sheep farming in New Zealand. This was called “Sheep Station NZ” and I’m sure I enjoyed it more than Claire but it was really good. 
Farming over there is so different to what we’re used to. It makes keeping 300 sheep, like we used to, seem like a little hobby! These farms are huge, some having up to 40,000 sheep with over 30 sheep dogs; this was as well as rounding them up in helicopters and controlling wild pigs and goats everyday.
I started by working out the height of the shelves to make sure that the power tool boxes would fit and my tool box that contains my hand tools (which is very heavy) would fit underneath. I also wanted to make sure it could house some stacking boxes to put all my none carpentry items in (electric, plumbing and painting stuff but organised so I can find things).
Cutting the 4 timber posts to length I then marked out the ‘housing’ cuts. I used my mitre saw to trench these out, but you could easily do it with a saw, making lots of cuts and then removing the waste with a chisel. The housing joints mean that the shelves can take a lot more weight as they’re not reliant on mechanical fixings.
The cross-rails then just have to be cut to length and knocked into the housing joints. I’ve decided not to any glue as the temperature is so low it won’t work very well and I might want to take them apart when its time to move on, so I just used 50mm screw. (The screws I used were self cutting but if you’re using cheaper screws you might have to drill a pilot hole first to stop the wood splitting)
With two ‘H’ frame assembled I then needed to connect them up with more rails, I wanted the shelves to be 500mm deep so I took the depth of the two frames off that measurement and cut the rails to length. To make sure they held the frames nice and solidly I notched these rails around the post, they won’t be taking much weight so they’re just screwed into the posts.
For the shelves I used some 9.5mm ply I had left over from cladding the inside walls of my shed. (The items I’m storing span the whole width of the shelf so the ply isn’t important, if it was smaller, heavier items I’d use thicker ply.) I notched this around the posts and fixed it down using 25mm screws
Although the shelves are very stable I still fixed them back to the wall before I filled them up. 
In the end Dave and I just went shooting (as the picture shows I have a terrible habit of dressing like a hill-billy!). I think we both knew we weren't going to see anything as it was snowing quite heavily and any animal with some sense would be tucked up in their burrow. It was nice to go for a walk in the snow though. The animals had obviously been busy as there were tracks everywhere and we both enjoy trying to figure out what had been going on, we even found where a fox had been stalking some rabbits. I hope he had more luck than us!
Forecast is more snow in the night so I don't know if I'll be getting home tomorrow night either.
When I started working we switched to feeding at night only, just chucking the sheep some hay in the morning to give them something to chew. I used to get home on a cold winter night after spending far too long on a cold (and probably wet) building site, warm myself up for half and hour then go and feed the sheep with Dad. This would take upwards of an hour but sometimes a lot more if we had a ewe on lambing, a lamb that wouldn’t suck or a ewe that wouldn’t “take”.
Anyway enough of my ponderings. Tomorrow I’m back on the farm looking at putting an upper floor in the wood shed, I’m going to stay over as in the evening I’m going to an extremely uncool meeting at my mums gardening club about Victorian walled gardens (of which I am a little obsessed). Then I might go for a little spot of rabbit shooting with my brother so I can do a rabbit stew for Claire and I in our new slow cooker.
While I waited a couple of hours for it to cool, I left my rather ill wife at home and went for a nice long walk to the next village and back, using different footpaths. I really enjoyed it, but a couple of the fields were so muddy my boots were twice the size by the end!
When I returned the bags had cooled down so I tipped out the excess water (leaving just a little water in the bottom to keep it moist) and then I added the spawn to the bags. The spawn is carried on dried cereal grains and although the pack says to add it all I just put about a teaspoon in each (it’s like yeast and so long as there is a bit it will grow but it will just take a little longer to multiply). 
I then tied the bags again and shook them up to spread the spawn. Placed near to a radiator they should have the heat they need (but not too much) with a couple of small holes in the top to allow it to breathe. 
2009 definitely had its ups and down. I got married and had the best day ever, travelled to Thailand on our honeymoon, had a great Christmas and New Year with family and friends.
I’m not one for setting New Years resolutions but I do like to set aims for myself, even though they might seem a bit daft to some people:
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