What Keeps Me Out of the Workshop

[awemawson]

I decided that this spring I wanted to build a second Pig Sty - or rather Pig Palace as it's construction is rather OTT.

Decided where to put it, got builders in to quote, then wasted weeks waiting for a date that they could start. Then eventually decided I may as well get on with it myself - if I could find a half decent brickie it should fly up once I'd done the ground works.

So this is what I'm replicating - originally built using materials left over from another project, it's a pig yard 6 metres square with a sty in one corner and brick pillar and scaffold pole containment.

Should be able to get it done before the complications of lambing start 

[awemawson]

So first of all I needed to intercept the existing surface water drain that runs to the stream from the current pig sty, and trench up to the new location, lay the drain and back fill so the roadway is passable where it runs

[awemawson]

Then having backfilled the trench I could start excavating 14 cubic Metres of farm yard to place the slab. The ground rises so I had to remove a wedge of yard and the upper sty wall will act as a retainer when the yard is reinstated. There will be a perforated land drain at it's base leading to a branch of the drain in the pictures above.

The new sty will be 6 metre by 4 metre yard, so slightly smaller than the original

[awemawson]

Then I set the form work up (new scaffold boards sprayed with diesel to stop the concrete sticking) and could set the 'Aco' storm drain channel in place on concrete haunching prior to laying the main slab.

There are reinforcing bars pushed under the Aco to join the two parts of the slab

[awemawson]

Then I needed to set the reinforcing mesh in place to get ready for the big concrete pouring day

[awemawson]

Now even with a spinning laser level I find it hard to get a surface like this truly uniform - it's not level as there is a 50 mm slope from one side to the other. The form work was spot on to the nearest mm but precisely how much the thickness deviated from the nominal 200 mm was not certain. The volume was a nominal 4.4 cu M.

Buying readymix concrete poses a few problems. A full lorry load is either 6 or 8 cu M. Order less than a full mix and you pay a surcharge for the empty space, and if you get your estimate wrong you either have an embarrassing shortfall or you have a heap of the stuff to dispose of 

So I tracked down a magic 'mix on site' lorry that uses a worm screw to mix, and has hoppers for cement, sand and aggregate.  They deliver exactly what you need with no fuss, and the price is very similar to ready mix so long as you take more than 4 cu M

[awemawson]

So the lady driver / operator turned up on the allotted day and squirted 4.8 cu M of concrete which went down a treat.

After a day or two I drilled and chemically anchored 20 mm rebar vertically where the pillars will be - superb stuff the chemical anchor gunge. Sets rock hard even allowing me to bend one or two of the bars that had come to rest not quite vertical

[awemawson]

OK now I'm ready for Brian the Brickie. Brian is semi retired - nice chap but not the neatest worker I've met. So far he's done a day and a half and I'm waiting for his return when the weather is suitable

Those stacked bricks I bumped out waiting for his return hopefully in a day or two

[awemawson]

So of course with all the time delays involved the lambing season overtook me 

We have an ex Chinese army inflatable field hospital tent that we've used for probably fives seasons so far as a 'lambing shed'. It's about 10 metres by 7 metres. We put it up in the orchard so close to the house, and bring the Ewes into the orchard when their time is close. So this year we got it set up in good times, and set out the berthing cubicles all ready for them well ahead of time (got caught out last year and had a bit of a panic!)

 

[awemawson]

Now I've learnt from previous years to fix this tent down well. Instead of the 1/2" 18" long tent pegs, the main guys at the four corners and two gable ends are lashed down to 4'6" long chestnut fence posts driven well into the ground at 45 degrees to allow a bit of tension to be applied.

On time the first Ewe presented us with a pair of ram lambs

[awemawson]

Nicely tucked away in the 'delivery ward' we went to bed thinking all was well. In the night the wife woke me worried about the strength of the wind - certainly is sounded a good gale force.

So 3 am found us wrestling with a tent that had pretty well completely deflated encompassing Ewe and Lambs in a flapping shroud, while the wind drove rain horizontal - not a nice situation. I started up the '140 cfm road compressor' that we inflate it with, but the punctures were too large to make any progress. We managed to get her reasonably secure in one remaining corner, lashing the rest  of the canvas down any which way to prevent it taking off like a hang glider 

We crawled back  to bed and I spent the little remaining dark hours wondering what the heck I was going to do with the other Ewes and lambs as they popped out.

I think that what had happened was an inflated tube had chaffed against a sheep hurdle, puncturing it, and then progressively more and more got holed as it collapsed onto the other hurdles.

[awemawson]

The Ewe and her lambs survived the night.
 
What to do

Lots of possibilities came to mind but none could happen fast enough. The only practical solution was to clear out a lean too that I  have on the side of my workshop.  It held 10 'jumbo bags' of dry logs, fork lift truck, concrete mixer, vibrating road roller and all the sort of junk that gets piled into places. A good days work saw it cleared out and stalls set up ready for the next birth, and the tent dismantled and packed away until there is time to see if it is repairable.

Unfortunately this now means that each time we have a new birth (9 so far, 27 to go if the scanning is accurate) I have to take a tractor and stock trailer across two fields to collect her and probably return an earlier birth to the orchard to make room for the next patient - and as the ground is still VERY soft this is churning up the fields rather badly.

Spent today stacking the logs in the wood store so at least they are out of the way 

  So not much workshop time 

[hermetic]

bad luck with the tent andrew, i feel for you. and that is definitely a farm run by an engineer! Some of the farms I used to work on installing dryers and electrical equipment were hell holes. I love those detached Maison de Cochon!!
Phil
East Yorkshire

[vtsteam]

 You've been a busy man, Andrew!   

[Ginger Nut]

I bet your shed looks a real Pig Stye 

Nice job soon you'll have fresh rashers n crackling

Lamb's too  not sure how you fathered that one  Will you end up with a woolly jumper from the fleece?

[RobWilson]

  Bloody hell Andrew ! , thats a lot of graft mate   


Rob



 

[mattinker]

Good luck with the lambing! It look like your going to have to build a lambing shed before next year!!

All the best, Matthew.

[vtsteam]

Andrew, forgive me but I woke up this morning with this image in my head of your tale here and the story of the 3 pigs........

I like the bricks option.....   

[awemawson]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

It's currently a case of geography - things are in the wrong place! We're thinking of trying to create a sheltered place for the sheep closer to the barn for next year but it depends on a hedge we planted growing fast enough!  Some of you will remember the huge pile of earth I shifted a year or two back, with the 'gate to nowhere' left isolated - well it's been incorporated into a double fence line and planted with native species to give the sheep cover in the future, but it's really only just starting to grow - I doubt it'll be ready in time for next year. May need to invest in some windbreak fine netting and make a corner of the field their haven.

Still, looking on the bright side, Brian the Brickie turned up again today (Saturday) so the Pig Palace is progressing, and he'll be back Easter Monday to get a bit more done. 

[awemawson]

So today brought Brian the Brickie back to the farm, and also a clutch of new lambs. The score so far is thirteen survivors and one still born. Only another twenty three to go 

Progress on the new Pig Palace is 'reasonable' - second pallet of bricks bumped out, so that's 1000 either laid or stacked in 'ready to lay' piles. He's returning Bank Holiday Monday, so hopefully I'll see a bit more progress then.

The visitors have started to arrive to see the new born lambs, which is nice but very time consuming. Oddly none of them accept the offer of working the night shift - can't understand for a minute why ever not 

[Zadig]

Andrew, let me know when you will be taking bookings for paying guests, I'd like to reserve the first two weeks in August!

Looks fantastic.

[awemawson]

.... well we do have two holiday cottages on the farm :

http://www.cottages4you.co.uk/cottages/lower-marley-farm-apple-cottage-27442

And there are a couple of newly cleaned out bays in the emergency lambing shed that have nice clean straw at the moment ...... 

[awemawson]

Well Easter Monday and Brian the Brickie has been back and put in another days work, while Penny and I have been sheep wrangling

[awemawson]

Today I screeded the floor of the actual sty. This has two advantages - firstly rain water tends to stay outside, and secondly, as I've sloped it outwards, if the sow's caught short in the night it'll all run outwards 

Only five mixer loads of screed   

[Zadig]

...as I've sloped it outwards, is the sow's caught short in the night it'll all run outwards.

Definitely sounds like my kind of place!