Hello from Romania

[Maykal]

Hello to you too Bill1953!

[Maykal]

Finally got my house in the countryside

Plenty of space for self-sufficiency projects. It has about 6 redcurrent bushes (just harvested about 2-3kg for jam), 3 plum trees, a pear tree, a small and decrepid apple tree, grape vines (probably about enough grapes for 500-600 litres of wine), raspberries, lovage, lemon mint, dill, garlic, strawberries, and probably a few other things I haven't noticed or identified yet.

The house is a Saxon farmhouse from the 1880s or there abouts. Water from the well (although mains water has been installed recently in the street) and an outside toilet. There a bread oven, and lots of barns and shed for animals should I eventually live there full time.

Most of the villagers are more or less self-sufficient, nearly all of them small holders or farmers. The area has vasts tracts of woodland and sustainable forestry is quite big here. There are also some hops farms and a lot of dairy farming.

Plenty of cleaning up and renovating to do, both inside and outside the house.

The dream begins today (albeit slowly and in stages... :D )

[demi]

Congradulations, it sounds lovely

Good luck with everything, I'm sure you've got your work cut out for you!

My husband's on the verge of a nervous break down with our rennovation project and having to manage the smallholding too. He's on the go non-stop as its him and his dad who are doing the majority of the work in the house, and mainly him cycling to the orchard and back everyday to water/harvest/weed ect ect ect. I tag along a couple of times a week with the kids to give a hand, but its really him that's doing all the work.

Next year once the house is finnished, the kids are bigger and we have more time to focus on farming, it should be more relaxed.....lets hope.....

[Maykal]

Hi Demi,

My first major period of renovation starts this weekend with the roof and the chimney stacks. I'm going to (I say "I", but I actually mean the guys I've hired) strip off all the old tiles, keep those in good nick, replace all the battens and lay a membrane, then retile it. I'll have to get my hands on some reclaimed old tiles - can't stand the new ones. I also have to strip down two of the chimney stacks to ceiling level and rebuild them and roof them. There are a couple of rafters that need replacing too, the flashing and the ridging tiles, and a bit of re-rendering. Once it's all done, the house will be nice and secure against rain and snow. So, hoping for a week of solid sunshine. It hasn't rained there for two months and all the neighbours are moaning. Knowing my luck, the moment the last roof tile comes off, it'll piss down!

I'll have to 'project manage' and keep the workers in food and drink, and pick them up and drop them off as they are from a neighbouring village. Anyway, I'll have plenty of time to do a bit of gardening in between keeping and eye on them, so I'll scythe the vegetable garden and maybe see if I can dig out all the weeds and get it in some kind of order so I can think about planting it out next year. If I have any bricks left over, I'll build a bbq too. Oh, and maybe put in a bathroom! Actually, a kitchen might be handy too...lol

[demi]

Good luck! No doubt you'll need it, but i hope everything goes as smoothly as possible for you. We've just had a bit of rain and thunder and lightning, a much needed soaking for the veggies. Hopfully it'll bypass you though, fingerscrossed! :)

Our house is nearly done. Well....i say done, but i mean having the kids bedrooms livable. The upstairs, where we are staying, my husbands gran on the ground floor, is just at the last stages. We've got 2 more bedrooms, just waiting on the doors going in and then touching up the plastering round the door frames, then we can move the kids out of our room and get some peace at last! The family bathroom is just missing the sink and new double glazing fitted in the old window frame. Its starting to look like a proper house now! :) And my parents come on the 8th of August so we need to get one of the new rooms set up as a guest room. Just hope the doors come in time, my husband has been chasing the guy who's making them who has been a nightmare to get a hold of. He promises they will go in on Monday, just a few days before my parents come. Lets hope its done in time or they wont have a door on their room!

[Maykal]

Just got back from the house. I had to stay on another three days to get the roof finished but it was worth it. A lot of work as I had to go around all the local villages looking for people selling old tiles. I didn't want to use new ones, partly because they look too new and orange, and partly because they don't seem a strong as the old ones. Managed to get together about 1500 salvaged tiles in the end. Luckily all the rafters but two were in good condition and didn't need changing, so it was just a case of stripping off all the tiles, replacing all the battens, and putting the good tiles back on. They also repaired two of the chimney stacks. Now I have about half a ton of broken tiles and about 4m3 of old battens (perfect for firewood).

Aside from the building work, spending 10 days there was a good taste of self-sufficient living. As I have no plumbing, I had to make do with hot water from bottles of well water left in the sun. There's also no phone, no TV, no internet - so plenty of time to sit and read. I think for next year I'll rig up some kind of solar shower - seems worth it considering you get a good 4-5 months of hot weather. I also did a bit more scything and some harvesting. Lots of yellow and purple plums (not quite ripe), so lovely crunchy pears, recurrents (made jam), a tiny sickly apple tree, and I found some tomatoes growing in the compost heap (still green).