Christmas, Ninja + A stone wall.
Added 2025-01-06 20:59:47 +0000 UTCHello gorgeous people! Please forgive us for not uploading a video this month. We decided to give ourselves a little break over the festive period, and have some quality family time. We hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and enjoyed some good food and drink with great company. I adore being in Spain during Christmas, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to make a turkey dinner. Last year was fajitas, and this year: curry. Thank goodness Yaya (Grandma) and Sage stepped in at the last minute and took over the naan breads. It was a total success. Boxing day was a quieter affair. We went on a little hike nearby to Els Arcs. Over years, the limestone rock has been eroded, and formed two natural stone arches. It really is spectacular. New Year’s Eve was set to be uneventful, we were almost getting in to bed at 8:30pm when a strange noise started emanating from outside the front door. Robbie opened it and in bounded… A KITTEN. Sage was beside himself and insisted “(the) cat go back outside.” It took 45 minutes of convincing, but eventually a little bed was made and a sleepless night of batting the kitten off our heads commenced. In the morning, I managed to track down the kitten’s owners, who were back home, four hours away, having spent three extra days in their camper van looking for their kitten. We agreed to look after Ninja for three days until they came back. We had so much fun with him and are very seriously debating getting a kitten of our own. Back to work, and focusing on getting as much sunlight on to our bodies as possible; the workshop has been put on hold whilst we finish the chicken house. The stone wall is almost finished and we are about to head to the shops to buy timber for the (much debated) wooden sides and roof. Will we go for shingles? Galvanised steel panels? Bat and board? All will be documented in our next YT video out on the last Sunday of the month. As always, thank you so much for your love and support. Best wishes to you all ❤️
Comments
Thank you Charles for your kind words! It will be interesting to see how the roof and outdoor greenhouse style structure comes together. It’s pretty difficult to find wood in Spain, wood isn’t generally used because of the termites and carcoma beetle, and the dry climate means all the local trees are olive and almond which can’t really be made into boards. We’ll probably have to use construction/ scaffolding boards made from pine wood as these can be sourced locally, and either varnish (we’d prefer not because not very ecological), or burn the surface to seal the wood. And then we still need to decide if the roof will be shingles or perhaps bat & board - seems a bit impractical to have a wooden roof but we want it to age and blend into the environment as much as possible! 🧡
Emilia Fenton
2025-02-01 12:03:35 +0000 UTCVery impressed by your dedication to the process as well as the completed wall--it is quite beautiful, elegant, timeless . . . an outcome to be proud of! Can't wait to see how the walls and roof all fit together.
Charles Hilliard
2025-01-31 19:52:23 +0000 UTCThank you Ed! Really appreciate the kind words! It was an enormous amount of work, but we're really happy with the result. We want to make more of our projects in stone and wood going forwards, it feels more traditional to the area, and look so much more beautiful! If we are going to be here forever we want to be thoughtful about each element of our homestead. Our focus before was to make things that lasted forever with concrete etc but we're seeing the value in things that don't last forever now haha, there's definitely something beautiful about that - although we might regret that in 5 years time when the termites have eaten the chicken house roof! 🧡
Emilia Fenton
2025-01-30 15:12:22 +0000 UTCIt’s a good wall.
Ed Walker
2025-01-28 20:56:07 +0000 UTC
