Horsepower....

I have this romantic notion that one day we will be self sufficient, but of course in reality it's highly unlikely we'll ever pull it off. I've collected and read (ok so for some I've just looked at the pictures) a great collection of books ranging from living off grid by Nick Rosen to an absolute 'good life' classic called the 'the complete book of self sufficiency' by John Seymour which includes everything from how to plan out your land and clear the tree stumps, through to how to butcher a pig! It also has a great matrix (not that I'm sure matrices were around in the 70's) comparing the pros and cons of tractor ownership against a horse or indeed an Ox! 

Now, who wouldn't want to own a tractor ?........ But.......reading between the lines I think owning a horse could be the way forward....

They don't require diesal, don't need taxing and more importantly their waste can be used to help grow more crops. 

Of course the downside is I'm actually not that fond of horses and have almost got less of a clue how to look after a horse then fix a steering box on a tractor (which I have no idea on either in case you were wandering .....), however, we are already partly kitted out for horse ownership though and when I find Norways version of Mole Valley Farmers,  imagine the fun I can have finally buying a horse coat! ......for those who aren't devon folk, mole valley farmers is the most fantastic country outlet, selling products that allow you to delouse your chickens or inseminate your cows (I'll draw a sketch next time) through to a pair of tweeds or a tractor linkage. .......Fabulous place.  

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when we bought the house we acquired a huge amount of stuff, which included old farm equipment. So aside from finding a 4 legged companion to actually do the work and figuring out how the all the tack actually fits,  we're good to go. We even have 2 stables in the barn. The entrance and floor into the big barn is worn away through years of horses coming and going and the stable divides have the signs of having been used to satisfy a good set of knawing knashers. It's these old objects, features and patina in the fabric that make the story and heritage of the place.

 I had originally thought when we'd bought the house that the seller was the grandson of the original owner/builder, but it has since emerged he was actually more of a distant relative.  We still however have a great selection of photos of the original owner and his descendants, including one of who we think is his son, stood outside the house with his horse! 

Of particular note are 2 things.....firstly that the wall he's stood in front off is still the original stone foundation wall, now replaced with blocks ( and needing repair) and secondly (and for most people) more interesting, I think we still have the hat in the house!

So watch this space ......at some point you might see a similar photo in years to come, I might however be sat on a quad bike...... ;)  

Backdraft..........

So as you might have gathered we are back from our easter (påske) expedition to norway via lots of trips to ikea ( well 3 in total, with 1 self inflicted due to buying the wrong fridge and freezer!) but it's been an amazing trip. 

We had the now routine meeting with the builder who very kindly gave up a morning of his holiday to see us ( thank you Magnus and Ivan). I managed to build a bench for the dining table from old bits of wood I found including old barn timbers, reassemble the beautiful tall woodburner, survey the barn (låve) and more importantly install a kitchen! ...as well as go skiing, dog sledding, attend a few easter parties (more on those another time ;) )

Now you might be thinking when did we get water installed, but you'd be wrong.....we still have no water! Well we do but it's about 100 m up the side of the mountain in the well, buried under snow......

So it was our first time all sleeping in the house as a family ( which was great and made better by the purchase of a new sofa bed from ikea......for the record one of neighbours pointed out that other furniture shops are available in scandanavia .lol ) 

2 weeks without mains water or drainage has its challenges. We of course bought water for drinking, but it's not cheap, so  you don't want to be doing the washing up in it (or washing the kids in it) so we had to get water from other sources.  

We started for the first couple of days constantly melting snow in an old pot on the woodburner, but you have to melt a lot of snow for not much water. What we found much more successful was collecting already melted snow (ie water ) from the roof during the day when the overnight snow melted for a few hours. We easily collected about 25 -50 litres a day with this method, which would have taken a huge amount of snow melting.

It's amazing when you have to collect your own water how careful you are using it! But also it gives you a real indication of much water you actually waste during the day in our normal tap turning on luxury! 

Once we nailed the water collection ( took about 3 days) then we finally bathed the kids in a washing up bowl in front of the fire (lots of fun) and managed to indulge in our strip washes (which I haven't done since I was about 5 and used to stay at my great grandparents house with my folks at the weekends!)

At the end of the first week most of the kitchen was in, including installing the sink with a tap ( looked nice anyway) and waste that went into a bucket! It sounds mad, but a sink at a decent height is so much easier for washing dishes and yourself in! 

You might recall that on our first trip last October I flew over with a toilet in my hold baggage ( well camping kharzi, ie a bucket with seat) and this proved to be a great indoor companion which was emptied into our composting loo in the barn on regular occasion.  I personally ( is this too much information.....) quite enjoyed using the outhouse ( even at -11...it focuses the mind) but after 2 weeks it was getting a little whiffy. The science of a good composting loo is worthy of a blog post on its own, but one of the things you do need is a good sawdust flush! So I found a good source of sawdust which was is now neatly bucketed with a spade for ease of use. 

I did however find you need to be careful of one particular aspect though....backdraft.....different to the American 90s classic firefighting film but with similar devastating, albeit non life threatening  effects...... So when you utilise the sawdust flush make sure you don't lean over the pan if it's windy outside, otherwise you get an upwind of saw dust in your face......never good.....

By the way, I should mention our toilet is a 2 person affair ( if you feel that way inclined) amazingly one of our friends said he remembers his grandmas outhouse  which was a seven seater! Now that's being sociable :).  

What a difference a day makes

For the last 2 weeks we've both been reading the weather forecast with mounting excitement and/or worry about the state of the road to our house.

It didn't really come as much of a surprise that there wasn't any snow in Trondheim, but it did when we got here to see very little snow.

Still the kids got to play in what little we had.

But then later in the day it snowed, and it snowed a bit more, then we had a massive dumping of snow, then we went to bed.

And we woke up to this:

And as I'm sat in my comfy kitchen chair this evening, it is snowing again.

No, I didn't get lost

Those of you who know me, know that I rarely go wrong with my sense of direction - my dad always said I had an inbuilt compass, but when I do go wrong it tends to be Very Well Done.

Please if any of you are planning to come to and visit (and we hope that you are!), take note. I will say this only once.

When driving around Trondheim, always stay in the outside lane.

In my defence I was very tired and was following Jim without really paying attention to my surroundings (shan't be doing that again!) so it came as a bit of a shock when suddenly he indicated he was moving into the outside lane without much warning. Now I couldn't. There was a ruddy Great Big Lorry on my outside, leaving no where to go, but down the slip road and off to who knows where......(actually I did know as we'd taken that junction earlier when collecting the hire van and eventually you get to Trondheim city centre and drive past Nidaros Cathedral).

I had a few minutes to think about what to do, but coupled with Ned asking where daddy and Mimi were, and me trying to find a sign for Oslo (southbound) it was a bit tricky. 

Thankfully my sensible self kicked into gear (although occasionally my idiot self could be heard shouting shit, fuck inside my head), and we got back on the E6. Going North though, as there was no other south bound slip road. 2 junctions back up the motorway, turned round, a bit of ferreting around in my bag to find my phone in case Jim had called and we were back on track In The Outside Lane, you know just in case.

Norway might have strict laws about parking on street corners (ask Jim) and speeding, but they don't mind you texting or phoning whilst driving which was useful.

Quick phone call from Jim to ascertain that we were okay and where to meet him, and we were off again. 

Finally making it home for tea time.

So you see I was right, I didn't get lost, and my dad was right - keep turning left and you'll always find your way back.