One Year On

A year ago, in November, we took photos of our farm:

http://worldofwuwu.blogspot.si/2017/10/in-beginning.html

Here's the same, one year on year.

The view through the farmhouse door is wider now the door posts have collapsed. The destruction of the old barn and scrub clearance by the scouts has also opened up the view.

 The farmhouse crumbles but the overgrown weeds are gone.

The back of the farmhouse looks much the same, just less roof.

The capelica no longer drowns in shoulder high weeds.

The end of the farmhouse has gone and the shorn weeds make a good impression of a lawn as long as you don't look too close.

 Not much visible change here. Just few extra tiles in the stack and a solar panel on the roof, most work here was internal.

Green grass instead of dead weeds, a touch of paint and a fence (and some sunshine!) make a vast improvement here.

Nothing but sunbeams and rubble where the old barn once was.

Not much change here.

 Not much change here. Just a balcony to the kozolec.

The farmhouse ruin just gets more ruininous.

Scrub clearance reveals the sorry state of the cistern.

And that's all.

Doesn't a bit of sun go a long way?

In the beginning.....

It is a year since we got the keys to our Slovenian farm.

To mark the passage of time, Wuwu has decided to take the same photos from the same position, at the same time of year, every year.

These are photos from our first weekend here in November 2016.

It's not the time of year when any farm looks it's best, but for comparison, November it is.

What's up pussy cat?

Wuwu is intently interested in a bowl of water:

What's that Wuwu? 

You've got yourself some pet baby mosquitos?

Great choice.

Meanwhile Squiggly Tiggy is being all squiggly

Beauty and the beasts

A lovely sunny autumn Sunday afternoon walk with the dogs in the forest.

But don't look back!

At the end of the path, as you leave the forest and come out onto the road, you find the following, helpful warning:

Luckily we seem to have survived.

But that's not all.

Walk another 10 meters own the road and look back once more and you discover that you have just walked through an even more hazardous area:

The dangerous beasts of Slovenia.

Revolving bits of wood

Between the old stone barn, which we had to pull down to make safe, and the "new" concrete barn ('new' being a relative term), was a wooden joining section which had fallen down long before we arrived. We had been intending to deal with the pile of wood for a long time, and now it is finally cleared.

Here's the half way stage.

The front piece still stands, in a precarious fashion. You can see the remains of a stone wall behind an elderbush on the right and the first concrete pillar of the new barn on the left and the neighbours barn in the background.

Much of the wood was so rotten it went straight to the bonfire, a bit was sawn into logs for the fireplace and a few huge planks were saved for the useful bit's of wood pile.

Under all the beams and tiles there wasn't much. The remains of a dog kennel, some swingle trees, the remains of a thresher (the second we have found on the farm. How many do you need? The first might work with a bit of time and attention so we still have it bit this one was the going anywhere. What we will do with the first, we have no idea. Anyone want a historic thresher?) The only vaguely useful find was two exceedingly long drive shafts.

So, another space cleared for when the bulldozers arrive.
Just the roof and beams in the old house to sort out now.

Grape vine transplant

While clearing scrub and rubbish from around the old house, I found a collection of grape vines at the base of the wall. I have no idea what variety they are, but seeing as they are part of the history of the place it would be lovely to have them growing up a trellis over a summer seat somewhere. The problem is they are at the base of a wall that will be removed

and they arent going to survive battle with the diggers.

Luckily, with the house painted last weekend we now have a sunny wall, perfect for grape ripening.

So here's the story of setting up vine supports and moving the plants.

Here they are in the rubble and weeds

First, was to set up some supports. A rummage through the wood collection revealed two 4m dried pine tree trunks that made exceedingly long straight posts. The bottom of one was painted to stop it from rotting. I had a wuwu moment and forgot with the other, although I tell everyone it was an intentional experiment to see if it made significant difference to the lifespan of the poles. And then they were sunk into the ground at the corners of the house.

Rocks were added to the 'inside' edge of the hole to prevent the posts being pulled inwards by the support wires that would be strung between them.

The top of the support posts were tied to the roof beams.

And wires were strung between them.

Here's a vine transplanted to the bottom of one of the posts. Although I'm wondering if it might be better to put the plant between the posts rather than at the posts. And of course it'll need a bit of a prune and training to get it into shape, but i think it al ready loops at home.

Cropping

While weeding the flower bed I dug up lots of wild parsnips. Not that impressive to a commercial grower, no doubt, but impressive from the point of view that it is free food that required no effort from me at all.

Also looks promising for when we do get around to intemtionally growing parsnips and carrots.

And decidedly more impressive than the raspberry harvest of two and a half mangey raspberries, that didn't even warrant a photograph. Not even the deer bothered to steal them. One of the tasks this winter is to clear the overgrowth around the raspberry plants and hopefully give them more of a chance. 

The butternut squash did better

And hopefully they will benefit from the new rat proof storage system:

Capturing the sun for winter enjoyment

After a couple of weeks of rain, a sunny weekend.

And a opportunity to paint the outside of the house.

Before

With some sunshine collected and tamed after day one:

And sunset on day two, with finishing touches.

Very pleased with our pigsty! :-)

Back side:

Now to grow a grape vine up it......

Or wisteria....

Waif

This little guy was found by Allie shivering in the neighbours barn. 

We called him Date and drove him to the rescue centre in ljubljana.

Sadly, in slovenia, neutering is rare and the solution to unwanted puppies is to dump them.

Being small, cute and friendly,  he will surely get a home.

But not all unwanted dogs are so lucky.