2025-06 – Family Visit

Family came to visit this month and we managed to squeeze a fair bit into a week despite a lot of rain. This included

A trip by ferry to the nearby island
A trip up the nearby peak by chair-lift
Lots of coffee shops
Lots of trips around forests and lakes

Sometimes it’s good to get visitors just to push you into taking a break and doing things that you might not otherwise make time for.

Fika on the Water

We got invited for an evening on a pontoon on a lake. We thought it was just going to float by the shore like a boat jetty, but when we sat down the host cast off from the bank and we spent the evening floating around on the lake with a small electric trolling motor.

Floating table for four, on the other side of the camera.

Planting More Trees

We ordered more trees last month and they finally arrived. We put four pear trees and 3 plum trees down the bottom of the garden where they will provide some summer shade and a wind break.

It took a bit of digging. We gave them plenty of old manure along with a thick layer of woodchips on the surface to keep back grass for a while and to reduce soil damage when watering. Later on we added thick stakes to support the trees when the storms eventually come.

Some new trees at the bottom of the garden, where a path lets people get to the field from across the stream

Water Pumping

Watering the plants from the stream costs less than using domestic drinking water, and the plants seem to do better with the stream water. So I setup a test system to pump water up from the stream. Currently it’s hard to get an electric supply down to the stream. Once it was up and running it saved so much effort in hosting buckets by rope. For long term we’ll need to setup something more permanent with solid 32mm PVC pipe. Legally, no extraction license is needed provided the amount extracted per year is below a certain threshold, but I did need to ask special permission from my neighbour because the bank is their land.

House Side Project

Down the side of the house we removed all the supplies stored there. I’ve talked to a local digging company who will come in and clear the area. We’ve got plans for this area but the surface needs clearing first. It’s hard to predict when the digger will come; rural areas have their own schedules.

New Garden Path

We wanted to extend the path that goes wound the garage to go across the lawn. I’m not a fan of lawns – they require maintenance and don’t produce an output – but we’re keeping this little part of the garden more conventional as it’s what people see when they come to the front door.

We picked up some paving slabs and spend an evening laying them out. It took a few goes to get a curve and pattern that we wanted. The next week I dug holes to lay the slabs into the ground and used sand to make the slabs level. Due to the slope of the land, some slabs cant be dug in without making the path too erratic.

On one of our trips out we visited a garden centre and they happened to have some lawn dressing. This is about 80% fine compost mixed with sand and other material. I used it to build up around the sides of the labs that couldn’t be dug into the soil.

I’ll dig up the two bush patches as although we like them they are mixed in together and we cant stop the spreading of the raspberry roots. It’s time consuming however and there are a lot of things that need doing at this time of year.

Car Drives

My wife has been spending some gaining driving experience. We’ve been visiting more locations. It’s also great being the passenger because I can have the odd beer with a meal now. It also has been healthy to go out and visit places more instead of constantly working on tasks.

We took some unusual routes and on one trip we ended up on our first unpaved forest road. This is smaller than a fire road and not flattened. It meant having to be careful of large rocks that might hit the engine sump. It took a while and I had to get out and clear the odd large loose large rock, but we reached the end of the trail.