'Cobbit'

It is still really hot and energy sapping.

And so I've put on the insulation. It was about 60 sacks, in the end. On top of that I put on big pieces of cardboard from fridges and deep freezers, which I have tied down using long bits of string going across the roof. It's just to secure it until the next layer goes on top. The cardboard and the sacks have made it feel more safe for walking on, but not dancing! Unfortunately, I had left the wool on the ground with a tarp over the huge sacks, so although most of it was fine, the bottom had got damp and rotted a bit. Yeuk! That is not a nice smell. Still, it goes to make compost along with all the dag ends of which there were plenty. Not the cleanest fleeces I've come across. I'm glad they were not for spinning and felt making.

I have to finish the edges before I can put the plastic and straw up on the roof. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this, but after using rabbit wire and mud on the ceiling gap, I had a brainwave and have nailed it to the edges and put mud there. I think it looks really cute. Also it is strong enough to hold the old roof tiles which I will put up along the edge to finish it all off. ( Oh, I wish that were NOW...). I have started to saw off the poles to the same measurement as the cob/wire.

Not so much a Hobbit as a 'Cobbit'

The vine that I planted a year and a half ago has produced beautiful tasty black grapes and it beginning to make shade up by the house. The chickens could reach the lower ones, but we got some too.