Day: November 14, 2020

3-Bay Compost Bin

compost bin plan
drawing board

I need to work out exactly how much timber I’ll need for my 3-bay compost bins and I’m struggling to do a back-of-an-envelope type sketch with ruler and pencil in my sketchbook. So why am I struggling? – I’ve got a drawing board with parallel motion and drafting head stowed away in the corner at the other end of my studio. I’ve enjoyed the excuse to get it out again to draw an orthographic plan and elevations.

My old compost bin was made from recycled timber from next door’s summer house (which itself had been recycled from a previous existence as a lean-to conservatory) but after ten or fifteen years that was ready for replacement and this time I’m going to use FSC-certified decking boards with 3×2 inch uprights.

Turning the Heap

compost bin
We won’t be going for lids on the bins this time, an offcut of carpet will have suffice to stop the compost getting waterlogged in the rain.
Previous twin bins: the lids proved awkward.

I’m keen to have a better arrangement for the front panels, so that will be slats which will drop into grooves. The idea of having three smaller bins in place of the larger twin bins I had before, is that it should be easier to get a system going of turning the heap. The garden waste will start off on the left in bin number one, then I’ll fork it over into bin number two in the middle ending up with one final turning into number three on the right. Composting is an aerobic process, so that will be two opportunities to let the air get to the compost and also to mix soft green waste, which on its own can become claggy and anaerobic, with dry fibrous brown waste.

The Arborist, the Shetland and the Speckleface

pine
arborist

The man with stylus and tablet isn’t drawing, he tells us, he’s surveying trees and vegetation impinging on the power lines. The pole that he’s looking at is so swathed in ivy that it almost looks like a tree.

“Do you have to go to species level?” I ask him.

When he explains that he’s a trained arborist, I can’t resist asking if he can tell what species of pine I’ve just photographed. Is it Corsican? Or Scots Pine?

As the tree is 50 yards down the lane, I’m expecting a lot, especially, as he points out, if it has been pruned that can change the silhouette, but he suggests that it might be black pine.

Ash Die-back

Milestone
This old milestone from the Wakefield to Huddersfield Turnpike was catching the sun this morning.

Opposite the pine, an old ash tree was pollarded a few months ago, following hints of die-back on some of its boughs.

A report on BBC Leeds Look North this week showed the efforts that the National Trust are going to in the Yorkshire Dales to deal with the 80% of ash trees in their woodland that have been infected.

The surveyor tells us that local authorities have been surveying their ash trees because an infected tree can shed a large bough.

We tell him of a couple of near misses that we’ve had with the sweet chestnuts shedding branches in the woods at Nostell, where in recent years they’ve lost some centuries-old beech trees.

The trees around here are either 200 years old or saplings, he suggests; there hasn’t been any consistent replanting.

Beet Eaters

sheep

The sheep in the beet field look like Beulah Speckleface, or a similar-looking hybrid, a breed that combines the hardiness of hill sheep with the growth and reproduction rates of lowland varieties. For the last few weeks, these sheep have been enjoying a more high-energy, sugar-rich food than they’d get out on the moors, eating first the tops of the beet, then the beets themselves, although I can’t help thinking that they must be looking longingly at the grass in the next field as a change from gnawing the beets.

Shetland Pony

Shetland pony

I’m trying to photograph three ponies feeding together at a hay bale but I don’t have much luck with the Shetland. All I can see are the tops of its ears at the far side but then it spots me and wanders over to the wall to say hello. Some day I might get a group portrait.