Change of plan.

We'd planned to remove the electric fence at the Turnditch orchard. The theft of the fence energiser had just accelerated the plan. However the sheep from the White's farm have been too successful at finding ways into the orchard and have caused a lot of damage to the fruit trees. I'd even had phone calls from helpful neighbours who'd tried to chase the sheep out of the orchard.

We reinstated the electric fence yesterday with an expensive new fence energiser. It was warm and humid weather when I entered the adjoining field armed with brush cutter to trim back the vegetation which had swamped the electric fence. After a couple of hours hard work my clothes were sodden with sweat, but the work was done. I guess I had to clear about 250 sq metres. 

Now any malcontent sheep will receive a powerful shock if they try to invade our orchard. 

Busy in the Orchard today

I spent most of the day in the orchard driving fence posts into the ground. I had to dig holes a metre deep for the larger posts and used a 20 kilogram post driver for the other wooden posts.  I covered 120 metres run of fencing. This will be used for the electric fence. By the end of the day the post driver was feeling very heavy. The next step is to cut back the under growth with a brush cutter before I install the insulators on the posts. I'm creating a six strand fence.

Update Sunday 20th. 
Yesterday I had a couple of hour's hard work to cut a swathe through the weeds and blackthorn saplings. These had sprung up on the neighbours field side of the hedge following last winter's hedging work. There's now a 120 by 2 metre strip free of weeds along the route of the electric fence. 

Today I installed the insulators on the fence posts and both the top and bottom strands of the fence. The bottom strand is high tensile galvanised steel wire it will not be electrified, but will be grounded to earth, The top strand is white polypropylene electric fence rope of approximately 7 mm diameter. It will be electrified to 8000 volts. I've chosen this to make the fence obvious to anyone passing close by to the fence. Once the Gripple fence tool arrives I'll install the other strands of the fence using 2 mm alloy wire. This wire is specially designed for the job with a very low electrical resistance to reduce voltage drop along the length of the fence. However the thin grey wire is difficult to see in poor light conditions,  hence the obvious white top strand.

I've spent a while this evening practising the knots used for fencing wire attachment of the insulators mounted on the end posts. Along the length of the fence the gap between the wooden posts is about 12 metres. I'll be placing lightweight plastic step-in posts between the wooden posts to act as wire spreaders. These will discourage sheep etc from pushing through the fence strands.

Strimmer Rash

I have discovered one of the risks of letting the grass and wild flora grow in the Orchard. I woke this morning to find red blotches, weals and some blisters on my arms. It is where they'd been exposed to a combination of the debris from weed strimming and direct sunlight. It is apparently called Phytophotodermatitis  caused by the sap of Hogweed and Cow Parsley (Umbelliferae species) from the strimming debris causing my skin to react to the sunlight. There's an article about it here.  

Fortunately I'd been wearing gauntlets and a full face visor/helmet while using the brush cutter/strimmer a couple of days ago, so it is only my forearms which have been affected. Owing to the warm summer weather I was wearing a short sleeve shirt. I should have known better. This should clear up in a week or two, thanks to the ministrations of a friendly Nurse Practitioner who diagnosed and recommended treatment.

In future I'll wear a full body disposable coverall protective garment when I do this type of work on the orchard. They are not expensive. They have elasticated cuffs. The downside is the protective suits get quite warm if one is active. You just might see me taking some clothes off before donning the bunny suit.

Note I am talking about Common Hogweed (Heracleum Sphondylium) which has leaves that can be cooked and eaten when young. The Giant Hogweed (Heracleum Mantegazzianum) is much more nasty proposition, I'd wear protective clothing and a flame gun to remove that!

Treatment: In my case, antihistamine tablet followed by twice daily hydrocortisone 1% cream lightly applied to the affected areas. At night an application of sudocrem on the affected areas. Gently wash twice a day using tea tree oil shower gel and pat affected areas dry with a clean towel. The sudocrem and tea tree oil reduce the chance of secondary bacterial or fungal infection. 

Note (17/04/2015) that the damage to my skin persisted for several months

Phew - grass grows quickly!!

I had an afternoon of hard work using a brush cutter  to trim back some of the grass and weeds to make it look as though the site was not abandoned. I'd left the site alone for a while while I was letting a pulled arm muscle recover, but the grass and wild flowers/weeds took advantage of my absence. They've grown thigh high in places. I burned up a couple of litres of two-stroke petrol to achieve the result.

The hedges which were re-laid in the spring are doing quite well, though there are a few dead patches where we'll have to re-plant hedging. Most of the fruit trees are growing well tough we are a bit concerned with one of the plums which appears to have had a poor start. The walnut tree is a bit slow to leaf.

Edit 23/05/14: A small disaster struck today when I was using the Kawasaki Brush Cutter (KBH27) which we purchased back in Sept 2013 for the site. I was using it on long grass when something broke inside it. The motor runs but the blade doesn't turn. I've checked it out but can see nothing wrong. It is time to ship it back to the dealer.

New owners on site

We officially visited the site for the first time yesterday as the new owners and changed the locks on the gates. The gates are iron farm gates and not mounted. There are two gates to the plot, on the road gate the sandstone hinge post is broken and needs repair. The inner gate is totally missing the hinge post so we'll need to install a new post fairly soon. It gave us a chance to try out the 4-wheel drive on the old Freelander we bought last month as we drove off-road for the first time.

Fortunately we'd come armed with bolt cutters, a couple of new padlocks and a few metres of new chain. We were able to improvise temporary locking arrangements and cut away some of the old chains. A local farmer has a right of access to his field through our entrance, so over the next few days we'll visit his farm and give him a set of keys.  

I walked around the field and found some evidence of dumped rubble, so there may some work necessary to deal with the unwelcome present from the previous owners. Up on the road side hedge there's evidence of a car accident which has caused some damage to the hedge and also left the front wheel and axle of a car on the embankment. We're thinking of installing a low wire chainlink fence at the roadside to provide some security while we work on rebuilding the hedge.

The first task is to cut down the grass and thistles, this awaits the delivery from Estate Machinery of a brand new Kawasaki Brush Cutter tomorrow, then we can start work. We did slash down a few weeds and shrubs to open up the path, but didn't make a lot of progress, but we felt when deserved some refreshment at the local pub the Railway Inn just down the road. It was well worth the visit.

Some of the blackthorn and wild plum saplings in the meadow area will be cut down carefully so we can save the wood as shanks for walking sticks to be sold on Ebay to hobby carvers some time next year. They seem to sell for about £3 each so this create a small income, particularly if we also harvest the ash and hawthorn in the wooded area.