Assorted Pics of work so far this year at Eco Manor

Steel wheels for Squeaky Joe. 6mm steel plate for the hubs and the reinforcing fillets, 4mm steel plate for the rims and 75mm x 50mm x 6mm unequal angle for the teeth. These should provide serious traction over boggy ground infested with purple tussock grass.

Diameter 370mm (rim), 520mm tooth to tooth. 16 teeth staggered in 2 rows of 8, 45 degrees apart. Offset between opposing teeth, 22.5 degrees. Think Bodecea or Ben Hur....positively medieval!!

Our solar-power battery charging station down in the toy-shed is still working a treat, with the exception of a blown inverter for the shed lights which needs remedial work.

The sun is making the occasional appearance...that helps matters!

One of our biggest problems has been starting machinery with duff batteries or that have sat for weeks or months unused and have gone flat. We have fitted all our vehicles with Anderson connectors which allow us to charge anything from the solar, or jump-start pretty much anything from anything else.

Shown above is the dumper truck, sporting a second-hand Exrider battery from my old solar power system down in Surrey. Not all that good, but will start the dumper happily if it has been plugged into the solar charging for a day or two.

We recently finished organising the drainage culvert across the track to the toyshed. Now water which used to pool in the yard or simply make the ground into a bog is now draining nicely into the drainage ditch behind the toy shed. Even after a month of no rain, we still get a trickle as the surrounding high ground is still draining water through the rocky layers, After a day or so of really heavy rain, we possibly see several tens of gallons a minute. But it's going where we want it to now, so we are rather pleased with the results.

Pretty clear and clean too. I'm going to do some quality testing on the water, and then perhaps use it with a slow sand and ion exchange filter to see if we can produce high-quality potable water.

Year 2 of our short rotation willow coppice has been planted out. You can see last year's plantings on the left which have been pruned to provide our rods for planting this year.

After about 3-4 weeks since planting, the new rods are already producing buds and hopefully sending down new root growth.