The Storms…
The last couple of weeks have been tough on the farm, with it being a big open field without many established hedgerows and our new trees only just going in, we were hit hard by the storm and it caused a lot of damage.
We were watching the first Storm Ciara out of the window of our home, and it was as if we had recorded the last month of work… and we were watching it in reverse. Everything was being undone…
Our large metal shed that we had finished building just two days previous was ripper from it’s footings in to two and flew across the farm… luckily we heard it and our neighbours helped us make it safe.. but that was the shed written-off.
All of our bed prep tarps and a lot of our path builds etc were being destroyed by the wind and heavy rain… and so we decided to take a tactical retreat for a couple of days and see some family.
Only to find out our greenhouse built a few weeks before had also been destroyed… glass smashed and frame completely ruined.
So it’s safe to say that the first storm undone a lot of our work, and whilst Dennis wasn’t as destructive it meant we couldn’t start to move forward again for quite a while.
However, this isn’t a blog post looking for sympathy… it’s about resilience. We weren’t going to let this stop us, and wanted to avoid it slowing us done…
We put pencil to paper, planned like made, and learnt some very hard lessons… and yesterday marked an amazing day where we got the structure built for SHED 2.0
We learnt hard that garden buildings and weak structures weren’t going to cut it with the farm and with agricultural applications. Therefore we got the pencil and paper, rulers and even set squares… and designed the beastiest shed we could… something so strong it could be lived in.. with solid foundations, strong walls, a big roof, and cladding that fits in with the surroundings.
We will put together a video and blog of the construction in coming weeks.
The shed is important to our system, it might seem like: “just a shed” … and in truth it is… but to us it’s going to be the central hub to the farm… tools will be carefully organised for efficiency, tasks will be on a giant blackboard, and a overhanging roof will act as a packing area for our veg boxes. This will be the centre to the farm and we are so glad to be back on track.
Yes the storms cost us a fair bit of money in damages, and a good few weeks of time… but we’re nearly back on track now and the lessons we have learnt, and the fact we have come back stronger is a brilliant silver lining!