Thursday 6th March 2008.
I have finally finished breaking up the surface of mud pond 14. This will allow more air contact and speed up the drying process. This pond will be the first to be spawned in, but was one of the last to be emptied, so I am playing catch up in the drying process.
This is how it looked this morning.
I have now started on mud pond 13! Anything to speed things up!
Having the roof blown off has given me a thought or two. One of these I shall start implementing tomorrow. I finished at the farm a little early this evening and called in at the timber merchants. I plan on making permanent windows for ventilation, although any gathered heat is a bonus at this time of year, the lack of wind through the tunnels really slows the drying process. I am going to take a new approach and get some breeze through the tunnels and forget the heat. These windows will make it easier to keep things cooler during the summer.
This is how most of the mud ponds look at the moment, drying, but very slowly.
You can see that I have done a little work with the rotovator in this pond. I have worked on 8 or 9 ponds so far, some I have been able to work half of the bottom, others like this one only just to the bottom of the slope.
After many pressuring phone calls to National Polytunnels, I finally got a price to replace the damaged roof sheet in tunnel 9. I think someone is making more money than me!! With VAT, it is going to be over £1000!!!!!!!!!!!! The roof was not the only thing to get ripped off!
I've got 15 roofs, plus the sides and ends. I know I got a really good deal when I built the tunnels, as they were making up for many cock-ups with the steel work, but the bill to cover the whole thing was only £2,500!
Yesterday I heard the characteristic rasping call of baby Zebra Finches, today the calling was much stronger each time the parents entered the next boxes. We have babies!