The official start of 2022

Okay, welcome back to another video, folks. And spring is feeling very close around the corner. Hello. It's slippy on the ice here. I got some marker paints. It's a bit windy today, so it might be muffled sound but it's a big day today. The applications for the homesteading crew closing today. Kids are out on the trampoline. We're marking out an aterfalshus and the natural swimming pond that we're revisiting as well as seeding the very first seeds of the year. Okay, so big plans now. In the past I've talked about turning this whole lawn into a natural swimming pool. I made videos about it two years ago and I planned it out. There's quite a bit of a grade on here and we want to have a deep swimming lane here. We're going to cut these two sections off the veranda and build steps down here onto decking that overhangs the deep swimming spot. And then there'll be a regeneration zone over here that's going to need building up because of the slope. I've got the digger driver, Eric, who dug our ponds. If you followed the channel for a long time, he's going to come next week. I'm done with being omnichromed, so I want him around next week to have a look at this. But our plans have changed because we're thinking we might turn this into a barbecue hut and this garden is starting to get closed in now. We've got all the tilia plantings turning into like a blocked pruned hedge and then we've got a Rubus species underneath to make a hedgerow. So this will become quite private and we thought what a great place for a swimming pond. That could also be a winter plunge pool. We're decking around here to a barbecue area, like a private space. But then we're thinking of building an Aterfeld's house here. So in Sweden you're allowed to build up to 30 square meter second home, essentially a small home next to your house. So I've been thinking of all different ways I might do that and I'm going to buy a kit, I think where it's quite quick and easy to put up and finished to a very good standard and winter proofed. So. So it's going to be all round winter housing. It's kind of like a tiny bathroom, tiny kitchen, a double bedroom and a sleeping loft for up to two kids. So it can house families here on visits, friends etc. And have them in their own little space that'd be cool. And it's glazed on the front, so it'll be looking out over the natural swimming pool. That's going to be lovely. I'm thinking we can pull electricity and water out of the greenhouse. And so what I want to do is mark out the pad for the digger driver to see as well as the pond. And then we've got the trusty laser level. And the reason I want that is that my main septic is over here and the pipe from the sewage from the main house comes in a little bit below ground. So I want to take the laser level, measure that inlet point and see if there's possibility over here to be able to get my sewage. Really bad sound. I want to know if we can get sewage from there, maybe dig a trench here and here to not disrupt the garden too much and be able to have water and electricity in, sewage out. Fully functional house. It's going to be quite a big old structure, so I don't know how clear it will be in your mind's eye. You can imagine steps coming down to decking somewhere here, ballooning out where the sand pit is. That will become like a little barbecue hut that are common here in Sweden. And somehow joining the decking in to the building structure. So this is a footprint, about 7 by 4 meters. And basically I'm going to use these ground screws, so I'd have to take away these trees, but that's okay. It's quite a tall structure. I'll overlay a photo of that. It's going to be really beautiful. We're decking out the front here, sitting right on the water here and some nice lighting and plantings. It'll be perfect for the actual swimming ponds. We're going for about 10 meters, about 3 meters width. So this is a deep swimming zone. This is a pond in the style of David Pagan Butler. I've mentioned before in video I made a couple of years ago. You can look back at some of the considerations I was talking about then. So it's basically a typical rectangular hole and then sloped sides. And you typically want the regeneration area to be as big as the actual swimming area. Then we're going to put concrete blocks and insulate on the outside, put a big butyl pond liner across the whole thing and then cut some sleepers from the larch in our forest to create an edge to the swimming zone and then fill gravel around the edges and plant sub marginal species into that. There's about 45, 50 cm height difference across here. So soil that's coming out of the excavation can go building up a bank here to some degree. And we're going to sort of marry up taking this side down and bringing this side up. But that's going to be pretty lush. The sun sets over here so you get this water reflecting onto the porch here. It's such a beautiful space for evening barbecues and kids splashing around. And because it's insulated, it stays quite a lot warmer because the ground obviously sucks a lot of heat up. So not a lot to see for now, but really excited about the idea of building a little house while we can. And you don't need planning permission for that. You just need a building permission to say it's okay as long as it's four and a half meters from the edge of your property. You don't need neighbors permissions. So it will create quite a big change as come into the farm. But it's going to be a really nice resource to have that. This would just be leveled essentially. And I think the model that I'm looking at has a bathroom in this corner. So for now I'm going to take this low point with the laser level and just see how it translates to the septic tank over there. And then bear in mind once this is leveled, I guess it will be leveled to this lowest point. And then we're using these ground screws. So the actual floor level will be 20, 30 centimeters higher. So it gives us a bit of extra play. So I'll get the laser level out and see how that looks. Another thing to point out is part of the reason I'm getting the digger driver involved now is I don't want to disrupt any of the trees that have been growing up. And so the logical order this must be done in is to remove these trees, bring the digger in here, dig all the pond, do any soil removal that's needed, I'll have that dumped up at the top of the farm for use in other projects. And then lastly leveling this pad and getting out of there. Probably we'll have to dig some ditches across from the lean to greenhouse to get the water and electric through. But the water, the well is actually down here and the pump hydrofloor is inside the wall there. Still going to be a bit cold. We're not seeding in here yet. We're going to be seeding in the kitchen just because it's too cold at this point. And it's still a while till we'll start the next seedlings. Typically in March we start brassicas and tomatoes, etc. Going to have full tunnels this year, but not so much veg. Just going to plant in the old north bed. So it's still 70 odd beds, which is more than enough for the amount of people that will be here. And we're not selling beds commercially this year. Trusty laser level. I've used this so much for all the building and all of the water works that we've done here. Such a great tool to have. Simple laser receiver. So I've set this up where I can see the post, the staff above the septic and I can see round to the bottom corner there. Go and investigate. Okay. Welcome to my septic tank. Yummy. Okay, so what I wanted to show you, I don't know if you'll make it out, but there is the inflow pipe and so that's the sort of level that we're dealing with. We'd have to break through the wall there. So what I'm going to do is just estimate how far down that is. Let's call it. I know that's gray water. Maybe we have another pipe down there too. That does look pretty sludgy. I think that might be gray water and that's black water, to be honest. But let's say we'll go with the point here. We'll call it 90cm. So I'm just going to get a reading here. I'm always measuring at the top of this line. It's hard to see on this, but it's 145 +90.235. Okay. So we're measuring 219, so it's only 16 centimeters higher. That is not enough to satisfactorily take sewage and gray water over there. We need to think of more solutions. I'm going to talk to the digger driver about that because it's possible we can come in lower. Come in back over here. Sorry about the view. It's not the most appealing thing, is it? But we can come in lower than that. So I don't see any reason why we couldn't come in 50cm lower. Maybe we'll have to see. But I'll talk to him about that because he's used to dealing with this kind of setup. But we've got to just determine if it's possible. Otherwise the other option is to lift the building up a bit, which is not such a big issue either. So we'll see. So as I discussed in all videos about making this pond, the main cost is the digging and then it's going to be the concrete blocks and the liner. A liner for this sort of size pond is going to be about €2,000. The sides of this are vertical. That's what makes a beautiful swimming channel. And so you need to use a pond liner essentially, and then there's some gravel to go in around the edges. I expect it will cost 6, 7, €8,000. And that's to have a beautiful, naturally cleaned, pristine water swimming pool. Much cheaper. It's a fraction of the cost of having a pool installed, especially here in Sweden. And it's going to be beautiful. It's a really lovely investment for the property. Putting in features like this always adds two or three times what you spend to the value of a property if it's done well. And with the experience I have building ponds and these sort of systems, I'm very confident this will be a beautiful addition to the farm. I'm considering running this as a practical workshop, maybe a week long workshop. But what I want to do is get the groundworks begun now or as soon as the ground is good for digging. Because whilst it's fun to watch a skilled digger driver working, we don't have time to plan the practicalities of a workshop if the hole hasn't been dug. So we'll want to get on with that before that even is listed on the Internet. I'm not totally sure if I'm going to run it as a training because it's quite hard to put all the things in place to make it a really engaging, worthwhile workshop. But we'll see. I think we're on top of building sand here that I doubt we'll come across any major big rocks. But we'll see what the digger driver says next week when he comes. I'm really excited for it. I've been wanting to do this for a couple of years and I've been really wanting to just transform this front garden and also cut down a bit on the amount of grass that I need to cut here. Off to drop another bale of haley for the cows and sheep. Well, it's gotta be said, driving without chains or snow tires. Not good on this bit. Slippy slidy. I made it out okay, but I hope I don't have to put more bales before this thaws out. It's a big problem with the snow just compacted down and frozen now. Like if I drove down here, I would just slowly slide all the way down to the river. So I've been crossing over this way, but it's pretty sketchy. Well, I sure Am looking forward to having some beautiful people here to share the year with. And I was just calculating. The funny thing about homesteading is just the scale of everything. It makes me. Yeah, just very relieved. I mean we're normally bringing in many, many tons of both broiler and layer food. Just calculating for the small flock that will be in the new hand pulled Ridgedale eggmobile. I only need like 500 kilos of food to see me through to the end of the season. And then for the broilers I need about a ton of grain and half a ton of boiler starter. So it's minuscule amounts compared to the past. I think this year the biggest deal is going to be the garden which is always the most time consuming and labor intensive bit. I don't think we need all of the old north. That's the gardens on this side. Not going to be planting over there. We've got perennials up over here. So we've got our flower beds and asparagus, strawberries, etc. They'll obviously be going, but I don't think I'll plant in the south. I'll plant both tunnels up. Why not? But we wanted to have a bit of surplus in case this camping business for the teepees and the yurts up in the forest takes off. And then that's a real nice draw to this place is to be able to eat eggs and meat and vegetables from the farm. So we're going to plan a little extra. What are you kids doing? You going on a picnic? Yeah. You're going Iceland and picnicking. You got in your ice slider right now you've got like a whole, you got a reading book and a picnic.

We're going for a voyage, of course.

Nice ice slider. So I guess you're all familiar with this space. It's not gonna be so cramped as it's been every spring. If you look back at old seasons, this place just gets way too full up too soon. I'm gonna have a clean out in here. Gonna just patch up the insulation at the ends there. The wood battens have been falling off. But I guess with tomatoes in full production and cucumbers, we'll end up using all this space. I'm just here to get the dibber that we use for seed. 64 trays, some 3D printed replacements from where they've been lost and a couple of plant tags. First plantings of the year. Super exciting. First seeds of the year. Gracie really wanted. And we got some more chili seeds. So Gracie, we had a Lot of chili, but we'll grab some.

Where do we go? Go on this?

Yeah. Nicely done. I can't push it. That's good enough. Nice. Yep. We'll put vermiculite afterwards. I'm going to get a pen to label. Have to remember to label carefully. Right now these are nice big seeds. I'm going to get a little dish to put the seeds in. So let's do a whole tray of artichokes. We're going to space these in meter apart, so. So we'll have.

Two and a half.

No one in whole. Now artichoke globe Artichoke is an annual here in Sweden because our season is too short. So Grace loves them. And so we're going to grow two beds worth of these.

Even this one is going to be art.

Nope. This one you and I can do. Do you want to come and sit over here, do the chili?

Oh, can we do these?

Yes, we can do a bit of all of them. I'm going to get a dry bowl cuz this one is wet. Come and sit over here, Mila.

Is that enough?

It's not the full tray, but it's enough. I'm going to write on here. There you go.

I need my sauce though. Is that how you do it then?

Yes.

Question, Red.

She's doing really good.

Oh, I'm doing one veg really fast.

Super fast. We're going to mix these chilies up because this year we're not selling the crops, we're just eating them and storing them so we don't need to take so much care. That's good. Okay, job done for now. Just going to cover these up with vermiculite like we always do. But we'll keep them inside the kitchen where it's nice and warm and worry. Yeah, we're gonna have to do. You know, when we started the farm, we had all of this in the living room stacked up to the ceiling. But this year we don't have hardly any veg compared to most years. Nice and easy. Good job, kids. Let's make dinner. It's gonna be pretty cool having that view. Change of scene. That's it, folks. Hope you got something out of that. Sorry about the audio quality. It is what it is, but check out the links below if you're interested in my books. All the trainings that are on this year at the farm, get involved. It's going to be great to see some of you here in a relaxed, beautiful setting that this year pans out to be. See you in the next one.