The picture shows our open-fronted “Cart Shed” (situated under the grain loft) as it was a week ago.

Floored!

Yikes! Realising that the floor of the grain loft was absolutely riddled (and I mean riddled) with what our Czech helpers called “little animals” [= woodworm] we had the whole floor ripped up and dropped into what will be the care farm day room below.

As we speak it is being converted to firewood for the log burner. But you just have to be amazed, as we constantly are, at the quality of the workmanship (and the expense!) that went into the farm when it was build in the 1870’s as a “model farm”. These floor boards are not the modern kind of thing but really thick tongue-and-groove boards – with, believe it or not, metal inserts in the tongues (see photo), presumably to strengthen them with the weight of grain they would need to bear.

You simply cannot buy this kind of wood now. When the loft floor is replaced, it will be with a modern wood composite, not the solid pine that we pulled out. Still, it met its purpose – lasting over a century, supporting as many grain harvests, and feeding countless cattle over the years. And even, in recent years, superannuated for a venue for an indoor skateboard ramp for our children and friends,  and latterly as a Christian youth camp “sacred space”. Looking forward, it will house our Battle of Blore Heath interpretation centre and be flexible space for our care farm functions.

Below is the view from our cart shed. I must say I particularly like this view, dominated as it is by a luxuriant oak tree coming to the prime of its life. We hope it is going to be restful but also an object for meditation and reflection, with the interest of its changes in the passing seasons. You can wax lyrical about oak trees as well – the predominant timber tree throughout Europe since earliest times, supporting some 500 species of moths, weevils and other insects, and with many uses for its bark and other products (E. Milner, The Tree Book, Collins and Brown 1992).