Sunrise 07:44, Sunset 16:15

Yep - it's getting darker. In fact, when it's cloudy, it starts to feel like dusk just after lunch. There's worse to come.

And here are some not very good piccies of Epic.

They aren't very good cos they don't really convey the scale of the project. The raised bed is depicted by the fencing posts - the walls will be nissen hut roofing, re-inforced on the outside by rubble, or a low drystane wall if I have time. The soil level will only be raised by about 10 inches now, but the intention is to add to this over the years. It'll be enough to anchor the trees for a while. The nissen roofing walls should keep the rabbits out but I'll need to keep a close eye on this.

The pond is much deeper than it looks - in places the water is waist deep with another foot or so of very soft mud under that. I've started to shelf the edges so if you step into it you go in about a foot - a warning to proceed with care. The barrow run is from here to the trees in the top left. It's 200 metres or so across rough land, up hill.

Yesterday I was digging up old stands of whins and silver birch from the bottom of these holes. I can't tell for sure, but it looks as though they used to be growing here. That means our 'loch' is gradually filling up, and there's probably quite a bit of decent land to be reclaimed if we can figure how to drain it. The soil, although peaty, is good and deep - it would be worth it if we could.

I should be working on it today - but on Monday I received a lot of consultancy work that needs to be done by Nov 21, and I'm sort of feeling I should at least make a dent on that so I can better judge how to manage my time. But then again I might take advantage of the weather using my lack of sleep last night as an excuse for physical rather than mental labour.