Snow tyres

Well, the ski resort doesn't shut for another week, and there is plenty of snow.  However, it just isn't cold enough and the snow is proper slush by lunchtime.  So the snow tyres are off.
Took a while as they were rusted onto the stub axles.  WD40 and a lot of kicking shifted them.  The NS was worst.

grass cutting

First cut of the year.  A bit long, so needed to strim a fair bit too.

Wood cutting continues

I've been back in the forest felling, logging and moving trees.  My friend Henri needed a hand, and more importantly, I needed his tractor to pull down the last handful of trees on my plot.
Henri has an awful lot of trees and about 3 weeks to get them felled.
So I've worked 2 'french' days with him, which starts around 1030 for an hour, then 3pm 'til 6.  The hardest part of the day is the aperitifs which are compulsory, and finish anytime between 7 and 8.

Field drains

With all the recent rain, it's been getting a bit soggy below the orchard.  There is a natural hollow and the rain sort of gathers in the hollow and then runs in a straight line down hill, under the log pile, and is then channeled into a bund created 4 years ago during some storms.  A filed drain in the bund runs this off to a ditch.

Well, we decided that another field drain is required from the start of the hollow to the ditch.  About 13m.  As it's supposed to be a field drain, it's not very far below the surface - say 100mm.  80mm pipe.

In the picture it runs from the grey square in the foreground to the ditch.  The square is a drain cover to keep a hole/sump open that leads to the drain.

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Skiing!

The first skiing day of the season today.   Very quiet. Bareges was shut due to a problem with the Tournaboup lift, so they shut the entire area.  Thanks for that.

then
9/12/13
12/12
10/1 looking bare
17/1 not bad 5-10cm 2 days ago
28/1?  ok chains
4/2 quite a lot of fresh lienz drag open. plus black chair

Post box bell

Now the letter box has been moved, we can no longer see if the postie leaves us any bills.
Whilst I encourage SHMBO to regularly visit the box, there has been a little bit of resistance; a return trip is nearly 160m.
So a bell was installed which triggers when post is delivered; luckily there were a few spare cores in a cable used to monitor the electricity consumption, which were in a box just adjacent.