Last volunteer workday of the year

No pictures in today's freezing fog.

Richard, George and I finished demolishing the launder and stacked all the bottom planks and side support boards, as well as the control gates, tidily out of the way.  We hope to use some of the timber to build a new run-off chute for the dump valve.

When we meet again next year we expect to be meeting a Trust building man to discuss the kiln and launder rebuilds, and Sara has arranged for some scaffolding so we can hover safely above the spillway pit while rebuilding the launder.  We also need to have a safe platform while rebuilding the lip of the spillway itself.

Well, I guess that's it for 2012.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our readers!

Farewell plastic pond liner

 Today we began to dismantle the old launder.  We had to remove the plastic pond liner that has kept us more-or-less watertight for the past 2 seasons, then knock the bottom planks out with a very big hammer.  Because the weather was very cold, and there had been snow recently, the launder had a good layer of ice, and you can see George shovelling some of it away.

Earlier, when we first arrived, we found that the huge stack of timber for the launder and the waterwheel lining had been delivered - in fact it was delivered last Friday and had spent the weekend freezing into a solid lump.  We scraped the ice off, managed to separate the boards, and got them all safely stored by lunchtime.  All the screws and other hardware had been delivered up at the house, along with our very own assemble-it-yourself wheelbarrow.  We therefore assembled the barrow fingertight so we could wheel the ironmongery down to the mill.

After lunch we had a useful forward planning meeting with Sara.