Burmieston

Last weekend (while Stevie's trainees were working hard at Merryhill) the branch (helped by members of the local community) did some work on the walls at Burmieston farm, just to the north of Perth, which is now run as a combination of an organic smallholding and a retreat centre.
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I got a bit lost, so by the time I arrived on Saturday morning work was already underway ...

We had a pretty good turnout - eight members of the branch (including our host, Olly) and one local helper. A lot of the stone was big rounded boulders - I expect the largest of them had been cleared from the field, rather than fallen from the wall.

One thing about large stone is that once the wall starts to go up, it tends to go up pretty quickly. The farm dog helped by inspecting our work, and occasionally testing how comfortable a bed it made.

We were provided by our hosts with delicious soup for lunch, served in their old barn (now a games room for their guests). They have a very impressive old threshing machine.

After lunch we continued with the work on the wall. The rain stayed off for the most part, and the breeze kept the midges at bay.

We must have got about 10 meters of wall repaired, and were ready to put the copes on by the end of the afternoon.

Sunday was a warmer day and less windy than the day before. We had only four of the members from Saturday returning, but another couple joined us, plus a new local community helper and a 'WWOOFer' - a volunteer from Willing Workers On Organic Farms, all the way from Australia. We picked up from where we'd finished the day before, with a couple of the local chickens helping us with the digging out ...

We were again provided with lovely home-made soup for lunch, after which another couple of branch members joined us. Once again the big stone made for quick work once we'd got the collapsed wall dug out.

There was a curved corner to be negotiated, with a metal fence post in the middle of it (Olly is going to keep sheep in the enclosure, and he needs to run a wire fence along the top of the wall to make it secure). The big stone came in handy here, both for forming the corner and for supporting the post (which was almost rusted through at the bottom). 

By mid afternoon we'd got the section we'd started on pretty much completed with just the copes needing put on, so we started tackling the section past the corner as well.

I had to leave at about four o'clock, by which time we'd coped the wall as far as the corner and got the next bit up to about half way. 

A few keener (and in some cases, later-starting) folk stayed on to do a bit more, but I don't have any photos of this. So just imagine the photo above, but with a bit more of the wall done ... 

​Thanks to Oliver and Keesje for looking after us so well, and to Sam for the photos.

And here, at the request of Dr John March, is a photo of me walking along the wall. It was easily solid enough to walk along - the only issue was negotiating the overhanging trees ...