Good reason for a bonfire

Okay, so bonfires are not renowned for being particularly great for the environment. Infact there are many environmentalists out there (particularly some members of the AECB http://www.aecb.net/) who are casting doubt on the benefits of burning biomass as a low carbon form of heating. So burning a pile of wood at this time of year to commemorate the failed attempt to blow up Parliament neither helps heat our homes nor, if we're honest, does it celebrate our seat of Government.

Despite this we'll be having a bonfire this November. It probably won't be on the 5th and I doubt we'll be organised enough to invite friends round to tramp up the muddy hill to see it. Instead it'll probably end up being me on my own making sure the fire stays under control and safely burns all that we pile on it. The reason why? To control the effect of leaf miner moths on our 100 year old Horse Chestnut tree.

Last autumn the huge tree that towers over our garden suffered from the signs of the dreaded moths, with leaves turning brown, shrivelling and falling from th

e branches long before November. There seems to be little that can be done to combat these destructive moths but I read somewhere that if you do nothing else, burn the leaves instead of composting them. So we did, although there's no way we could collect all the leaves from some a huge tree.

Looking at the tree this Autumn it looks in far better condition with the leaves just turning brown, unlike Horse Chestnuts that we pass on the way to work that have been bearing brown shrivelled leaves for weeks. I can only deduce that this is thanks to us destroying moths that would otherwise have overwintered in the dead leaves and would've been ready to attack the tree this spring.

So our bonfire will nodoubt be smokier than some, with it's abundance of leaves, but it'll be in a good cause to try and protect the iconic horse chestnut that has towered over Hillside almost since the day the cottage was first built.

Roe Deer enjoying the fruits of the horse chestnut tree

12 months

The last month has flown by, helped by our first real holiday in ages where we escaped to Cornwall for a week with no DIY. Not wanting to totally escape from talk of buildings and projects we found time call in on Graham and Isabelle to sample produce from their vast veg plot and to see what their little project looks like - http://tremayne.tumblr.com/

Meanwhile back at home Autumn has finally set in, reminding us that we moved back home a year ago today. Things have moved on massively over the year, both inside and outside the house, but it's been surprising how long some tasks have taken to complete. Laying all the oak flooring was an epic task that took up a lot of time, and prevented us from fully using the house till Easter. That's something I'm glad not to have to revisit, although we did have to cut an expansion gap in the oak downstairs at the end of September to prevent it from buckling.

With the cooler weather now here we've fired the boiler once more with the solar thermal system providing a top-up for the hot water. 1 year on it's interesting to see that we've used 7 tonnes of wood pellets. This sounds like a lot and is more than I'd hoped we'd use. But I think the combination of the extremely cold winter, a house that was incomplete when we moved back in, plus the poor thermal performance of the old parts of the cottage and teething problems with the boiler last year will all have resulted in increased pellet consumption. My aim is to make sure that the next 12 months see a significant reduction. We'll see!