But before I could even think about bringing them to live on our farm I had to prepare a place for them to live. Of course deciding where the building was to be was not as easy as falling in love with these two handsome gents who just happen to be Father and Son.
Wanting the best for them I immediately thought of putting them on to the land I have in front of the house which is nice and flat and full of lush grass during the winter months. However, this I was advised would be a bad idea. Donkeys unlike horses do not do so well on rich pasture, their stomachs are more suited to courser fodder, such as can be found on the terraces at the back of my house. So on the terraces it had to be. But before we could fence this area off we had to build them a shelter. One which would be close enough to the house so we could just pop our heads out to check on them whenever we needed as well as being close to the tap so we could change the water in their buckets without having to carry them a long distance.
So we chose an area close to our Almacen. And naturally our first task regards building them a shelter was to dig out the foundations.
Oh my, I really am not very photogenic. Thankfully Paul and Mandy (from the UK) are far better looking so hopefully your eye is drawn to them not me.
As ever my favoured tool for all digging work the Azada came out to help us and soon we had the foundations both marked out and dug out to the depth we needed.
Now as strange as it may seem, after having dug out loads of soil and rock from the foundations we went and put a load of 'grava' (as it is known here in Spain) or as we know it as, 'sand and gravel' into the trenches to level it all up so the concrete would be a consistent depth.
As per usual Toby my dog was on hand to supervise. (what would I do without him?)
Unfortunately what we thought would be a relatively simple job turned into something of a nightmare when we uncovered (during the digging out of the foundation trench) a huge slab of bedrock. Naturally it wasn't flat which meant Christopher and Paul, (one of our volunteer helpers) were faced with the daunting task of making sure that when we put down the concrete for the foundations it ended up being all nice and level. This meant measuring the highest point of the bedrock and calculating the height of the other sides so that they would just right.
Now as I am sure you will realise, building on bedrock is no bad thing. For one thing any building built on it surely has a solid foundation that will withstand most of the ravages Mother Nature can throw at it. For instance, take the 'Parable of the wise and foolish man'.
The wise man built his house on rock, when the rains came down the house stood firm. But the foolish man built his house on sand and well it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what happened to it when it rained. Yep, the foundations washed away and his house fell down. So we were quite happy that our donkeys shelter would have 'rock solid' foundations. However, we were not so happy when it came to the extra work the levelling up caused us, because boy was it a fiddly job. But as the saying goes, 'measure twice, cut once' or as it was in this case. 'Measure at least a dozen times and pour the concrete once.'
Thankfully the guys had the patience to see the task through to the end.
But what were we women doing whilst the boys measured and calculated. Well, we dug out the centre of the shelter as we are leaving it as a soil floor which will prove softer in the long run for the donkeys to sleep on.
Mandy along with Paul also cut and chipped away at some of the bedrock so we could lay the 'reglo's' the long pieces of metal we use to make sure the lines were kept straight could be laid correctly.
Thanks to all the guys hard work (Christopher, Paul and Mandy, oh and I might have been somewhere in there, lol) we were soon able to start laying the concrete.
Erm, what's this, looks like Paul was getting a bit too hands on here, haha, don't worry folks, they are husband and wife and Mandy soon got him back, lol. Shame I didn't get that photo, rofl
Paul was happy to lend a hand at 'Angle Grinding' the excess 'rebar' (reinforcement bar) that we had put into the concrete to help bind all the sections together. (I think he enjoyed it)
Et Voila! The foundations were soon down and if I say so myself, looking good!
Of course, concrete has to be allowed to dry so whilst we waited we all got busy doing other things on the farm.
Cutting firewood for the house.
Wall repair, or in this case a total rebuild.
From rubble....
To the start of a wall
Oh dear, you really cannot miss me, can you! But honestly there is a good reason for me wearing so bright an outfit. At first light we heard hunters shooting on the mountain so in order to make sure they could see us I put on bright clothing and practically dazzled them with my ensemble, lol.
Like me, some of the stones are / were definitely on the chunky side.
But after a lot of hard work we could stand back and admire a mornings work standing proud and solid in the warm winter sunshine.
But we didn't stop there, another day brought about the repair/rebuild of another section of wall.
Followed by another.
Until that pile of rubble looks like this..
Pretty amazing, don't you think?
But we didn't just build a wall you know. Heck no, we also...
Cleared a mound of soil and rock from beside the Almacen so the donkeys wouldn't hurt themselves on it.
As well as fired the weeds and cut branches from off the land.
Thankfully we had extra help arrive in the shape of Rebecca, aka Bex, (another volunteer) who joined us just in time to get stuck into collecting up the branches for burning and boy did she do it with gusto.
She even tried her hand at helping building another part of the wall.
And where there was no wall at all we started to build a new one.
But where does the 'schemes of mice and women' come into all of this.
Well, take a look below.
Because I am interested in sustainable living as well as eco practices I started to think that maybe we should try our hand at building our animal shelters out of things like earthbags. (recycled plastic bags that you fill with earth, then cover with some sort of plaster, be it mud or cement render) But of course to do this you need soil, lots of it with which to fill the bags. Thing is, I don't have any soil to speak of on my land, instead I have the most pathetic excuse for it alongside rocks and stones that would fill the Grand Canyon and then some.
Thankfully, Christoper knew a man who said he could help us. In fact he said he could lay his hands on the very stuff we needed for an earthbag building and best of all he could get it for us for a reasonable fee. So we ordered 20 metric tonnes (20,000 kilos) of soil but when it was delivered it didn't look close to being suitable and we said as much, but the guy assured us, the lumps would break up with no trouble whatsoever.
Now what we needed is what you can see in the barrow below.
So we set too, trying to break up the lumps.
And to sieve it till until it was just right.
Thankfully some of the pile proved fine enough, but most wasn't and most of the lumps resisted our attempts to smash them into submission.
But still we toiled. Why? Because we had too, it was either that or scrap the idea of using earthbags as a building material, which was not going to happen because of the cost involved.
Now I can just about hear some of you saying....'why didn't you get the guy who sold it to you back to sort it out?' Well we did, but it took him close to 3 weeks to turn up. And when he did it was late at night so we couldn't see whether or not he had gotten all the lumps out.
But come he did and the following morning we excitedly went out to see this.
Whoo hoo, look at that smooth, fluffy soil.
Unfortunately beneath the smooth exterior lay a heart of lumps and clods still.
So we set to sieving the soil once again.
But before we could finish it, the heavens opened up and the rain came down in bucket loads. (or as they say here, 'lloviendo cántaros' or 'raining jugs' ) So we went out for the day, and had a hot chocolate and pastry, (we really didn't need an excuse but we used the rain as a good one all the same lol).
After which we had to wait for the ground to dry out.
Unfortunately Paul and Mandy left us before we could start building, but Bex was on hand alongside Christopher, Barry (my husband) and of course moi, so pretty soon we had the first layer down.
In between each successive layer of bags we laid barbed wire (alambre del spino) to help hold them together.
But no sooner had we laid the first layer the weather took a turn for the worse. In fact the change in weather coincided with a new arrival, Nikoline (from Denmark) and be it coincidence or not she told us that they had snow in her home country, and guess what, the temperature dropped so much the mountains behind us had a light dusting of snow on them when we went out to work the next morning.
Brrrr! It was cold. But the guys got stuck in and after a few teething problems we soon got to grips with laying the next layer of bags down.
Followed by the next.
But no sooner had we begun building the weather took a real turn for the worse and whereas the mountains behind our house had been lightly sprinkled with a snow, overnight it became a real coating.
Which meant we couldn't risk uncovering the bags (we had covered them with a large tarpaulin to protect them, thank heavens we did).
So the girls and I decided to finish building the wall we had started.
And after a lot of hard work...
It looked like this.
Well done girls!
But we didn't stop there.
We then went on to build another, well the girls were so good at it, it seemed a shame not to let them have a bit of a wall building fest, lol!
Hmm, I always seem to have my bottom sticking up in the air in photos, lol!
As always Toby my dog was on hand to supervise.
We call this, the 'Doberbutt cam' angle lol!
Eventually we called a halt regards building walls because the weather had turned nice again but didn't the girls do well?
We think so!
As the sun shone down, we laid the earthbags Nikoline had so patiently measured and cut out for us.
Building up the walls of our donkey shelter layer by layer.
Pounding them till they were as hard as bricks, sewing up the ends so that no soil would spill out once they had been filled.
Sadly Bex had to leave us but thankfully Stephanie from France came along to help us out.
She proved a whizz on the mixer and soon had several wheelbarrows full to the top of concrete mix for us to use.
As well as proved to be a proficient seamstress, sewing up the ends of the bags in preparation for our filling them with earth.
But hang on, why did we need any more concrete mixing. Well as we built higher and higher the walls began to feel a little wobbly, granted it was only when we tugged on them, but we imagined ourselves to be a donkey, leaning against the sides and when we saw they moved slightly we knew we had to do something to give them some extra support. This is where the buttresses came in which of course needed solid foundations on which to stand.
Despite the ardent efforts of Nikoline and Stephanie they were unable to finish the shelter before we bade them farewell.
Luckily we were joined by Jonas from Germany and Tracy from the US. to carry on the good fight as they say.
Putting in rebar rods to help link all the levels together so that the shelter was as solid as it possibly be
.
Slowly the shelter grew in height.
And then the weather turned bad, it rained and rained and rained.
This is what I mean when I evoke the saying..... 'The schemes of mice and women'. Because they often go awry!
But we shall prevail and we will get our shelter built and our donkeys will have a shelter in which to lay on a cold wintery night or a hot summers day.
You just wait and see!
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