The first straw

Yesterday the first load of straw arrived. Lew, Mark B and Anne W helped us off load the bales. The bales were passed over the fence and between two cruck frames into the house.

We are getting the straw delivered in two loads. We don't have room to store all 450 bales on site. Although this means paying for two lots of carriage it minimises the handling and cost this end since we don't need to store offsite. We will arrange for the delivery of the remainder of the bales once we have used the first load and released the space. We'll have to come up with another way to offload the next lot of bales since it won't be possible to pass them through the cruck frames once we have started to infill the walls.

It is crucial that the bales are kept dry. If water penetrates the top or bottom of the bale it will rot in the centre rendering it useless for building. The sides getting a little wet is not a problem Our bales are stacked on bearers and covered with a tarp. The loose straw was bagged up and saved to be used to stuff any gaps between the bales and the frames.

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