WEBVTT NOTE Transcript 2024-04-08 from FLAC by https://elvery.net/prototypes/transcribe/ on my MacBook Air M1 on maximum quality setting. NOTE Body lightly edited. 00:00.000 --> 00:11.060 Hi, I'm Damon Hart-Davis and this is a special Earth Notes podcast episode for 28th October 2019. 00:11.060 --> 00:16.140 This podcast series started when I was asked to create a three-minute piece about my green 00:16.140 --> 00:17.760 home. 00:17.760 --> 00:22.260 I am visiting my dad and Sue this weekend, so I thought that it would be fun to get him 00:22.260 --> 00:25.860 to do the same about his home here in Devon. 00:25.860 --> 00:27.500 And here he is. 00:27.500 --> 00:29.980 Hi there. 00:29.980 --> 00:36.720 We live in a converted ciderbarn on the banks of the river Erme, which flows down off Dartmoor 00:36.720 --> 00:43.160 and into the channel at Wonwell, Wonwell Beach, which is a wonderful beach, huge wide sand 00:43.160 --> 00:47.280 at low tide with ripples running in both directions. 00:47.280 --> 00:51.280 The cider barn was built probably in the 19th century. 00:51.280 --> 00:57.340 The bridge which is attached to the house was built in 1818 and it may be the house 00:57.340 --> 00:59.020 was built at the same time. 00:59.020 --> 01:03.340 It was converted from a cider barn into a home in 1990. 01:03.340 --> 01:09.539 It's got stone walls a couple of feet thick and not enough windows and it can be perishing cold in the winter, but we heat it either with underfloor heating downstairs, or with log- 01:16.220 --> 01:20.700 burning stoves, which I've got in the corner of my room here. 01:20.700 --> 01:25.860 And we have our own trees, so we cut down the trees and we log up the wood and there 01:25.860 --> 01:30.980 are zero miles or costs to heating. 01:30.980 --> 01:34.860 We've got a big veg garden and we've grown masses of veg, well every year, but this year 01:34.860 --> 01:39.060 particularly the beans have been good, the broad beans, the climbing French beans, the 01:39.060 --> 01:40.300 runner beans. 01:40.300 --> 01:42.620 We've had parsnips and beetroots. 01:42.620 --> 01:46.580 We've had masses of chard and all sorts of other stuff. 01:46.580 --> 01:50.100 The leeks are just about ready to start eating now. 01:50.100 --> 01:55.820 We've got a lot of space for kids to come and run around in, which means that my grandchildren 01:55.820 --> 02:00.900 come here often and so do Sue's grandchildren and we've got space for them to stay, so it's 02:00.900 --> 02:01.900 huge fun - 02:01.900 --> 02:05.260 we tend to have huge family Christmases. (Every other year, 02:05.260 --> 02:09.060 in between years they will go to the other parents of course.) 02:09.060 --> 02:10.740 And we have loads of wildlife. 02:14.700 --> 02:16.780 We have jays chasing off magpies. 02:16.780 --> 02:21.500 We have lots of tits of all sorts, spotted woodpeckers and so on. 02:21.500 --> 02:26.860 But because we're on the river, we also have herons, we have the occasional goosander, 02:26.860 --> 02:31.540 we have cormorants surprisingly so far inland, (we're ten miles from the sea). 02:31.540 --> 02:33.540 Quite frequently the cormorants come. 02:33.540 --> 02:37.820 We have very occasional swans, one of whom landed in our pond, our fish pond and was 02:37.820 --> 02:41.380 a bit surprised to find it couldn't swim within about five yards. 02:41.380 --> 02:43.579 We have the occasional goosander, we have kingfishers. Altogether it's beautiful. There are dippers who under the bridge, our bridge, and 02:51.660 --> 02:56.620 this year produced four babies which then when they're ready they dive out of the nest 02:56.620 --> 03:00.780 straight into the water and they stay under water until mum comes back with more food. 03:00.780 --> 03:02.380 It's a wonderful sight. 03:02.380 --> 03:04.580 (Not that you can see them much when they're under water.) 03:04.580 --> 03:06.660 But learning to fly is great. 03:06.660 --> 03:11.180 And then in the woods around there are buzzards, lots of buzzards. 03:11.180 --> 03:18.060 One year the parents nested in our pine trees and we watched the young learning to fly, 03:18.060 --> 03:23.620 sort of hopping from branch to branch going "Mewwww mewwww mummy mummy I can fly" and all 03:23.620 --> 03:24.620 that. 03:24.620 --> 03:26.660 We have enough space to plant a lot of trees. 03:26.660 --> 03:29.340 We've planted about 250, 03:29.340 --> 03:36.700 mainly broadleaf native trees, oak in particular is the majority but then ash and rowans and 03:36.700 --> 03:41.780 sweet chestnut and wild service trees and all sorts of other things, 03:41.780 --> 03:43.820 and it's great fun watching them grow. 03:43.820 --> 03:48.740 We planted our forest or "New Forest" as we call it, starting ten years ago. 03:48.740 --> 03:53.900 And then last year for my 75th birthday we started a new copse in the middle of a field 03:53.900 --> 03:58.620 we own (which is usually full of sheep so we had to put a fence around this copse), 03:58.620 --> 04:01.580 and there are now 90 trees in the copse. 04:01.580 --> 04:06.220 And although they suffered horribly in the hot dry winds we had this summer, they are 04:06.220 --> 04:09.260 now recovering in the warm, wet autumn. 04:09.260 --> 04:10.660 So they are looking very good. 04:10.660 --> 04:15.380 There's all sorts of stuff there from weeping willows to weeping beaches and an African 04:15.380 --> 04:21.380 bean tree as well as a dozen oaks and twenty ashes and so on and so forth. 04:21.380 --> 04:24.540 So we live a fairly green existence, 04:24.540 --> 04:29.940 we have solar panels on the roof both for hot water and to provide electricity and it 04:29.940 --> 04:33.900 provides more electricity than we can use which is great. 04:33.900 --> 04:40.740 So our electricity bill is about 700 pounds a year, and they pay us 1700 pounds a year, 04:40.740 --> 04:44.380 which means we'll repay the initial cost in about 15 years. 04:44.380 --> 04:50.540 Fairly soon now, I think, if they go on working. We have to clean them occasionally, obviously, 04:50.540 --> 04:54.900 because they get covered in bird poo and dust and other stuff. 04:54.900 --> 04:58.540 We're also a bit worried because we're right on the river and a section of the river bank 04:58.540 --> 05:03.180 has collapsed and that's at least partly down to us to repair it, 05:03.180 --> 05:07.260 and the Environment Agency are being rather difficult. 05:07.260 --> 05:10.140 But all in all it's a lovely place to live. 05:10.140 --> 05:11.140 It's very peaceful. 05:11.140 --> 05:16.740 Nobody knows we're here apart from our children. And the postman of course - he occasionally 05:16.740 --> 05:19.500 brings us letters and bills and things like that. 05:19.500 --> 05:20.500 So we love it. 05:20.500 --> 05:26.100 The chickens provide us with some eggs and the garden provides us with loads of vegetables. 05:26.100 --> 05:29.220 So that is, that's our green existence. 05:29.220 --> 05:31.300 Thank you Adam. 05:31.300 --> 05:37.020 There's more on my Earth Notes Web site at Earth.Org.UK.