Day 52 - Below ground

Angie reported the cellar under the horse stables is full again. So while all the work goes on in the heat of the first floor of the house, I retreated to the cellar to pump it out.
Never bothered to measure it but it must be at least 10m x 5m x 2.5m  which given it is about three quarters full of water, means around 100,000 litres of water to pump. Normally I do it with a big fire hose size petrol driven engine which just takes a couple of hours. However now having "free" electricity, used the much smaller electric pump which takes much longer.

Normally like to keep the cellar full of water as a reserve should we ever have a fire. No hydrant near us and in the summer the stream next to the property is very shallow. Do of course still have 25,000+ litres of swimming pool water but how would the firemen cool down after putting the fire out?

On the other hand it would be nice to find a sensible use for the cellar as it would not be hard to keep it dry. Somewhere the ground water is leaking in but should be possible to stop or keep to a minimum. I guess as I can't afford to buy a years production of Chateau Lafite, a wine cellar is out of the question.

Only thing that comes to mind is mushrooms. Now if I can find a way to get the horses to stand over a hole in the floor .......

Anyway lovely and cool below ground. I did actually spend time building a window in to a space in the stables and another one in the hen house which has the old wooden slatted exterior shutters so that we can open the windows to get better ventilation for them in summer and yet keep their nest boxes relatively dark. Windows not bad either as they are double glazed and thus not too cold in winter. They were I suspect in the main house until replaced in the mid 90's.