Hung and Dung.

Today I finally got around to hanging the gate that I made ages ago.

It looks great.

So I took a photo to share with you all but I didn't notice at the time (because I'm use to seeing it) the massive pile of horse dung.

Tomorrow's job, shift the horse poo and get a better shot of the gate.

By the way, that is no regular horse poo.

It's racehorse poo! So it'll no doubt be great compost. I am worried about our organic certification owning to the probability of the racehorse poo being laced with amphetamines and other racing contraband.  

Just imagine the tomatoes next year! 

That's not knife, this is a .... Rock

I posted the other day that I had successfully split my largest rock thus far. We'll guess what? Records are ment to be broken.

Two almost perfect splits. Nearly 900mm thick!

The power of the wedge just astounds me some times.

Building materials.

At the hundred and first blow

Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

This weekend, we picked up some new feathers and wedges, some that were professionally produced by trow and Holden. If your a long time reader of this blog you'll remember some of the earliest posts regarding feathers and wedges, that my father made for me.

well I'm here to say a big fat thank you to my dad for getting me of the ground and into breaking this stone. But, dang! Professionally produced equipment makes a hard task, just that little bit better.

Today I used the wedges for the first time on the largest stone I've attempted yet. And snick.... That great sound of a stone boulder cleaving in two.

Building consent!

Well it only took 11 months but we have finally received building consent from the shire. Here's a breakdown.

November 2012 - first viewed the block

December 2012 - exchanged contract of sale

February 2013 - settled the contract for sale, extended time was owing to the titles office stamping new division and modifying maps etc.

Engaged architect to help with council submission, Structual details and enviro entail impact statement. (More on this later. )

March through August 2013 - design, budget, change design, budget, throw out design, design, budget help!

August 2013 - submit final design to council.

October 2013 - approval!

Construction certificate is still pending waiting on engenieers details. Next week?

Below is the sunset from last night.

Smokey! Early start to the brushfire season this year.

What a strange thing!

“What a strange thing!
to be alive beneath cherry blossoms."

The past two weeks of spring have seen unrivaled beauty burst to life up at the block. Our flowering plums down the length of the driveway all blossomed and quickly turned and have grown new leaves.
The ornamental pear at the top of the block is still blossoming and is humming with bees. The plums all over town are quite a sight, and make great "snow" see pic of Joscelyn below outside of school and Augie with the pear.

Other great new this week regarding plants at the block, all our fruit trees have come back after being devastated by rabbits earlier in the winter :-(

Last week we heard from council at the closure of the feedback period for our house plans. No complaints! Yeah!
We had to supply additional information regarding storm water management but I hope that was satisfactory. Will find out real soon I suspect.

Also, what is spring with out the Cowra show! The tea cups were the highlight for abs and I got to take Jos on the dodgems.

Also a before and after of the pruning pile.

Coop update III

Well, more progress has been made but I've lost control of the coop as it has been invaded by girls! It's currently full of dolls and "making house" type stuff. >:(

On an up-note the girls love playing in it.

We finished three garden beds that are attached to the backside of the dry stone wall. They got a good mattock'ing compost and some improved topsoil.
They're now ready to receive plants. Worried about loosing everything we plant to waskaly wabbits, so will fence of the garden ASAP.

We camped up at the block the other day now that the nights are getting Warner too. Great fun, until bed time:-(
Try again soon, but will take the night light for the tin lids.

On a side note. The photo below shows a very effective method of getting in a quick nine holes with a three year old! Played ok 44 for 9 holes (8 over.)

Also managed to finish a gift this weekend. A blackwood cutting board.
Turned out real nice. Liza wants on now too. 

Coop progress 2

Well winter came and went and still we've not got too much further on the coop.
Until last weekend that is!
We have the bones of the enclosed run and doors!!!

Spring has also bought the bees!
I've placed a photo of our drive way at the bottom of this post, it shows the trees in blossom. Each tree was absolutely laden with flowers and the bees! Oh my so many bees. Each tree had very loud hum of busy bees. Awesome :-p

Nature knows no pause...

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her self to all inaction.

From where I was standing the last few weeks, it seemed as though I was starting to be over run with an impossibly invasive ivy vine, darkening my skies and strangling my passion for the building design process.

But, owing dogged persistence and willingness to never sleep more than about 4 hours per night, we submitted the Development Application to the council today! And paid their exorbitant fees...

So it's predicted that it should take about 3 weeks, we'll see I guess.

Even if I knew..

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces. I would still plant my apple tree.

Guess what? Yeah, we planted our apple trees, a Granny Smith, a heirloom something something red? some citrus, including a lime, a lemon, an orange, and a williams pear.
We lost light whilst planting so didn't bother with putting the protective net around and in short order, wouldn't you know it, by the next morning the lime and lemon where reduced to twigs! I hope they come back once spring returns.

My mum and dad visited in the school holidays and helped us nut out a few issues with our plans, which are getting closer all of the time (Thanks dad). We all got stuck into clearing the house plot somewhat, felling two trees and removing about three tones of granite boulders, that will go into our garden wall.

Nanny did some knitting whilst she was down and you can see the picture of my youngest in her new outfit, thanks (mum)

An annoying amount of weird shaped heavy arse rocks and being reduced to working alone means, that I needed some help, so i came up with this lifter.
Using the equation F1*L1 = F2*L2.  I figure that the small rock in the picture is about 60kg!

Rock splitting video

A recent rock split.

Coop progress

Well it's now officially been months, but it's getting closer.

If only we stopped BBQing and worked more we'd be done by now.

Go big or go home (chicken!)

March 2013
Well I never thought that this day was coming. The beginning of the coop!
We leveled the rock wall at the four corners to hold the bearers (150x75 recycled hardwood.)
100x50 recycled hardwood joists made up the subfloor.

Bearers and joist in place

I got a bunch of 100x50 hardwood from the recyclers a few weeks ago, I was planning to use it for the coop as is but when I started cutting it to Length I thought "it's just a chicken shed, not a bomb shelter" so I ripped it to 50x50 and made the frames from this stuff, not only is it strong enough, it now when twice as far.
Being so old and dry, it's been a real dog to nail and I quickly found that I needed to pre drill!

In the photos below I have a shot of the sprit level proving how level the joists are. Now this came about because the day before, as Liza and I were placing the bearers, Liza swore black and blue that it was not level at all! (owing to the slope of the block) even though the water level was spot on, she just didn't believe it... Well Lize, do you like apples?
Low tech baby, Yeah!!

Level?

First Wall frame going up

 May 17 2013
Well, it's been slow going on the coop but there has been some progress, which is good.
Today I braced the frame and filled in a few missing studs, placed the rafters on for the roof and the battens for the iron that we'll pick up during the week.
In addition to this I tied the frame down to the bearers with some uni-ties and the rafters where tied down with triple grips and hobb nailed too.

Yesterday saw our friend Richard and his daughter Julia visit from Sydney. Richi and I tackled a large boulder with wedges and the crow bar... See upcoming post for our success.

Bracing going on and rafters awaiting fixing

Battens and done, bracing done. Ready for iron.

Don't tell me the moon is shining,

Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Yesterday I took apart the first window to make some repairs and ease the springs in the sash.

Below is a pictorial of each step I went through. 

That was months ago...

Today I reassembled the frame and well, I'll let you be the judge I think it looks, um, the same. That is to say that it looks old.

Not sure if I'm going to bother with the rest or just scrape the back and paint right over the bad bits and be done with it.

There are many things of which

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant

Like the true weight of my trailer yesterday!

Overloaded you might say?
No, you're never overloaded when you save about 15K.
Well that's the idea any way... 20 hours of scrapping and stripping, repairs and some glazing putty later I might have another idea, but for now we have more than half our windows sorted.
We deem it important to get the windows first as we need to know the sizes of opening for the plans and the BASIX certification too.

Glad to have them all home and safe in the shed.

Below are some pictures of the outside white and inside brown.
Also a long awaited replacement a LN #7
:-)

Taking the black.

Well yesterday we finally settled on the land! It was such a long settlement owing to red tape at the titles office. There was no problem with the subdivision from the vendor, it just takes that long, seemingly.

As some readers are aware we hosted end if term drinks up on the block, and the positive feedback was very welcome! (Thank you all) It is so reassuring to know that everyone sees the beauty of our garden, as we do.

News regarding the house it's self is the architect has completed copying my drawings, the engineers drawings will be ready today(ish) and our house plans have passed the BASIX certification. Easy too.
Thus the development application should be ready to submit by next week!
Allowing for 6 long weeks in council means that we could possibly commence in as little (or long) 7 weeks.

I spent the afternoon up at the block this afternoon continuing on the wall. It's such a big undertaking that I'm considering "taking the black" so I may devote myself to the wall and joining the nights watch. (Game of Thrones nerd reference)

Also this week we committed to buying a stack of windows from the central coast.
Second hand of course! That seem like that will be great, the last picture below shows the top light. They are western red cedar, double hung sash windows with glazing bars and a leaded high light about with some stained glass. We love the idea of them, time will tell if stripping, repainting and balancing sash is worth all the effort.
Apparently these windows came out of a local public school which explains there size ( they are massive, at 2600mm high)
There are only a few schools in the area where they are from so for the story's sake I'll say they came out of Shelly Beach Public School?

Countries go to war over the love of ideas, I figure that I should at least be able to bring these windows back to life.