The verandah gets a roof

Dad has been making some great progress on the verandah. Here's some photos and his reports below:





"As you see I have at last done some carpentry work. I got all the common rafters nailed into place (22 all together). I had to measure them individually as the old house was out of plumb in the rear corner and that factored into some variation in the rafter lengths. The beam is perfectly straight and the rafters nailed, and I have fitted the roof battens and braces, and made a start on the sheeting.

I need to complete the screwing of the roof sheets next visit. I was altogether too tired to finish them further than one course of battens and nails on the lower two battens. I will be ordering the flashing on Monday so that can be placed.

Altogether, I am very pleased with the veranda so far. All the rafters are aligned beneath so when I have time to do lining, after the frame inspection and electrical wiring, it will be very easy to do this with minimal packing.

The temporary deck provided a base for the trestles and I was able to reach easily. I will take out the braces to the house now that the rafters are in place and have open workspace.

Your house is perfectly placed for a hot day. The sun was to the rear of the house and a lovely breeze blows when the sun is hot due to the shadow cast by the house. I am very very pleased with the aspect of the deck, and the size as it affords living outdoors very well"

Mowing the orchard

On his last visit, Dad discovered the orchard grass had gotten out of control again. Because of the risk in attracting snakes - plus the fire danger - Dad spent a while mowing it.

Here's some photos... It's good to compare it to the photos from when Dave last mowed, as you can see that now the fruit trees have leaves. :-)

Before


After

The red caboose sees some action

Dad spent some time working up at Amherst last week. One of the things he was doing was installing new water tanks.

To make a flat base for them, he needed to get some dirt... and so the little red caboose trailer saw some action!




Then, da-da... back at the block, the red caboose does its magic tipping trick, sparing Dad from having to shovel it all out. :-)



Pretty cool, hey!

Next door's sheep come to visit

I am a big fan of sheep, so delighted that next door have a flock. I am even happier that they let them come to visit and graze... not only is it cool to have them around, it means that Dave doesn't have an even bigger mowing job!

Here's some footage Dave took of them wandering up the driveway:

work on the verandah

Dave and Dad made great progress while they were up there on the verandah foundation, pausing only when the ran into a hiccup with the ceiling height.

They got all the stumps in for the verandah on the long side of the house. This was a big job apparently as not only did they have to dig out the holes, it was a pain getting everything lined up perfectly. Even worse - the tractor got a flat tire, so after all the effort to get the augre, they had to do a lot of it by hand!

Here's the beginning...


They dug out each hole ...


Then filled with cement.



Repeat many times and you have a forest of stumps...



A quick tangent to dig out a flat area for the under-verandah tank...



Then it's time for some framing...




They even got the posts up (with temporary supports until Dad gets the roof frame up) and voila, the verandah starts to take shape.

mowing the orchard

One of the tasks Dave did while back was to mow the grass in the orchard. Clearly the fence was working well to keep the sheep and kangaroos out, as although everything else was nibbled flat, this had just gone crazy.

To help with the task, Dad bought Dave an early Xmas present: a lawnmower!

Here's a short video showing what it looked like before mowing. The trees might look dead from a distance but when you get close up you can see that they've got buds on.



Here's what it looked like midway and after...

Sunrise mist

While Dave and Dad were camping out at the block, it was unfortunately pretty cold. Not a surprise given it was the middle of winter, but still not pleasant.

The only positive was that it meant Dave was able to take some lovely misty sunrise photos. This is my favourite:

The dam is full, and the damhouse is perfect

Wow, the dam is fuller than it has ever been. And the dam house (really a glorified shed) looks wonderful, like it's in the middle of a lake when viewed from the front. Just the effect I was hoping for... :-)

Here's what it looks like now:




Just to put that in context, here's what it looked like when we built it in April. The water would be lapping at your feet if you were to take that photo again today.

Green green green

Dad took some photos for us on his last visit, showing Amherst as wonderfully lush and green... Oh how I wish it was like this all the time.

Prue helps us lay out the garden

After marking out the new house, the next day it was time to think about the garden.

Prue Metcalfe came up to help us, as we had some big decisions to make that I didn't want to risk screwing up. Added bonus was she brought along her husband and little girl the night before, so we had a great catchup dinner. :-)

Armed with piping and spraypaint as markers, we worked out where the main garden beds would be, especially the long border to run alongside both houses. Then we worked out the shape for the terraced area that we will eventually be excavating, including the haha.

(We later used the tractor to dig a trench along the paint to get a marker more long lasting...)

By the end of it we had solved some of the major questions we'd been worried about - like where to plant the pines and where to dig the giant hole for the wastewater tank. It's amazing what a difference being onsite makes.

Here's some photos and clips, including one with Prue talking through the overall layout.

marking out the new house

On our first day, we were met at the block by Sam and John. Fuelled with celebratory champagne they brought along, we proceeded to spraypaint out the layout of the new house. (Not that we planned to do any excavation work this trip, but so that we had it as reference for working out the location of other things)

Needless to say, it was an entertaining job. :-)

Recent photos

Here are a couple of photos taken a few weeks ago that Dad just sent me.

I can't get over how big the trees are now... they almost look like proper trees! As well I'm really pleased with the deep blue colour of the house.

update on trees

Dad recently did a trip up to Amherst to fix the irrigation for the new orchard trees. While there he took photos, here's a few:





In Dad's words:

These were taken when I went there to install small watering pots to the new plants, and check progress of olives. Only 3/4 of a tank of water has rained since transferring water to the large tank. I will pump the irrigation tank full next time I go and water the entire orchard. I will also install a drip attachment to all the small watering points for the orchard and allow the full tank to slowly drip into these tree pipes. That should help them through the dry season.

Lovely views

Dave sadly didn't take many photos while he was there but I forgive him: as he said, he was working! (And there's a reason that it's usually me wielding the camera...)

But besides the photos of the fence and house showing their progress, he did get a smattering of scenic views. It's these more than anything which remind me of why we're planning to move there.

View from the hill near olives:





Early morning at the dam:

Dave's visit

Dave got back yesterday, at last. Here's his short summary of what they did each day along with a few photos:

Monday 4th August
rained all way up, got there 2pm, built shelter


(this photo was taken a few days later obviously, given the blue skies!)

Tuesday 5th August
cold morning, started to strip back panels on side wall, forest side



Wednesday 6th August
primer coat on stripped wall, continued stripping. Planted lemon tree, blood orange, almond, pecan.





Thursday 7th August
painted first coat on side wall, built scaffold for work on dam side wall.





Friday 8th August
more painting and stripping, 5,000 gal tank arrived and installed. drove back to Melbourne in the late afternoon.



Saturday 9th August
rest day in Melbourne

Sunday 10th August
drove back to Amherst in the morning, arrived early afternoon. started initial work on olive fence, put 5 posts in



Monday 11th August
more painting and stripping. forest side finished, dam side half stripped. another 10 posts in



Tuesday 12th August
30 posts put in am, primer coat done dam side all other posts in.



Wednesday 13th August
first blue coat on dam side, holes dug for fences round almond and chestnut trees.



Thursday 14th August
second blue coat, started completing fence with first run of wire



Friday 15th August
wiring up fence. finished first run, started top layer.

Saturday 16th August
finished second run of wire (upper) started fences for trees

Sunday 17th August
ran hare fence around olive trees