Sandbox
Fixing the south-west fence[edit] | |||||||||
| Posted by Nad on 14 May 2014 at 19:33 | |||||||||
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This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
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| Eduardo's a civil engineer and knows heaps about concrete and how to use it really efficiently. His arrival was really timely because we'd just bought a sack of cement for a few projects around the land, but we haven't worked with concrete before and didn't know the best proportions and how much sand and rock we could get away with adding to the mixture. The most urgent job was to make a better solution to the south-west fence because the sack of rocks idea really hasn't worked and is also very messy.
My new idea was to make a long concrete pole with wire hooks all the way along it. The bar would sit on the river bed under the fence going all the way across and then vertical lengths of barbed wire could attach to the fence and the hooks in the concrete bar. We started by carrying all the cement and tools to the site which is quite difficult because it's very muddy. Beth and I were amazed that Eduardo walked through the grass and the forest in bare feet! this was really inspirational for us because in New Zealand we have bare feet all the time, and feel that it's really important to be in contact with the Earth and it's also really good for raising awareness and for the nervous system. We'd thought that this was something that really wasn't practical in Brazil due to all the poisonous spiders and caterpillars, scorpians and snakes, but Eduardo had the attitude that as long as you're aware and can see where you're putting your feet there's no problem! so we're going to start being in bare feet a lot more now :-) When we got there, I made a trench in the ground as a mould for the concrete and filled it with lengths of twisted wire for reinforcing. Eduardo and Barry collected stones and sand for the mixture, then we mixed it all up with water, poured it into the mould, evened it all out with a trowel and stuck loops of wire into it for attaching the fence to. Now we just have to leave it for four days and then try and manoeuvre it into position!
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Barry & Eduardo visiting[edit] | |||
| Posted by Nad on 14 May 2014 at 19:02 | |||
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This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
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| My long time friend from New Zealand, Barry, arrived on Saturday the 10th. He's been cycle touring around Brazil for a few weeks, he started in Rio and cycled over 1000km to our place, visiting São Paulo, Florianópolis and Cambará on the way here. He also invited his friend Eduardo from Caxias to come too who he met on one of the cycle touring sites, Eduardo arrived the next day on Sunday the 11th.
It was really good to catch up with Barry who I hadn't seen for a few years, and great to meet Eduardo who's really local to us and shares so many ideas and values in common with us! they taught us a lot about how to cycle more efficiently to go further while expending less energy, and what the best and lightest weight clothes, tents and sleeping bags are. After Barry cleared a spot in the bracken, they pitched their tents ready to settle in for the week :-) I installed some hooks for them to hang their bikes on since we have mice around who love to chew plastic and rubber things!
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Cows again![edit] | |||||
| Posted by Nad on 1 May 2014 at 19:45 | |||||
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This post has the following tags: Our second year on the land
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| We were only back two days and then we saw a cow in the garden! how could this possibly be when the whole land is fenced off now?! by the time we'd got our boots on it had disappeared and we couldn't find it anywhere. But the next day there were two more! this time I ran after them when they ran off, and I followed them through the forest to the south-west corner of the land where it turns out there's no fence across the river!
It's a difficult area to fence because the banks are a metre or so high and there's nothing very low to attach fencing wire to. We decided it needed to be fenced off asap, so I got to work on it straight away. First I put a normal four-wire fence across joining the existing fences, and then to fill in the metre or so of gap in the river below this new section, I connected vertical pieces of wire attached to four sacks of rocks sitting on the river bed. The best ones are made with wire mesh, but we only had enough for two, so another is plastic mesh with some wire to support it and one is a large chunk of metal pipe.
It was a really horrible job! it was a cold overcast day and I had to wade into the mud and cold water which filled up my boots. Every time I needed to attach wire to the east side, I had to walk about 50 metres up stream to get to a point where I could get up the bank, then go back and attach the barbed wire all with soaking trousers, socks and boots!
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