Sandbox
Back to the land from NZ[edit] |
| Posted by Nad on 14 June 2016 at 20:19 |
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This post has the following tags: Our forth year on the land
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| We finally arrived back at the land after our three month holiday in New Zealand! We stayed at Mum and Dad's place in Devonport and just spent time there to catch up with friends, family and spinach pies! We left a few days ago and after three planes, a bus and a hire car we've finally made it back!
We're always very nervous coming back to the land after a long while away as we never know what will be in store for us out here in the wilderness! Things weren't perfect when we arrived back, but not as bad as arriving back to a house burned down by lightning or sent off down the river by a flash flood! The first thing we noticed when we got to the gate was that all the grass was still nice and short - that can only mean cows! There's no sign of any now, but there were cow pats all over the place, and when we got to the house everything was knocked over and the vege patch destroyed! They had snapped one of the corner fence posts and eaten everything except the lemon tree :-(
It probably looks worse than it actually is though since this is the first time we've arrived back in winter after a long time away, so all the bracken is dead and many other plants are without any leaves. But anyway it's really nice to be back home again :-) Oh and one more thing before I sign off....
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Cute well lid[edit] |
| Posted by Nad on 5 March 2016 at 10:53 |
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This post has the following tags: Our forth year on the land
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| We made this cute lid for the well out of the off-cuts from the wall boards :-)
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Main work on second house done[edit] |
| Posted by Nad on 29 February 2016 at 22:54 |
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This post has the following tags: Our forth year on the land
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| We've been taking it a bit easier over the last few days since we got to the most important milestone of being able to take a photo for the power company :-) In the last few days we've just slowly put all the walls on, and now all the left over wood is stored safely in the house so it will stay in good condition while we're away.
We'll probably hire a car before we leave so we can pick up a bunch of nails and bolts since we've had to ration nails a bit and couldn't put the roof over the extension without it being firmly bolted in place. We also have to put on the "matajuntas" which cover the gaps between the wall boards, but we're going to let the wood dry out a lot first since it had gotten quite mouldy sitting out in the rain for a couple of weeks.
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First wall done[edit] |
| Posted by Nad on 25 February 2016 at 22:09 |
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This post has the following tags: Our forth year on the land
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Today we got the first wall done! This is an important milestone because it allows us to get a photo of the house looking complete as seen from the power pole. The company that will connect the power to our pole requires a house to be within forty metres of the pole and they need to see a photo of the pole and house before they'll book the job. So now using the second photo below, we can go to São Francisco de Paula and book them to come out and connect us! We'll also buy a whole bunch of nails and bolts so we can finish everything off properly. The last photo shows the power pole viewed through the window.
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Roof almost done[edit] |
| Posted by Nad on 24 February 2016 at 20:01 |
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This post has the following tags: Our forth year on the land
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| Today we only worked on the house in the morning and took the afternoon off because we had a meeting online to attend. But during the morning session we got most of the roof put on - we're leaving the roofing panels off of the extensions for now because we ran out of bolts, so we don't want to put too much weight on them while they're only nailed in place.
We installed the capping after the two sides were done by having me on top of the roof in the middle and Beth passing the capping pieces up in a bag on some string. Unfortunately the capping was a bit of a disaster :-( we decided to use the only type that the store had so that it could all be delivered in their truck, but this kind is a real pain and not very effective either! It's made of the same material as the panels and corrugated to fit it, and it comes in two separate parts that join in the middle, but the join isn't very good. We'll have to put silver tape over all the joins when we get back from New Zealand - or maybe we'll just rip them all off and use aluminium capping which works really well! 
Still, the main reason for getting this little place built now is so we can get our power put on, so a few leaks isn't going to be a problem for that purpose. Here's what it looks like now:
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