Snake In The Garden

July 5 –6 : Saturday and Sunday proved to be typical “summer” days, but without any heat – just a noticeable degree of gentle warmth around midday. It proved to be excellent weather for tidying work in the garden, and we took advantage by one more working through the maze of overgrown shrub branches and matted underground root-masses and the remnants of spent tubers and stumps of yesteryear. It is quite clear that the beds have seen very little maintenance over the past decade or two.

(Above): An aerial view of the northern part of the gardens, with “The Snake” (outlined in yellow). This is where some clean-up work was started previously. The area labelled “1” which is directly in front of the lounge and conservatory is being re-worked, adding a firm edge and splitting the bed into two (as indicated in red). The area to the north, labelled “2” will be done later.

Here are a few photos of the work in progress:

(Above): The bottom part of Snake “1” starts taking shape, with a bit of a curved edging, rather than the straight undefined and overgrown boundaries, which were difficult to maintain and mow with any success.

(Above): The clearing of the top portion of area “1” has been completed, in readiness for the proposed hard edge. Theoretically, mowing will become a lot easier and give a neater appearance. Time will tell.

(Above): While digging and sifting and carting away the roots and weeds, we were constantly being supervised by Jacko, on hind legs, peering over the nearby fence from Goat-Hill.

(Above): Looking southwards at the newly-created walk-through between the two sections of area “1”

(Above): On Sunday, the new hard edge of the second part of area “1” starts taking shape as well.

(Above): Towards the end of Sunday, the second part of area “1” nears completion and its time for a general tidy-up. Doggy footprints all over the newly-raked soil indicates that the dog inspectors have done their walk-about to sniff every upturned grain of sand!

In the words of statesman Cecil John Rhodes (and probably many others), “So much to do, so little time…” I am philosophical about such things – There is no rush, really. It is good to be able to spend leisure time like this with family in the pleasant natural surroundings of Chartwell, and to be able to take a warm shower after viewing the success of the handiwork… I am not anything near a gardener as yet, but perhaps, over time, my fingers may become a bit greener…

Phase I in Pictures

As we have now reached the end of Phase I of the project, I have extracted six photos from the many taken over the past two weeks, for a summary record.

18 June: Setting up the boundaries.

20 June: Clearing the site and importing the hardfill.

23 June: Hardfill and foundation dig complete

25 June: Fitting the slab shuttering.

2 July:  Slab engineering complete and ready for council inspection.

4 July: Concrete floor slab completed and smoothed.

R.I.P. Beebs

Friday 4 July 2014. An icy cold morning, while the construction guys are busy preparing to pour the concrete floor slab on the extension. I make my way through the icy grass to Goat Hill with the ration of hay for Jacko and Beebs’ breakfast.

(Above): Beebs with his glistening brindle/white coat and huge floppy ears on a better day.

Goats are strange creatures, pretty much loners, but always pleased to have some human company for a while, and these two are no different. As I round the corner of the garden at the veggie patch, I can hear Jacko’s maaa-maaa bleat. Nothing wrong with his ears, I muse.

(Above): Jacko, eager as ever to grab first at the bunch of hay. There is no word in the goat dictionary for “wait”. He insists on having a few sample morsels before you are permitted to put the bulk of the food into the feeding tray. That’s Jacko’s Rule.

He digs in without further invitation, creating sounds of someone chewing away at a crisp cucumber. He is able to make hay eating sound quite juicy and delicious.

I look around for Beebs, who always stands back for his horned colleague and prefers to eat separately. There is a strange silence. Ominous. I cannot see him.

I stroll around behind their goat-abode and see a brown furry form lying on the grass at the top of the slope. It is Beebs. There is no response to my call, which he would recognise.

Whilst we tend to personify animals, I must emphasise that Beebs was treated as a family pet and not as livestock, so we give him a burial befitting your trusty dog or favourite cat. Tyler kindly acts as grave-digger prepares the grave at the bottom end of the hill. It is tough going, hard clay ground strewn with plenty stones and small rocks.

We act as pall-bearers, carrying the limp carcass down the long sloping pathway, with Jacko in tow. I am sure he understands absolutely nothing of the current situation, or about the “journey” being undertaken by the Late Beebs, but nevertheless he tags along to see what is happening.

We reach the “cemetery” spot, which is ready the accept its first resident, and Jacko starts nibbling at some fresh roots which had been dug up by the grave-dig. I’ve heard of funeral wakes, but never where the mourners starts gobbling the nosh before the burial! But, hey, that’s the World of Goats for you…

(Above): Having completed the necessaries, we pack some rocks a-la-dogs-breakfast style to allow for a bit of subsidence, and gather up the pickaxe and shovel.

(Above): Ever-curious Jacko stands at the graveside for quite some time after we have left. From the top of Goat Hill, I can see him, still standing down there. Who knows what is going through his head? If anything at all… He’s a livestock, after all.

A goat has died. Quite ordinary on any farm, nothing earth-shattering. However, Beebs will be missed by the family, perhaps he will be missed by Jacko… if Jacko is intelligent to notice that he is now alone.

Buildlogue #13 – Concrete Stuff

Thursday 3 and Friday 4 July, Construction Days 12 and 13.

Thursday was devoted to fine-tuning the steelwork and foundations, followed by the planned first visit by KCDC inspectorate. A green light to proceed with concrete was most welcome.

Friday morning, American Independence Day, is clear and bright, brilliant sunshine, but brawny grown locals were trying to warm their hands and mumbling about how cold it was. At 10:00am in the morning!

Builder John and his men added some final extra support to their shuttering, and also drove in a number of fence pegs (to be able to beacon off the concreted area from the dog paws!) 

First to arrive was Hurricane Concrete Pumping service, with a 30 metre extension hose. He discusses the operation with Builder John and they come to the conclusion that a better solution would be to bring the vehicles into the narrow driveway, and then to pump the concrete over the roof of the house!

(Above): Hurricane pump-truck parked in position outside the garage door, while the driver raises the superstructure over the roof towards the rear of the house.

(Above): No sooner had he positioned his pump truck in front of the garage door, when two Terry Concrete trucks arrive in quick succession. It was quite a trick operation getting these trucks into the driveway and located, to be able to discharge the load into the pump hopper.

(Above): The Hurricane pump-truck lined up, with the driver using a remotely-controlled panel, so that his superstructure doesn’t accidentally damage the roofing sheets.

 
(Above): The two vehicles married up to be able to pump the concrete through the pipe, up and over the hose and along the ground behind the garage and kitchen to the destination site.

(Above): A close-up of the pump-truck’s hopper being fed from the chute from the pre-mix truck.

(Above): The thick rubber pressure pipe with metal unions runs the full 30 metres from the pump-truck, up and over the roof, down at the back of the garage and along the ground past the kitchen.

(Above): The pump guy dispensing the concrete slurry a-la-Kiwi-style.  Back-breaking work, like an All Black rugby prop!

(Above): The cement guy scrapes the bottom of the barrel and chute, before driving back to his depot in Te Horo for his next load.

(Above): With the first load done, they get on with the serious business of getting everything perfectly level and smooth.

(Above): Finally, the cast is complete and everything smoothed down, for the next stage of the process later today.

(Above) Builder John erects a barrier fence around the development to dog-proof the freshly-laid cement floor.

(Above) Later in the afternoon, the cement floor is polished smooth. A vinyl plank floor will be laid on top of the cured concrete surface in due course.

Have A Heart!

The neighbours slaughtered a couple of their young bulls and ended up with two unwanted livers and hearts, as they do not have a dog. We were consequently presented with two fresh organs, much to Sophie and Benny’s delight. The four parts were delivered in a large plastic bucket, ready for skinning and dissection.

(Above): Benny (in view) keeps an expectant eye on the delicacy which makes the mouth literally water with anticipation…

(Above): The first liver was quite huge and considerably heavier than I’d anticipated – until I saw the second one – that was even bigger.

(Above): The hearts, with all the ventricles, and cuspids, valves and other pipes, stringy bits and secret parts out in the open for inspection. Makes one re-think your diet, to keep the heart healthy?

(Above): The layer of fat is yellow, thick and hard.  Surely I would die if mine looks like this…

(Above): Throughout the prep and cooking operations, Sophie and Benny remained in faithful attendance, checking if anything would possibly land accidentally on the floor.

(Above): The pieces were cut into small kibble-sized bits and cooked al-la-boil-out style.

(Above) The cooked meat and boiled rice were blended into a mush in the approximate ratio of 3 meat to 2 rice.

(Above): The final product was split onto 750ml portions and sealed in freezer bags, to be used as supplementary food/treats at the rate of one packet per 2 dogs every three of four days. The 13 packs packs yielded almost 10 litres. (I purposely did not bring the dog-food near the kitchen scale).

A huge thank-you to the neighbours from Benny and Sophie. Woof!

Buildlogue #12 - End of Phase 1

Wednesday 2 July, Construction Day 11. The morning is partly cloudy, looking brighter in the west towards the coast and the Tasman, but dark threatening clouds to the east over the Tararua mountain range. Builder John and his men are optimistic that they will complete the required tasks to be ready for the inspection eyes of the KCDC (in future I’ll call them ‘the Council’) to be given the go-ahead to cast the concrete floor slab.

There has been one change on the site: The men have brought a portable radio. It is set to a local talk/ music station, and seems to have brought the workplace to life. One of them is (sort of) singing along to some of the tunes being aired.

The work being done today is not all that photogenic (photo-worthy) : it consists of doing all the fiddly bits, seemingly little things like tying your shoe-laces, straightening you tie, scratching your eyebrow and blowing your nose. None of them earth-shattering or noticeable, but very important, in the long run. There will probably be similar days in future to be recorded in our Buildlogue, like painting a ceiling, or nailing down some skirtings, I suppose – like Grand Design’s Kevin McCloud having a mug of hot Milo with us, looking through the window at the mess of timber off-cut waste and pile of broken bricks lying in what used to be a pretty rose garden…

One last item on the to-do list was the removal of the dining-room windows. The skies looked good, so the carpenter decided to take the plunge:

(Above): The frame of the large window is cut loose all round. It still fits snugly into the framing and needs a lot of persuasion to vacate its long-time home.

(Above): the window frame and its glass proves to be tons heavier than one would imagine and all hands are needed on deck to shift it away.

(Above): A short while later, the carpenter has vertical framing fitted and fixed at 600mm centres. Here he is doing final checks on his work.

(Above) Gib Standard TE board is internal partitioning with a gypsum-type filler. These boards were manufactured at 10:40 on 06/06/14! (Because this information is imprinted on it!). The new laundry will be behind this “new” wall.

(Above): Next, the Strawberry Lane cat-flap window gets the same treatment.

(Above): As the workmen scrub up after a day’s graft, the two windows have been securely boarded up for the effects of the cold weather.

(Above): One of the three footing stays which will be concreted in, to provide anchorage for the soffit support posts.

(Above): With the exception of a few smaller jobs, the site is ready for inspection by the KCDC to-morrow, and if approved by him, for the delivery of concrete on Friday.

Calendar Girl

As I’m not much of an instant waker-upper, I frequently do stuff very slowly first thing in the morning, and then I speed up by my regular frustratingly slow pace later in the morning after coffee tea.

This morning was no exception, while I was making early morning coffee. As I strolled towards the fridge to fetch the milk, a bight colour amidst the dozen or so notices and reminder notes magnet-pinned to its door, caught my eye. The colour was red.

It was a bit bigger than post-card sized 2014July / 2015 June calendar. The red was the jersey jumper which Brynn had worn to school on the school photographer day, and the calendar is part of the set of photos which the school peddles to parents in aid of school funds.

You must excuse my apparent lack of knowing what goes on at schools in the twenty-first century. Not having really been directly involved in any sort of school activities since 1990 (before DIY colour-printing became such an everyday task), this type of product is new to me.

Our grand-daughter is a Calendar Girl!

Pair of Chairs

Like most folk, I have dreams. Not the Martin Luther King “I have a dream today”  type, rather the type you experience whilst asleep in your bed. Of course, I have no way of knowing how my dreams compare with yours, whether I have regular “normal” dreams, whether they are bad dreams, or whether I experience nightmares, simply because of the difficulties involved in comparing my dreams with yours.

Clinical psychologists ask what distinguishes a nightmare from a bad dream? One common theory is that nightmares are more emotionally disturbing and intense versions of bad dreams, a more severe form of the same essential phenomenon. One way nightmares are often distinguished from dreams is in whether the dream causes a person to wake -- whether out of fear, or to put an end to the dream.

I have had a number of recurring dream themes – similar circumstances in different situations. One happens with me in waiting area of sorts – sometimes in what appears to be a prison or police station, and at other times a hospital or school. But the common thread is that it takes plae in a corridor without windows, where I can see no-one else, but I can hear people talking, shouting, whispering, crying or laughing. They are close-by possibly in an adjacent room or around a corner in the passage.

And I’m invariably sitting on a narrow uncomfortable metal chair, waiting, just waiting. I don’t know the colour of the chair, but I know its not new and not a bright colour, just cold old metal.

Today I saw the “dream” chairs in 3-D full colour reality.

 
A sort of pale green colour. Just like a dream come true. Or perhaps a nightmare? Can anyone interpret the meaning of the pale green colour?

Disclaimer (grin): This post is meant to provide information only. I am not a therapist, but have done a bit of research into my dreams. If you are distressed please seek professional help.

Buildlogue #11 Camping Out

Tuesday 1 July 2014: Construction Day 10 dawns with some drizzle after a Niagara end to June overnight with 29mm, bringing the June total rainfall to 130mm, more than 20% lower than for May. Strange – I expected it would have been a lot wetter… Since the Winter Solstice less than a fortnight ago, our days are starting to lengthen once more, albeit at a slow rate… Summer is ahead!

(Above): Builder John and his men arrive to be greeted by a couple of heavy Reikorangi downpours, and they start erecting their gazebo just behind the garage. This is not for picnicking, but rather as an undercover carpentry shop, lunch-time canteen and to keep their power tools, electronics and themselves a bit drier during showers.

Five minutes later, Ma Nature indicating that she would not be beaten by a lowly gazebo from lowly mankind, summoned a couple of well-blown gusts and almost lifted it like tiny balsa aircraft over the adjacent trellis fence.

Intermission: balsa… Presumably they still make model planes out of balsa wood, and not exclusively plastic? As a pre-teen, I remember that balsa was the preferred material (I guess they had yet to develop the plastic technology in the 50’s). Until now, I have never bothered to research balsa. Perhaps you have not, either?

There is no such thing as entire forests of balsa trees. They grow singly or in very small, widely scattered groups in the jungle. For hundreds of years, balsa was actually considered a weed tree. They reproduce by growing hundreds of long seed pods, which eventually open up and, with the help of the wind, scatter thousands of new seeds over a large area of the jungle. Each seed is airborne on its own small wisp of down, similar to the way dandelion seeds spread. The seeds eventually fall to the ground and are covered by the litter of the jungle. There they lay and accumulate until one day there is an opening in the jungle canopy large enough for the sun's rays to strike the jungle floor and start the seeds growing.

Balsa trees grow very rapidly (like all pesky weeds). Six months after germination, the tree is about 40mm in diameter and between 3 and 3.5 metres tall. In 6 to 10 years the tree is ready for cutting, having reached a height of 20 to 30 metres tall and a diameter of 300mm to 1.2 metres. If left to continue growing, the new wood being grown on the outside layers becomes very hard and the tree begins to rot in the centre.

Unharvested, a balsa tree may grow to a diameter of 2 metres or more, but very little usable lumber can be obtained from a tree of this size. The balsa leaf is similar in shape to a grape leaf, only a lot bigger. When the tree is young, these leaves measure a much as four feet across. They become progressively smaller as the tree grows older, until they are about 200mm across. Balsa is one of the few trees in the jungle which has a simple leaf shape. This fact alone makes it stand out in the jungle.

End of Intermission…

(Above): Holes at 600mm centres are drilled into the foundation of the existing structure for the reinforcing steel tie rods, as required by the Council. At the corner is the Lufkin laser level, against which all points in the planned concrete slab are measured.

Next job on the list was to fit and secure the waterproofing membrane over the hardfill.

(Above) John’s son fitting the height-extended ply boards to the dressing room wall, while John and an assistant fit the damp-proofing around the plumbing waste pipes.

(Above): The membrane in place and secured in Strawberry Lane. This will be the new access corridor. Each individual sheet is stuck to its neighbour with adhesive waterproof tape, much like the electrical insulation tape that I’m accustomed to.

(Above): John explaining to his son about some detail along the bedroom wall. The bit in the foreground is the sitting room corner.

Next, the structural reinforcing steel bars are placed along the outer foundation trenches, followed by the polystyrene foam, which will assist in reducing the loss of heat through the floors. On top of the polystyrene comes the reinforcing steel grids, and fixed into place.

(Above): I see that the insulation website maintains, “…Although the building code may not require concrete floor slabs to be insulated, BRANZ considers they should...” [BRANZ is the acronym for Building Research Association of New Zealand]

(Above): Carefully placing the last sheet of reinforcing grid on the bedroom floor.

(Above): General view of the entire floor now covered with reinforcing steel grid.

The main jobs that remain before concrete may be poured is (1) the installation of reinforcing steel along the outer edge foundations, (2) the boxing and reinforcement of the three roof support pillars on the west side of the bedroom, and, possibly, (3) the removal of the dining-room window and and the catflap window, which needs to be relocated into the extended Strawberry Lane.