It looks like a home!

6.4.2011

BUILDING NEWS

Now the house is starting to show its personality. With Geoff’s skilful brickwork the arches are going up and suddenly it feels as if it might be “our” home. Loosing our old house was like the sudden death of a loved family member. It was large and cumbersome but it had special places where treasures made at school by my kids, like the odd clay mask made by Al that hung over the kitchen hatch had their own niches.

The brick doorframe had a series of lines names and dates as the changes in height of each child were recorded. Really old furniture donated by my parents fitted in with other stuff rescued from junkyards and strange shaped doors (, a result of a misunderstanding with our original brick layers,) gave each space character. It was a home in all senses of the word that sheltered us, protected us comforted us and allowed us to explore any activity we could dream up.

Today was the first time that I saw that although that home is gone it now has a child growing to take its place. The funny brick arches made from our recycled bricks, and contrast between large open spaces and little enclosed ones are already inklings of what the future will hold. Seeing this makes us feel very happy.

On a more realistic note we are under pressure to complete the walls so John can pour the roof. Doug, our engineer, wants the front pillars to cure for two weeks after being core filled and John wants to do the roof at the end of April a month earlier than we had planned. The logistics here are looking very dodgy.

OTHER NEWS

We have had perfect autumn weather. Crisp cold morning sand sunny clear days encourage us to spend every moment out doors. This evening a skinny peel of a moon rose over Brockspur as the solar lights came on in the garden. The walls of the new building felt warm to touch like a living thing and the smell of wood smoke filled the air as our neighbours lit their evening fires. How I long to do the same. There is nothing better than a glowing fire to relax by.

During the day I completed the chook shed clean out and painted it with lime to try and cut down infection. I had to re-evict a rat family who keep dragging sticks in as fast as I clear them out. Tonight I tipped rat bate down the hole they had made in the floor and covered it over with a concrete block. That should fix them.

Merrie came over with some lunch she had cooked and told me that her problem is possums. They have moved in and are doing their best to destroy her house. She is planning to do battle with the main culprit tonight. He freezes if she suddenly shines a light on him and she thinks it might just be possible to put on gloves, pounce on him and drag him into a box. Well, maybe.

Donna, the cow, looks a bit baffled at ending up here again. I wonder if she remembers the goats. They seem to remember her and are all prepared to walk past her on the way to their grazing paddocks every morning. Donna looks extremely fat and pregnant. I am not sure I am ready for a calf yet!