getting ready for the lid

11.5.2011

BUILDING NEWS

It is pouring. Not concrete, rain! Poor John and his team are out there trying to get all in order to put on the bond deck. I have now discovered just what bond deck is because it was delivered yesterday along with big sheets of reinforcing iron. Luckily, although yesterday we woke to heavy frost, the sun soon came out and delivered a crisp clear day. The big trucks all came with cranes so they could unload easily and turning round on the dry grass made it possible for them to get out. That would not have been so today.

The scaffold people worked all yesterday and filled the house with blue poles so that it is now impossible to walk inside. They also built a fairly plausible ramp from the roundabout beside the large polyhouse to the top of the walls. It did not look one hundred percent safe to me, as it was tall and thin, with all the weight at the top and was not attached to anything.

Apparently the internal scaffold is not for walking on but to take the weight of the concrete roof until it sets. John informs me that it will need to stay in place for at least twenty-eight days to allow the concrete to harden. The good thing is that the ramp also stays so Geoff can use it to build the parapet that stops the soil falling off the front of the building.

OTHER NEWS

I have a bucket catching the rain as it falls through the ceiling onto this desk. The trick is to put a towel over the top of the bucket to prevent splashes and irritating noise. The rain is probably doing the garden good but the frost yesterday was heavy enough to finish off some summer plants.

David H worked hard and moved lots of the old wire down the drive to the rubbish pile by our entrance. We are stockpiling rubbish until the building is complete so that it can all be dealt with together. There are still piles of stuff there from the old brewery and we can rummage through for materials if we think there might be something we can recycle.

I have started cleaning up the foot of the big bank above the garden. My plan is to terrace it with above ground beds for vegetables. I would like to get broad beans and rocket planted but there is no more space yet. The new chooks are now very much at home in the old veggie patch. They have adapted well to a life of freedom and gradually their combs are enlarging and reddening, so more eggs will be coming soon.

Edd and I completed the fencing and Donna, our cow, is now in her own paddock above the dairy and the goats have a separate road out to their grazing areas. We have rescued the round bale holder from the gravel pit paddock and set Donna up with her own big bale of hay to eat through. She seems happy about this but we have no idea when her calf is due because she stayed with the bull down the road for months.