more rain

26.11.11

BUILDING NEWS

Oh dear, it is pouring with rain again. The water is still getting down the chimney and there is still one leak at the flashing on the solar room roof. Josh’s donga is also leaking and his bed is wet but our donga is miraculously dry. I am so over rain. Frank is ready to bury the house, but we must have dry soil, so this will not be happening just yet. Maybe it will be dry enough on Thursday or Friday.

The stone on the chimneys looks great and we think we have enough stone left to complete the feature wall inside. Gary then plans to put the capping bricks on the parapet and pave the rest of the floor. I am getting better at grouting and am now working on the large kitchen living room. I have made the path across the room to get the stoves in and now I will work on the rest of that room as it is taking the most wear.

Edd spent yesterday doing the waterproofing on the wing walls. It takes him a long time with his sore hand. We wish Josh was here to help. He is on the journey back from Perth and is now somewhere uncontactable on the Nullarbor. I worry about him doing this long drive alone and will be much relieved when we can get him on his mobile again.

Sioux is coming tomorrow to plan her strategy for doing the rendering on the internal walls. Edd still has the air ducting to put in so this could be a busy weekend.

OTHER NEWS

Moira had dinner with us at Bo’s restaurant on Thursday night and told us how distressing interviewing some of the fire victims has become. The more the researchers look at what is happening the clearer it becomes that the problem does not just go away after three years. Some families are breaking up under the stresses and some people are still lacking any clear vision of how they should reconstruct their lives.

We know that the farm is in a total mess but at least we have a new home that is nearly ready to look forward to. How to tackle the other issues is harder. On Thursday we got a busload of kids that we were not expecting from the high school. We have enjoyed having the kids here but we need to do something that generates an income if we are ever to be able to put the rest of the farm right.

Actually it is amazing how much can be done with a tractor and slasher, but we really need to start soon before everywhere gets totally over grown. My garden is now smothered in weeds but like the farm I am having to ignore it in order to focus on getting the house built.