Spring is on it's way

On a particularly gloomy day Rick noticed a pavement sign outside one of the local shops declaring 'spring only a month away'.  That made us smile as the weather has been a bit gloomy, wet and cold. Which was how the week started and we really thought it would delay the work on the house but to our surprise our group of hardy builders toiled on and this is what they achieved inspite of the weather.

The mounds of soil surrounding the west and north facing sides of the house were taken away and footings dug for the retaining wall.  It was amazing the difference that made to the perception of how high the house sits and the size of the verandahs. It now looks like we have hyperactive moles on the block with the addition of two more large mounds of soil.

And then the sun came out the the roof trusses started to go up.... deep joy.

The tree trunk

Way back in February, you may recall, we (I use the term loosely)sadly had to fell a very large Hill Gum on the block.  By June we had finally found our man who creates really beautiful things out of local wood and even more importantly had the means and the inclination to slab our tree.  

In June with Deb and Fred's help we managed to get the trunk to him and now it's been slabbed. We were invited to watch and duly turned up with the large trailer and Dora

This amazing very simple machine with it's savage looking cutting wheel struggled to cut through the wood. 

I learnt what a cleat is.  For the uninitiated these are slab width pieces of wood evenly placed between the slabs to enable the air flow and allow even drying of the wood. The drying out will take about 4 years so we have that long to decide what to do with the gorgeous pieces of wood.

Now at the block the slabs have been placed on very carefully leveled Mount Gambier stone and now covered with some old tin roofing. It is so pleasing to see these beautiful pieces if wood, apart from anything else they smell amazing, it would have been a tragedy to have used it for fire wood.  A good lesson I think in not being in a rush to find a solution.

I can't finish this tale without introducing you to Redgum Man's (David) dog, Spud.  A lovely friendly Red Healer (similar to the one in the film Red Dog) who likes nothing better than being made a fuss of and chasing balls, which it turned out is how David get's her to drive the livestock. He has to launch either the much favoured and well chewed pink football in the direction he wants her to go.  Or do a similar thing practising his golf swing.

Spud obviously thinks this is most amusing

Freds new trick. That dog is a nutter and seems to get more human as the days pass. He also really likes the newly leveled verndahs and has taken to laying at the edge with his crossed front paws neatly over the side.

And finally we spotted this rural cat flap, neatly cut in the side of a barn door.

Keeping a cautious eye on things