Rainfall this week : 26mm
They say dogs start to settle down and mature when they turn three. Ha ha, they obviously have never met our pretty petite crazy red Kelpie girl Chilli😆. Sometimes I do actually wonder if it is all our fault for naming her Chilli🌶️. Red, fiery, spicy and unpredictable 😳. Maybe we should have named her Molly or Annie or Sheryl. Just an everyday female name, NOT a name that depicts complete craziness. But you know, we really wouldn’t have it any other way. Chilli may be the most exhausting dog we have ever had the pleasure of owning but she is hands down the most entertaining and the prettiest girl we have ever had the pleasure of owning. (Hang on maybe she is the one that owns us😉)
You may have guessed that yes it is Chilli’s birthday today. Quite frankly we are just pleased she has made it to three! She does love to keep us on our toes and live on the edge…
Well there really isn’t all too much to report this week in regard to house building. We actually took most of the weekend off for a change. ( we did receive 3mm of rain on Saturday so it was slightly wet👏) How great is it to stay in your pyjamas until lunchtime drinking coffee and reading magazines 😆. I can’t honestly remember the last time we did that. And at least with reading interiors magazines, we were actually doing research for the house weren’t we🤔😆. At least that is what I keep telling myself…
Mother Nature blessed us with 23mm on Monday. We’ve never been happier to have another rain day🌧️. At least it gave us opportunity to peruse the internet at the many sites for lighting, to try and finalise some decisions on what will go where. There are just so many choices out there though and it really does bamboozle you after a while. But after what felt like hours staring at a screen we did manage to narrow down a list of favourites and make a final decision on a few of them, yay👏.
In between the rainy days and wait for it ‘THE WIND’ we have actually made some progress on the frame. All of the holes have been drilled in the slab for the tie downs and the anchor studs have been Chem set into them ready for the booker rod to be joined to them which connects the top plate of the frame to the slab. ( a good principle of thought is connecting your head to your feet ) This is so the house stays put in our big N3 winds. And we have also started putting up the Outriggers/Verge Sprockets at the ends of the gables and Jason has strapped each piece on also as he has been going along. This seems to take forever as poor Jason has to climb up and down the ladder with everything singularly on each one if I’m not there to help him. ( I have been getting a start on the mowing ) The out riggers are extra timbers added on so that we essentially have an eave on each gable end to match the front and rear of the house. Most shed houses don’t bother with an eave but we decided that we would like them, then the house doesn’t exactly look like the shed. And before you ask ( many have already ) the roof won’t be going on for another week or two. There are still quite a few things to complete before this can happen and there are only two of us. Outriggers, strapping and more strapping, tie downs, timber roof battens, timbers across the top of all the internal frames to tie them in, structural plywood on some walls, and I’m sure there is probably something else that I have forgotten 🤔. All these things that you don’t really see or notice if you haven’t built a house from scratch.
We have also started planting out our tube stock that we had purchased a few months ago. Jason goes ahead and drills the holes with Yoshi and the auger and then I follow along and plant them in and yes of course we have to fence each one as Walter our Wallaroo who has basically moved in with us will no doubt devour them whilst we are asleep otherwise. I’m so looking forward to having some lovely trees out in the paddock in a few years time. It will be lovely to watch the birds hang from the fluffy calistemon flowers and see a haze of bright yellow wattle flowers throughout the winter…
And the mowing has begun once again for the season. And yes I definitely need to get mower fit again🥴. Pushing the hand mower in and around the boulders and over the clumps of love grass is hard work, but the place is looking tidier for it👏.
Anyhow I’m going back out to mow and plant a few more trees, Chow…
