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I could see the rain coming but it did not deter me
The cotton shirt became a part of my skin,

cold and gross as a paua.

I’m up to a total of 50 of the concrete bricks. They are so good, they feel so solid and waterproof. I’ve got enough for a whole bottom layer, and I’ll put the rest on the southern sides.

474

Mostly this post is just an excuse to put up a clip and an image extracted from a clip from Saturday.

I bought a door and the best gross window you'll see for a total of $20. I also started having thoughts about pink batts and a floor.

474

Taking the boxing off was neither fun nor easy. I think I got a bit hungry too, trying to reclaim the low boxing rather than just leaving it be. I really want to be finished inside 2 months, and I’m going to try and work to that now.

465

20 concrete bricks. I just might have enough!

445

You’ll be surprised. And I was.

We were all done by 10:41. Awesome. With a big crowd at it, we ripped out the filling of the foundation real fast. The boxing held – sort of. There was one point where things went a bit ashtray, and we made some hasty repairs.

At one point I looked around at the people who were helping and knew that they all were very careful people, who would make things to exact specifications. I made the call “I’m the only person here who would be happy with the quality of this foundation.” Paul Peterson claimed he’d be happy with it too. This made me feel better.

To be honest, I’m not really happy with it – but it will do. I expect that it will perform perfectly adequately, but it is not flush. In order to make a better job of it I would have needed to make the boxing much tighter. And that would have cost money – I used the materials I had on hand, but they weren’t great. The stakes weren’t great, and some of the boxing was buckled. It will do.

I really enjoyed it today, having heaps of people round, in good spirits, working on a common task. Thanks for coming guys, I appreciate it. Mum bought some tea and pikelets out near the end which were appreciated.

I made one brick with the tover concrete, and it looks real good. There is a bit of aggregate tover, and a bag and a half of cement. I reckon I might make this into bricks. Hopefully there will be enough for 40 odd, cause then I will use them to make a layer of bricks at the bottom of the structure, touching the foundation. Concrete bricks will be waterproof, and I reckon that will be a good feature. If there is moisture inside the structure, it will pool down on the foundation before leaking out between a gap in the bricks. Hence if this part was waterproof, it would be better.

444

Dave came around early and we assembled the reinforcing. Later on, at Dave's instruction, I smacked a few more stakes in. I also fitted 4 pipes for ventilation - I hope you're happy now Justin.

I had planned to make a few bricks too, but it started to rain. I don't know whether the rain will have an effect on our concrete laying tomorrow, if it continues.

Dave and I made a small mistake fixing the stirrups to the reinforcing rods. I think I enjoyed it more than he did.

444

The foundation has been boxed. Leighton stopped by and dropped off some more boxing, and some stakes. I got a couple of pieces of boxing up by myself early on but it was tough going, and I soon became frustrated. Dave stopped by, and with two of us at it it was much easier. When Dave left I banged the bracing stakes back in (we’d pulled them out because they were in the way) and pulled the boxing into line.

If you fire a nail gun and the wood splits, the nail will travel further than it would otherwise. It your finger is there, the nail will cut it.

Dave regularly tripping over the reasonably visible fence wires provided some entertainment today.

428

Dave came round and helped me and showed me how to put the boxing up. The nail gun is amazing. I don't know how I ever did anything without it. Dave left the gun with me, I've got more boxing to put up tomorrow. He reckons there is a lot of work to do to be ready for concreting on Saturday.

420

16 partial bricks. I cut and banged in the remaining pegs.

Bolts to attach the floor and walls to the concrete foundation were an alarming $3-$4 each, and I need about 40 of them. I think I'll need to come up with a new way of doing this.

Plundering the farm’s infrastructure proved to be a successful method of supplementing the supply of boxing materials. I’ll put them back Mum.

404

I banged some more pegs in today, tomorrow I need to make 26 more pegs then figure out what boards I'll use for the boxing.

Things are getting ready for the foundation laying Saturday. Dave Peach is going to give me a hand on Wednesday tidying up the boxing. Dave is going to bring his concrete mixer on Saturday. Leighton Baker, Aaron Fisher, and Justin McCartney have also intimated that they will be in attendance. Good times.

404

Day 6 in a row, woohoo! I didn’t sleep particularly well and that concerned me, as I knew I had a big day ahead of me, and an early start. But I was at it just before 8, unheard of early hours for me in my recent state of health. I had a mid afternoon sleep, but other than that charged today.

Due to the fact that I now had a double axle trailer, they were able to put a full cubic metre of mix on. I had been anticipating 2 trips, but it only took 1.

I then headed to Rangers to get some cash out before heading to Paul King’s for some roofing iron. I had a nice coffee with him and Sam there before leaving $130 lighter, but all the iron I’ll need heavier. A fun development was the spotting of some clear corrugated plastic, which will be excellent for increasing the natural light inside the shack.

At Paul’s recommendation I then headed to Select Reinforcing where Wayne gave me what he assured me was an amazing price on some steel reinforcing, while Kevin cut and bent it for me. I’m really starting to feel a lot of excitement about the project now, as everything starts to come together.

I returned the trailer to Amberley and the nice guy charged me $55 for the additional trailer hire, and the cost of repairs to the other one. I’ve gotten out of this pretty well I think. They were fixing the one I messed up yesterday while I was there, it had a drip in its arm, and was looking in a pretty sorry state. Apologies.

The Ravensdown fertiliser bags have been awarded a grade a notch just above useless for their role in transporting the sand from Kate MacPherson’s house back here. They split and made a mess while under light loadings, certainly not the 40kg that are marked on them. I don’t know how they got here, maybe they are seconds.

Kate had some old sand that was left over from some concreting work that she had done. I was able to cart this away, as well as a bag and a half of cement. Cheers Kate, appreciated.

I went back down to the first offal quarry and collected a barrow load of rocks, I reckon these might be useful for putting at the bottom of the trench prior to pouring the concrete. I’ll see what my advisors recommend though.

Thanks to all involved today, I’ve been helped out by a lot of people, and it has been a real good experience.

Below: Kate’s Laser riding low, laden with bags of sand, and Ravensdown fertilizer “bags” making a mess.

404

A drama filled day. I had aspirations of an early start and a full day of work. I was up at 8, but at 9 I was back in bed. I wasn’t feeling great, and as I’m doing at the moment, I am prepared to rest when I need to.

So, I resumed slightly after 12. It turns out that the trailer I was to borrow wasn’t registered, so I headed off to Amberley Hire. I there incurred my first expenses of this project - $15 for a half day hire. I intend to have a separate page linked to this blog which tracks my expenses – I’ll get onto that.

The first trailer journey with 0.5m^3 of 19mm premixed sand and stones ($20 a load) was uneventful. I hadn’t really known how long the process of getting a load, driving home, unloading it and returning was going to take. Hence I started becoming aware that I was running out of time. I reckon the whole process took a bit over an hour for one load, and I needed to push things a bit if I was going to get done in time.

So, on the second journey I was pushing things a little bit, but not driving silly fast. I was going about 60km/h I reckon, on a gravel road, when the trailer starts sliding around behind me. It wasn’t long before the trailer had knifed and I slid to a halt, car and trailer sprawling all over the road. Part of the trailer was ruined, and there was a small mark on the borrowed car. I think I got out of this one pretty well.

I returned to Amberley Hire where the guys were awesome about it, they are going to charge me about $30 I think for a new piece of metal which they will weld in. They gave me a new trailer with tandem wheels.

So, I got 3 loads today, amounting to about 1.5m^3. I think I’ll get another 2 loads tomorrow morning, as well as hopefully some corrugated iron for the roof, some windows, a door, and some rebar for the foundation.

Raking the gravel off the trailer took a bit out of me, so once again at the end of the day I’m nicely done. I think that is 5 days in a row without a sickness crash, good times.

404

I dug a trailer load of clay, which took me a long time but will keep me supplied for a good while.

I foraged for old little bits of wood to act as stakes, and banged about 30 of these in, they will hold the boxing. I reckon I need about 30 or 40 more.

I feel nicely tired at the end of today. I'm excited about resuming tomorrow, provided my health holds for a 4th straight day.

404

An early start yielded 21 half bricks and 1 full brick. I loosened the wires on the fence and pegged them down so now there is uninhibited access to the site.

382

Things got exciting today. In the process of harvesting clay I was attacked by the nemesis birds. I was better armed than I have been in the past, with a heavy shovel as a weapon. They didn’t get too close to me, there was only one swooping too. I returned later on with my camera and tried to provoke them so that I could get some good swoop footage but I mustn’t have been in the right place because they just squawked at me.

I called up Dave Peach to give me a hand getting everything squared up ready for the boxing. In a most useful session we banged in some pegs, raised some bits of wood at the correct level, and strung up where the boxing will go. It was quite dramatic the difference in height of the ground, the ground does look to be on a slight slope, but it was more than I had thought. I think the following Saturday will be the time to pour the concrete. I learnt some stuff today, and that was good.

382

I widened the trenches a bit, to accommodate the stakes and the boxing. I’m not exactly sure how I can make it square, I think I could make up the boxing for each of the 4 sides then move them around until they are square. No, having 4 corner stakes would be better, then attach the boxing to them. Yeah.

I’ll have a towball car and trailer this week, so I’ll be able to get the mix that will make the concrete. Tentatively lining up next Saturday as foundation pouring day. We’ll see.

382

Numbering is going to get a bit misleading now. Today I made some partial bricks. I'm not sure why I was so averse to the idea of making different sized bricks and having different patterns of bricks in a wall, which is what these partial bricks will do. They will make functional, good walls, but they won't be perfect. That's ok though.