Locked up at last!!!

My prior adventures with the Federal police have not come back to haunt me . . . I mean the house is locked up.

On Tuesday 7th May we finally finished filling in the north wall with iron which will stay in place til the glazing is installed after Christmas.  The house is now weatherproof for the winter and we can settle back into some gardening and landscaping for a little while.  We have installed some of the insulation, and the glazed back doors and locks etc.

We are now getting some idea of what it will be like inside and how big the rooms are.  It was a very exciting day and one that left us feeling very satisfied with ourselves.  A little over 20 weeks since the slab was poured which is not a bad effort for two amateurs.  All the timber framing has been cut with a handsaw and quite a few of the framing and roofing screws were installed using a brace and bit.  Not that we are total Luddites, but it is more peaceful in the bush without the generator humming away in the background.

The days working have been shared with all manner of wildlife, but we especially love it when the eagles circle overhead.  Their wingspan is huge, must be over 2m, and they sometimes call to each other.  A pair flew past when we were on the roof which caused some excitement.  They don’t seem shy at all and we have four nest locations within 5kms of our land.  The black cockies are prolific and we had a flock of 32 go through before a storm recently, I have never seen so many in one go.  The smaller birds are still around and we are going to un-net the vegetable garden so they can get in and eat the grubs.  They did a good job keeping pests down at our last house but this time we had fully netted the garden to protect the raspberries but they are over now.

You’ll remember that tree I mentioned that had to be felled.  Well I spent quite a bit of time psyching myself up before actually making the first cuts.  I was sure I had it figured to land between the house and the tank, rather than crush the back wall of the house.  As it started to fall it was heading straight for the house!!!

To cut a long story short, as it fell I ripped off my helmet and shouted one or two obscenities but luckily my estimate of its height was inaccurate and it stopped one metre short of the back wall.  I breathed a sigh of relief and went to change my underwear.   Having got that job out-of-the-way we were free to continue working.

This shot shows the bay window in the master bedroom (minus the glazing).  The sun streams in all day and it looks like the passive solar design will work out.  The temperature in the house is quite warm (when that sun is shining) and will retain heat once the glazing is installed.

I said I would publish a couple of shots of the glass bricks Bryon is making for the walls so here they are.  These show the idea but there are many different styles.  There are also fully coloured glass bricks and many different shapes to give variety.

St Marys doesn’t feel the same at the moment as Mt Elephant Fudge Cafe has shut for the winter while the proprietor goes to Queensland to grandmother for a while.  We miss her and that part of our social life.  Still there are lots happening and it is a great little town.  I was impressed when told the story of how the town banded together when they thought their little hospital was going to be closed, but I did wonder why they didn’t do the same when our police station closed recently?

The weather has really started to turn lately and the first frosts arrived around Agfest time as expected.  This shot shows the frost down in the hollow just as the sun was coming up.  The second shot shows the frozen tonneau cover on the ute.  We have lit a fire each morning before starting work just to keep our fingers from seizing up.  It has been hard yakka.

At night too we have had a fire.  As we don’t have electricity (or television) the options for entertainment are limited at night (mainly because it is dark) so we often light a fire and sit by that out under the stars.  One night we sat there for three hours, watching the night patterns move and were toasty warm.  I think hot herbed damper with sunflower oil is in order next time, hint.

One afternoon I looked to the south and saw this huge plume of smoke rising.  Not another fire was my first thought so I rang my resident weather and fire guru who said it was a forestry/parks burn off in the Douglas Apsley National Park just to the south.

Here it is as the sun set.  Even when we knew it was a controlled burn it is still a bit confronting after the recent summer fires and being so close to home.

This apocalyptic scene was shot by a bushwalker on April 6th this year.  These are forestry burns in the Hartz Mountains area south of Hobart.

We are still getting most of our food from the garden but it is starting to wind down a bit as we have been so busy with the house.  Our dear friend Merril gave us a couple of DVDs of the Lost Gardens of Helligan in Cornwall and this has inspired us to get back on with it.  They grow all manner of produce all year round, even pineapples, in that climate, very inspirational.  Bryon still amazes me with his creativity when it comes to vegan cooking, I really must make the effort to get his recipes into a cookbook to share, I am lucky to live with such a wonderful cook.  And I guess he is lucky to live with such a wonderful eater!!!

This little fellow is the flower from a Banksia Marginata, they are out in the bush everywhere surrounding the house (hence our name) and are attracting all manner of honey eaters and spinebills.  The small birds seem to have a pecking order and we watch them for ages as they queue up to bathe in the bird bath.

The valley has been filled with autumn colour lately as the willows and poplars on local farms are turning and the next two shots are in the garden at Fingal.

Here are the honey eaters in the bird bath, they sometimes squeeze in there a dozen at a time.

Now the house is locked up we can start on a few more projects as we want to start making cheese, and get the compost system going, and etc and etc.  Anyway, I will leave you with a recent sunset, and then go rest a while.  I have had a serious “man flu” this past week and am feeling a bit tired but thought I’d better do an update as it’s been five weeks since the last post.