what's not to love?

Turning briefly to the fauna aspect of my land and building saga, I recently joined up to WomSAT - a new resource for communities to record sightings of wombats across the country and became a 'Wombat Warrior'!!

Wombats are facing a crisis which threatens their numbers and existence. Namely - Sarcoptes scabiei caused by a mite similar to scabies in humans. Some think it is spread by foxes (which can frequent wombat holes) as Wombats are fairly solitary and territorial which would lessen the chances of the spread of the scabies mite.

Their numbers are already under pressure due to encroaching development on their territory, attacks from dogs and foxes and harsh treatment from landowners who are not adverse to shooting them because they like to dig holes in fences and dam walls. 

Heaven forbid a landowner should have to go out of his way to mitigate damage by trying alternate methods of deterring wombat activity. No no no - much easier to just shoot them.

WomSAT is harnessing community support to record wombat sightings, burrows, live and dead wombats and any evidence of mange thereon, in an effort to gauge the effect of this scourge on wombat numbers.

There is a treatment available which can reverse the effects. 

I have 4 wombat holes on my property but I am still as yet uncertain as to which ones are still active. (Wombats can make more than one burrow.)

I haven't stayed late at my property and as wombats are nocturnal, I haven't seen any of them myself yet.

But evidence is there that it/they are wandering around.

Wombats poo is curiously cube shaped. And they like to deposit it on any raised surface like rocks and stones as a territorial marker. It is thought it is cube shaped to stop it rolling off. And I've found it all over my 25 acres of land.

As an early birthday present to myself I have just bought a motion detector wildlife camera which I will set up to photograph any wildlife that wanders past it. This way I can try and determine how many wombats are here and their relative state of health.

Wombats as they should be (I DARE you not to adore them!!):

And what the mange will do:

We had over 100mm of rain in the last 36 hours and so I went out today to see what it has done.

Apart from filling up my dam to overflowing, it has also flooded three of four of the wombat holes. I have been told that wombats dig down first and then up to form a chamber above any water that might creep in. Let's hope so!

I certainly hope they are ok.

 

inner space

Alas yesterday my angle grinder bit the dust. When I first moved here 2 and a half years ago my first ever visit to an Aldi store I went in to get bread, eggs and cheese and came out with an angle grinder. (Aldi is dangerous that way)

I thought at $29 it might last 6 months and do some of the preliminary light jobs until I could decide on a proper one. Well bless its little heart - it has done everything so far, foundation tube cutting, all of the pre and post welding clean up and every wall panel cut-out bar the final 4.

And what finally stopped it wasn't the motor (around 1140W) but the little button on the wheel locking mechanism to tighten the disks gave way.

So I now have a Bosch. Nice and light, slimmer body so easier to hold. The Aldi one is still useable but changing a disk is a lot fiddlier and time consuming now.

And FINALLY - the last of the wall panels have been removed.

(Blue posts are temporary props until the 2 x 7M beams go up.)

Also - the ducks are back! Most days now they are on and around my dam.
There were 14 there today. I sat within 15 metres of them having my lunch and they were quite unperturbed.

cutting corners

Another tricky bit of cutting with the angle grinder came next.

After the two corner posts were removed (previous post) I needed to cut into the thick steel boxes on the ceiling that form the 8 corners of every container. This was so that the steel "C" beams could sit flush with and support the top rails.

It took many hours and many disks to cut through, taking small chunks out at a time. The steel was 12-15mm thick in parts.

It's not pretty but it did the job!

Then it was time to put up the 1st beam.

I still need to weld the blue uprights to the container walls, and the beam to the uprights.

Whilst I was doing that, outside Paul planted a dozen rhubarb plants that he had separated from his own garden, as well as mint (after using some pier tube offcuts to form a barrier so their roots don't spread like weeds)

removing a post...

Was up in Queensland visiting friend a couple of weeks ago and I came across this house for sale on the same road that my friends live on!

 

 It was for sale but I didn't get to have a look inside.

They're spreading like wildfire. I'm in danger of being in a trend!

I've also been away at Paul's for another week and then the second day back from his place, while cutting out steel panels some grinding grit managed to get past my safety goggles and into one of my eyes.

I always work with double filter mask, wrap around eye goggles, ear covers and a beanie as grinder sparks can really sting the scalp!

Got it out, but it led to an eye infection which lasted 10 days! Extremely annoying and made me very irritable!

So I have really only just managed to get back into it.

My early morning arrival is often greeted thus:

They are usually quite put out that I want access to my own land!! But I never tire of seeing them hopping across the paddocks - sometimes in large numbers.

My most recent task was taking out that double corner post that would sit right in the middle of the future kitchen island bench

One of the corner posts came out relatively easily. It was a single piece steel shaped structure.

The second was a stubborn M%$#&!**%!! - F$$!!&@*^!

 

 

I used 20 disks to get it out. They kept getting jammed in the cuts and snapping off the central core. It is made from 6mm steel and not 4 like the walls panels.

But finally after about 4 hours straight it fell - and was so heavy the entire container rang like a giant bell!!

You can see in the photo there is a double 'U' shaped beam in the section, one inside the other, which caused all the trouble. (The first corner was not constructed this way.) It is too heavy for me to move outside by myself.

But at least I am getting a sense of the space that is beginning to open up.

(the blue supports are temporary until the cross beam goes in.)

I can now go back to cutting out more wall panels - which are relatively easy compared to the previous task.

I have spent so much time up on the ladder plank:

It has begun to feel like:

more budget cuts

Well the engineering issue is resolved. I need to put in two x 7M steel girders and one of 5M.

These are to span the lounge/dining room space and the kitchen so I can remove that corner upright in the picture in the previous post that runs down through the kitchen island.

These beams and the upright supports are arriving next week.

It also means I have to remove the 100mm curtain walling that I left in when removing the walls as the girders need to sit flush with the top rail.

I've also cut through to the last container. So now all are accessible to each other.

Cutting the steel wall panels out is slow and dirty work! Especially when cutting high up over my head. Arms tire quite quickly. And I'm chewing through the cutting disks! But they are cheap, much cheaper than going down the plasma cutter route that I originally planned to do.

I've also used a couple of the panels to make my compost bays. Last week the sun came out, wind disappeared and it was a beautiful warm and sunny late Autumn day.

And I've finished burying the septic. Just needs a little more topsoil so grass can cover most of the lid.

And a couple more photoshop pix of how it will hopefully look like when finished.

Front of house:

Kitchen/Bathroom/Guest room end:

And a bit of fun for those who'd know!

autumn hews

Still waiting to hear from my engineers so I cut out a couple of other small wall sections and had a play with Photoshop to help visualise the end product.

The central column below will eventually be removed:

Looking towards kitchen and bathroom entry:(click to enlarge)

Paul also finished turning the soil in the garden and then went off and collected two big bags of cow poo to help condition the soil and has already planted garlic ready for Spring. He's donating about 6 rhubarb plants to me which will be planted in a couple of months.

All the wet weather recently has also slowed things a little, but at least the place will be green again in a week or so!

on the fence

Back to the garden fence today. It measures 12m X 5m - so 60 sqm of space. That's 2/3 the size of my current 2 B/R flat!!

First the second layer of hinge joint fencing wire:

Then the chicken wire:

All finished - ready to start preparing the soil so planting can begin in early spring (September).
Also I want to make three compost bays using some of the steel panels cut out of the container walls.

I wish I had discovered this gadget a couple of days ago - a netting clip tool:
 

It made attaching the chicken wire so easy. The last couple of days I have been cutting and twisting short lengths of binding wire with pliers and my hands are a mess!

The only issue with these little clips is getting them out of the bag individually:

Sort of reminds me of: