Haulin' and burnin'

We had another burn pile for bits and bobs lying about. Sadly it was a day I had quilters and art class so I didn't get to light things on fire, but my husband had a lovely time.

My role was limited to taking nine? ten? ute-loads of wood down to the bottom paddock. Yep, I drove our ute to one part of our vast acreage, threw lots and lots of shitty pine onto it, then drove it to another part of our vast acreage and made a big pile. It felt very countrified, and getting rid of it felt even better. That pine is never-ending, and you can't burn it 100% of the time or it gunks up the chimney. Apparently.

I pulled apart some of the burnt-down compost bins too, so I could take it to the burn pile and finish the job. Also bits of crap wood from the lavender shed re-vamp (still in progress) and a heap we meant to chip but it's now too dry and dead to chip properly. 

I took a photo of the smoke as I rode off to quilters on my bike. We had to take some trees down on the shared access road a while ago (professional job, they were enormous). One of our neighbours has put iron flowers in the stump. I think they look very cute.

My garlic is up ... just another six months before harvesting! It is not a speedy crop. 

I also had a birthday. We threw away all the old manky birthday candles when we moved house so I got a household candle. It worked perfectly well and the cake was delicious. Number one and girlfriend came out to stay the night and we went out for dinner and then had cake and played scrabble by the fire. Perfect.

Windows

Here is something very small but very life changing - new windows in the living room! This is the state of one of our exterior walls at the moment, after the carpenter took off the old weatherboards. Nothing like a couple of mornings of minus six with plastic on the wall.

 

He is going to put them back (or probably replacement ones, not sure if any can be salvaged) but had to re-concrete the literal rocks our house is built on first. 

We are very happy to have our rocks cemented in a bit more. Rabbits are a massive problem and can easily cause your house to collapse if they get in underneath. So blocking the holes is good. This wall is in the earliest photos we have of the place so it's the original timbers from 1876 - original chimney too - and it is definitely the wall that gets the most sun. It is north-facing and perhaps the least shaded by trees. 

So of course nobody thought it was a good idea to put windows in. This is from the inside.  And when the boards were down we thought - how hard would it be to put windows in? Not hard at all as it turns out. Half a days work to cut through, another half day to do the framing, another half day to put the glass in and all the trim, including painting. And it has changed the room beyond belief.

There is light and views. It is a lovely view too, or it will be when all the carpenter's detritus has gone. We will have to re-arrange the furniture but that has to wait on the studio, so we can put the desk in the sewing room... etc etc. Can't rush these things! We are very happy.

Drawing people

I'm struggling on with trying to get proper likenesses of people. I found this photo on the internet - earth's world, who takes candid photos of americans at county fairs. All sorts, as you can imagine, and then people turn them into art! I'm trying to draw this guy, in pastels. What a great face.

At the end of the first art class he was looking like this. I have moved every line in his face about five times, to try and get the proportions right, and it's still off. 

This is the end of the second art class. A bit more going on, but will still need at least another couple of hours before I am finished (or before I get fed up, which is more likely). 

I'm only working on it in class, to try and not make any disastrous mistakes. Faces are hard!

I left home very early on Saturday morning to go to a destash sale back in Canberra. Selling, not buying; still trying to offload some of the donated fabric that the quilters have. It went very well - we came home with at least two empty tubs and made just over $300. And we know it went to good homes, which is the main point. No use just sitting in boxes at the quilter's shed.

It was minus three degrees when I left and the fat cow that had been parked in the neighbour's paddock next to the driveway had turned into one less fat cow and one cute calf. 

Fixing the outside of the house

Now the concreting is done and the lavender shed is (nearly) put back to rights, we are moving onto the next big project, which is fixing the outside of the house. It is weatherboards - but all sorts of boards added on at all sorts of times and done over all sorts of sub-structures. Carpenter guy's first job was to wander around the house poking things with screwdrivers. 

Many did not respond well to being poked with screwdrivers. Carpenter guy has two verdicts: "strong enough" and "completely rooted". Many of our weatherboards are completely rooted ... but this corner post - manifestly an actual part of a tree - was still solid as a rock.

Speaking of rocks, our house is genuinely built on them. This is the original back verandah (now my husband's model room) and the footings are rocks. Apparently completely fine except for a couple of places where mortar was used and that needs to be replaced with a bit more concrete. 

So the boards come off, get repaired or replaced, insulation goes in wherever possible, boards put back up, and away they go around the house. It will cost a fortune and take forever but everything does at this point. Not a good day for the plants by the house either; one rose has already been sacrificed to the cause.

The studio is still staggering towards the finish line. The insulation is on the back wall but not the colorbond yet; the electricity wiring is in but the lights aren't installed; the flooring is down but not the skirtings; the painting needs one more coat. Aaaargh.