G'day,
As always, I would've like to have written this post sooner.
Not long after the last post we had Dave Spicer back to do some major earthworks. The earthworks consisted of repairing our 3 dam walls (with clay taken from elsewhere) connecting swales to the 3 dams (which would run on contour across the landscape for a few hundred metres) and finally make some terraces in the zone 1/2 areas, using the excavated material for the dam wall reapair. After surveying the area with a lazer level nd dry-hiring an excavator, the work commenced. It took about 4 days altogether and looked to be a real success. We even squeezed in time with the machine to dig out a cave in the side of the hill for food preservation and storage. It's been 3 months since then and last week the swales completely filled with water, due to the dams being up to their full potential. One of the terraces has become a cropping area, the other has currently got the skeleton of a polytunnel, a tree 'hardening off' area and a compost area.
Other jobs in the past 3 months have been building a permanent chicken coop near the house. The structure was made from round poles and the walls were made using an old technique called 'wattle and daub'. This was made by weaving thin, green pieces of wattles in a criss-cross fashion and then covering the wood up with a mixture of wet clay and straw. The technique seems to have been a succes, though I found willow branches to be more efficient than wattles so perhaps the technique should be called 'willow and daub'. The clay wall then needs to be lime rendered, which we have not done yet due to struggling to find the particular type of lime.
Other jobs have included repairing on old wood stove and intstalling it, planting a load more trees (productive, support species and windbreaks mainly), keeping on top of the veggie,garden milling a load more wood with Dave's portable sawmill, and general maintenance indoors and outdoors with the goal of continually trying to make the place at least somewhat comfortable, organized and civilized.
As always, I would've like to have written this post sooner.
Not long after the last post we had Dave Spicer back to do some major earthworks. The earthworks consisted of repairing our 3 dam walls (with clay taken from elsewhere) connecting swales to the 3 dams (which would run on contour across the landscape for a few hundred metres) and finally make some terraces in the zone 1/2 areas, using the excavated material for the dam wall reapair. After surveying the area with a lazer level nd dry-hiring an excavator, the work commenced. It took about 4 days altogether and looked to be a real success. We even squeezed in time with the machine to dig out a cave in the side of the hill for food preservation and storage. It's been 3 months since then and last week the swales completely filled with water, due to the dams being up to their full potential. One of the terraces has become a cropping area, the other has currently got the skeleton of a polytunnel, a tree 'hardening off' area and a compost area.
Other jobs in the past 3 months have been building a permanent chicken coop near the house. The structure was made from round poles and the walls were made using an old technique called 'wattle and daub'. This was made by weaving thin, green pieces of wattles in a criss-cross fashion and then covering the wood up with a mixture of wet clay and straw. The technique seems to have been a succes, though I found willow branches to be more efficient than wattles so perhaps the technique should be called 'willow and daub'. The clay wall then needs to be lime rendered, which we have not done yet due to struggling to find the particular type of lime.
Other jobs have included repairing on old wood stove and intstalling it, planting a load more trees (productive, support species and windbreaks mainly), keeping on top of the veggie,garden milling a load more wood with Dave's portable sawmill, and general maintenance indoors and outdoors with the goal of continually trying to make the place at least somewhat comfortable, organized and civilized.
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