31 July 2011

Well, this has been a long month, with five weekends. I cannot claim that we have achieved that much,  but we have made some progress.

We were given some roofing iron, and that fitted nicely to cover the lower end of the western wall of the cookhouse. The place is nearly secure now. I also put some of the cladding that has survived the borer back on the inner walls. We also repaired the door, and it is secured with a screw now. We even spent time to move most of the machines into the place.

The chimney has decided to separate, the outer wall and the inner wall decided to part. I spent nearly all of Saturday morning to decide if I could save it and what way would be best. In the end I put planks on both sides and clamped it together with sash clamps.

 This is the area where the plants were growing inside the wall. Now I started building back the outer layer of the chimney stack. It has been about 15 years since I  handled a trowel, and my courses are not too straight, but it will keep the chimney together. The upper part that does not show in the picture leans over too much and will have to be demolished and rebuilt.

On Saturday afternoon Elna decided she has had enough of my rubbish cluttering the lawn in front of the door, so we moved some of the stuff and had a sort of general cleanup. I must admit it looks much better now. (Has anybody been to and seen our "plot" at Rayton?) I am not going to embarrass myself with putting up before and after photos.

Our Heavenly father still provides. IRD sent me a cheque for"over payment of tax", just when we needed it most. Miracles, small and large keep on happening all the time.