28 August 2011

Monday morning we went somewhere, and when we returned there were sheep in the pen. But not as we expected. There was an ewe and a lamb. I knew Howard had can empty ewe, but "Mary had a little lamb" We ended up with Mary and Anne the lamb, bought at a reasonable price. Sheep sorted.

I decided to work on the shed I need for my timber. I started building it from cast off material. Three garage doors, (two forms the roof) some nice angle iron, and corrugated steel that I had saved for 6 years just for such an event. Nice welded frame and two walls and the roof is up. Then I got distracted......

We decided not  to start any work on the house before the section is cleared of all my rubbish. So I started clearing rubbish to the dump, put away the cut firewood, and do a general clean up.

Saturday we picked up a small Ferguson tractor (Vaaljapie) with an auger from a friend. I made all the required holes for fence posts in no time. It took longer to unhitch the auger afterward than to make the seven holes. Now we had a tractor on site. We proceeded to remove all the shrubs and trees growing close to the house and some where the deck should be. Pulled out 20 in all. Some were just cut off in 2006, and had huge root balls. Afterward we returned the tractor, and came home. As I stopped the car, I noticed two trees that I forgot about and left them standing, on the eastern side of the house. That will have to wait for a next time.

Now the trees are out, the urgency for getting the deck sorted has become much greater. Today I started taking dimensions and made enquiries about material. See, I like to plan ahead, or shall we call it: "Dream on...."?

We did notice that there are several deep holes in the section where large trees were removed in 2006. Also  there is a huge pile of dirt just over the fence where they are building a new house. We will go and talk to Rob, the builder. (And also see if we can borrow a tractor with a loader.)

We have made another list of things to do, before we start on the house. There were 26 items, and so far I could cross off eight of them. Enough to keep me busy for at least another two to three weeks.