8 April 2012

We had rain forecast for the last week, so I pushed for the joists for the deck. In the end we had a lovely sunny week and I kept on working on the deck. The decision was made to extend the deck for the full southern side. This is the side visible from Grey Street. Previously we wanted to do it only partially. We also had to decide on the width, because where we stopped in December, the deck went wider by 300 mm. We decided to do all of the new deck on the narrower width. There was a problem though. The height of the old deck would be 50 mm higher than the new one. After much deliberation, I cut the outer edge of the old deck off, and went past it. I removed two thirds of the joists we put up in December, and replaced it with a stronger joist, 100*100 as opposed to 100* 75 laid flat. I had to notch some of the bearers and gradually changed the height. Now we have all the joists on the outer side up, as well as the joists against the wall. That done, now at last we can continue on the posts. No decking boards though, we have not got money for that now. Once we have the veranda posts all finished, we can put the posts and lintol up. only held in place by a few ties.

Remember we have two lambs. One of them got attacked by blowfly (brommers). The wool was quite long and they burrowed into the wool to lay their eggs on the skin. I have never seen this before, normally it happens at the back end where it is wet and clogged. First one side, so we cut the wool and treated it, then the other, but they kept at it. We tried to get a shearer to shear them, with no luck. It is shearing season and everybody is busy. On Saturday Barco (Barry) and Jeamien offered to help. He has got a pair of hand shears for the garden, and we sharpened that and fired away. The ladies started from the front end with kitchen scissors. In all it took us about 3 hours to shear two sheep, but now the job is done and the infestation is treated and the lamb feels much better. I built a platform from scaffolds to put the sheep on. My job was to hold the sheep down, very important, Yes? We also used purple disinfectant, now Snowy has become purply.

Have a blessed Easter