Diary of a modern day pioneer couple

Ceilings and walls

2009-04-20T13:09:00.004+08:00

Well, after months of waiting, and a so called "friend" letting us down, we finally managed to get a couple of gyprockers from Goulburn to come and gyprock the internal walls and the ceilings and boy does it make a difference - the bloody house is HUGE inside!! The entrance way is spectacular and needs to be seen to be believed. So far, all the ceilings are done and most of the internal walls. James has also put in the insulation on the external walls, in between scratching, scratching, scratching from the fibres. What a crappy job that is but he persevered and it's all in now. We're now waiting for them to come back and finish the job which should hopefully be the end of this week or next week. After that it will be my turn to start on the painting.

James is coming home

2008-09-01T09:39:00.003+08:00

After eight years, James is coming home full time! He has finally been posted to Queanbeyan Fire Station. He was supposed to start there on 16 September, but they're sending him on a course to be rescue qualified and that will be about three weeks back in Sydney. But then he'll be home full time. He'll still be doing shift work, ie two days, two nights and four days off, but at least he'll be home in between times.

On the house front, we passed our framing inspection the other week. We've been working on getting the tin on the stable roof which we should have finished this week. We still need to render the outside so that the stable complex looks the same as the house and the garage but we'll work on getting into the house first.

Then it's back to working in the house again. The gyprock should be turning up this month so then we can start sheeting the internal walls and put in a ceiling.

We're decorating

2008-08-11T06:17:00.002+08:00

We decided to do some decorating and paint everything white yesterday.

Okay, so no not really. The big man upstairs decided to do that for us. It snowed most of the day on Sunday and this is what it looked like.

Back to the stables!

2008-08-08T07:32:00.002+08:00

Not much has happened on the house since the render went on. We’ve been working on getting the stable roof finished so that we can have our framing inspection of all three buildings done by the council. The council is coming out on Tuesday to do this inspection.
The weather hasn’t been that great for working on the roof though. We think it actually snowed on Sunday night fortnight ago but it just wasn’t settling. It was certainly cold enough so it should’ve been snowing. Sunday morning we were sure that the fog had actually rolled to inside the shed - or maybe it was just our blurry eyes from spending that Saturday night at the pub watching Australia beat New Zealand in the Bledisloe Cup! Pity the game last weekend was such a wipe out!!
It did actually snow last Friday what a way to welcome the first day of the last month of winter. Tracey came home to find that Chad had jumped the fence and was in the machinery shed eating all the grain! After putting him back in the paddock and walking back to the shed, the temperature just suddenly plummeted. It then hailed, then rained and then snowed. As you can see from the photos, this time it did actually settle! It was gone the next morning though but it was still pretty at the time.
We now have the solar hot water system which is an evacuated tube system - using solar tubes instead of solar panels. James has put the brackets for it up on the roof, however, the rest of the system won’t be installed until all the pipes are connected. And speaking of which, we’ve pressure tested the plumbing lines and so far everything liquid’ish is staying IN the pipes which is a good thing!
We’re currently getting quotes on the gyprock for the walls and ceiling INSIDE the house which is very exciting. Once we’ve finished the stable roof, we’ll move back onto the house and start doing the wet areas (ie, the bathroom, ensuite and laundry) as our next and second last inspection is the wet area inspection. After that, is the final inspection once it’s all finished - which is exciting because that means we’ll be finished!
So, still not in the house yet as we had planned but we’re certain we’ll be in by Christmas - this Christmas that is! Definitely! For sure! Absolutely! That’s right!

Lock up!

2008-06-03T17:26:00.004+08:00

We are finally at lock up! It's only taken us two and a half years but we are now officially at lock-up. The renderers finished the house last week. The garage only has a final coat to go on two sides and then it is finished too.

James has been working on running the electrical cables and roughing in the plumbing. The electrician and plumber will then check and connect it all up. After that, there will be a council inspection and then we will be able to start gyprocking the bedroom, ensuite and walk-in robe. Once that's done - we'll move in!! We're hoping that this will happen around about mid-July so we can spend the winter in a nice warm room. As much as living in a shed is better than living in the caravan, it is pretty hard to heat so it will be really nice to move into a room that is warm for winter.

On the horsie front, we rode Smudge for the first time in 2 years 8 months on the weekend and WOW!! He was so good and it was just like he'd been ridden only yesterday. We'll start him off slowly now and work on getting him fit over winter to see how his shoulder stands up to the work. Here's hoping he'll be right to show next season. We also rode Chad on the weekend and he was such a good boy too. He hasn't been worked in about two months and again, he was very cruisy and was like he'd been ridden yesterday.

Walls!

2008-04-01T10:00:00.004+08:00

Just a quick update to show you that we do have walls - on the northern and eastern sides of the house. It's been fairly windy so it has been a challenge for James and our good friend and neighbour, Shane, to put the walls on the frame because they're so light. It's starting to look like a real house now!

The Berlin Wall came down, CatarenaAcre's walls go up!

2008-03-06T11:19:00.004+09:00

Yes, the walls arrived yesterday and we just can't describe in words how excited we were just waiting for them to arrive.

And then they arrived...

We were expecting the panels to be on some sort of board, with some sort of mesh and maybe some sort of frame around each panel but they are literally just slabs of plain ol' polystyrene. Yep, like what the vege boxes or the old-style eskies are made out of. We keep saying we're going to be living in an esky and it's true!! All we wanted to do was go poke, poke, poke.

The thingamebobs to actually fit the panels to the frame haven't arrived yet, that'll be tomorrow, and then there's nothing to stop us putting them up. There's only 40 panels as most of our north and south walls are windows and doors so we're imagining it's not going to take all that long.

The outside of the walls will have a cement render on them and as this part of the building project is really important to get right, we're going to get a renderer to do it for us. The quotes are coming in and thank goodness they're not as expensive as we had anticipated. Whoever we pick will do the house, garage and the stables all at the same time.

It's looking good to be to lock up by winter THIS YEAR :)

How to make an entrance

2008-02-13T11:58:00.003+09:00

First you get an idea in your head, then you put it on paper, give it to your window and door maker and voila!! An entrance is born. The guys came on Monday to install the bi-fold doors from the living area out to the pergola area, the big sliding door from the kitchen to the pergola area, the front doors, our bedroom door and the two garage windows. These were all ones that we couldn't do ourselves. They all still need to be stained and sealed like the windows which have only taken us two months to do so that's what we'll be doing this weekend. We're still working on putting the tin on the roof on the garage and only have one more side to go then the ridge capping then that will all be done, other than the external walls of course. When that's done, which should be this weekend, it's onto the stable roof we go.

Overall layout

2008-01-22T11:29:00.001+09:00

Just a picture to show you the overall layout of the three buildings so far in relation to each other.

And another roof raising

2008-01-17T11:53:00.000+09:00

Well, this is our third roof on the property - the shed, the house and now the garage. Only one more to go - the stables. After the heat we've been having, it was nice to have a much cooler day to put the roof on the garage. Of course, Murphy's Law being what it is, it was windy which made construction a bit hairy. As we didn't have any scaffolding we had to make some up out of wood and ladders. Not very good OH&S but heck, it kinda worked. Our builder friend, Peter, arrived nice and early on Monday morning and whipped us into gear. Thank goodness we had someone who knew what they were doing! Having said that, it was easy enough, we just had to work out which part went where - sort of like a big meccano set. While James and Peter did all the heavy and high rise stuff by clambering around in the sky, Tracey helped by throwing things up to them like trusses for the hip parts, nails, dropped hammers (etc). All in all, it was a great day. We're now just putting on all the bits and pieces to make the garage nice and sturdy so we can untie the tractor from it and then we'll put on the guttering and then the roof.

The external walls will arrive around the first week in March.

The window people are hopefully coming out next week to instal the massive bi-fold doors and the sliding door from the kitchen to pergola area.

What do you do on Christmas Eve but ...

2008-01-03T12:45:00.000+09:00

... build a garage. Yes, unlike all you sane people, we decided to spend our Christmas Eve putting up the frame of the garage. Like everything with our project, it's turned out far bigger than we expected!

Even though the weather has been very hot, we've kept quite cool working down in the house. The holiday period was spent staining and sealing windows - still. One coat has gone on the windows both inside and out and one coat on the sliding windows on side. We still have about another three coats on all sides to do!

New Years Day was spent in the hammock watching DVDs. Oh how far we've come from the days of playing Yahtzee by torchlight in the caravan with no electricity or water.

The shed was way too hot to stay in so we went down to the house and hung the hammock off the frame in where the double sliding doors to the study will be and propped our portable DVD player up on a sawhorse and watched a DVD - luxurious!!

We're now trying to organise the guys who gave us a hand with the frame to come and help us with the roof trusses on the garage. It's not very stable with just the external walls on - hence why it's tied to the tractor so once that's done we'll put the roof and guttering on it and then it will be up to the same stage as the house. As the walls fo the house and garage will be out of the same stuff, we'll put them up all together.

Here's hoping that this year is the year of the house warming!!

We hope that santa was kind to you and you kept safe over the holiday period. We're very much looking forward to catching up with you this year.

MC&HNY

2007-12-21T12:31:00.000+09:00

Major panes

2007-12-03T11:26:00.000+09:00

We have windows!! Yesterday family and friends turned up for a working bee to install the windows. Other than the fact that some of the frames were 5-10mm too short for the windows, everything went well. The short frames were easily fixed thanks to some ingenuity by Sweet Talker Walker.

Installing the window way up the top of the house in the Gailey Gable was certainly very hairy and scary! Especially when Tracey forgot that her right brake was on on the tractor and it skidded sideways with James and Adriel about 10 feet in the air with the window on the front forks.

After the weekend, it really brought home to us how blessed we are to have such family and friends who would go out of their way to give up their Sunday to help us. We certainly could not have done it without them and it means so much to us to have taken this big step forward in our dream.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say special thanks to those who gave us a hand yesterday.

First of all, Christopher Gailey. James and I decided to install one of the little windows ourselves on the Saturday and after countless phone calls to Christopher to ask him how to do it, we managed to get it done - so that was our practice run. Christopher has always been only too happy to help when James rings up and says "have you got a minute, mate? I've just got a question" which we did on the weekend. Thanks, Chris.

Noel Walker, aka Sweet Talker Walker, our neighbour from up the road. Without Noel's strong hands and tips and tricks and easier way to do things, the windows wouldn't have gone in as easily as they did. Thank you, Noel.

Uncle Vic and Troy. Without Vic's good common sense and knowledge and Troy's strength and willingness to clamber up the inside of the house to the very, very high roof, things would not have been possible. Thanks, Vic and Troy

Brad and Nicky - without whom there's no way we could've carried the windows and positioned them without Brad and Nicky. Those extra pairs of hands were an absolute lifesaver. Thanks so much, Brad and Nicky.

Aunty Marie and Kate. You guys were just amazing. Going out on that quad bike and finding those fly veils for the horses was an extraordinary feat. The horses have them back on now and are much happier not having to shake the flys away from their faces. Thank you so very, very much.

Marjie and Grant. Without Grant's good common sense knowledge and Marjie's extra pair of hands, we certainly would not have been able to get the job finished. Marjie was also our unofficial photographer and from the couple of pikkies that I saw, they looked amazing. Can't wait to see the results. We know you guys had other things on over the weekend so we are so grateful that you were able to give us a hand. Thank you.

Stuart and Adriel. Again, without those extra pairs of hands, the window installation would not have possible. Also, without Adriel being willing to stand on the front forks of the tractor and be lifted up to the heavens whilst holding onto a big heavy window, there's no way that window would've been installed. Thanks, Stuart and Adriel.

Joan/MIL. Thanks to the mother/mother-in-law for her extra pair of hands too in helping lift heavy windows and position them into place and hold them while they were fixed. She did pretty good for an old duck! Also for cooking the BBQ and keeping us all fed. Such an invaluable help to have someone do the cooking so that we could concentrate on doing all the heavy stuff.

Last but certainly not least, Paul and Kylie for unexpectedly giving us a brand new baby niece, Jessica, five weeks early. We will certainly not forget the day that we installed our windows in a hurry. Every year when we celebrate Jessica's birthday, we can say "I remember this day in 2007, we were installing our windows in our dream".

Again, thank you so much to everyone.

The Pergola

2007-11-15T11:30:00.000+09:00

We have a PERGOLA!! Yes, that's right. No house still, but we do have a pergola. These are the before and after painting shots. James finished putting the laserlite on the pergola yesterday. I spent seven hours straight on Saturday with no break (not even a loo or a drink break) painting the damn thing and then another five hours on Sunday painting the verandah, which by the way isn't quite finished yet. I painted it the same colour as the roof but am a little unsure about the colour. Am thinking of changing it already :) to something quite bright and vibrant and different - like a glossy red or something like that. If anyone has any suggestions, pleeeeeaaaasssseee let me know.

James has now started to put the guttering on the verandah. That should take up this shift and then hopefully when he comes home next shift, he'll start putting the tin on.

Then, it's on to the windows and doors - now that will be a milestone!!

The weather here is starting to heat up. We've had a couple of days of 28 degrees and it's not even summer yet. The nights are still quite cool which is really nice. This will be our second summer in the shed. Now that we have a PERGOLA we could sleep under it if it gets too hot I suppose!! Another interesting statistic - we've now been almost two years without a toilet!! Two years of going to the loo up in the bush.

Span this

2007-10-22T12:18:00.000+08:00

As you can see from the photo above, we've been working on the pergola area out the back of the house. The spans just defy the imagination - span from left to right is almost 9 metres, the height is about six metres and the width is about 6 metres! This section of the house has been quite a challenge. It's hard to tell by the photo, but essentially all that is holding those beams up is pressure - and that's about it. Gravity is pushing the side rafters against each other and they in turn are holding up the middle beam. While putting up the third set of rafters, we discovered that the scaffolding was in the way so we had to move it. When we did this, one of the rafters collapsed (remembering that all that was holding it up was pressure) which caused the middle beam and one of the opposing rafters to shift and twist - disaster!! Took us about two hours to fix and reposition everything during which time the stress and scariness of it all decided to pour out of Tracey's eyes. But with a lot of patience from James and a lot of sniffles and snot from Tracey, we managed to get it fixed again.

Carparking

2007-09-24T07:49:00.000+08:00

Driving up our road this morning and saw this car "parked". Apparently a young couple were in the car and at the last minute the driver couldn't decide which way to go and hit the brakes and launched! Not only is the car on that boulder, it's also held up by the wire fence! The car is also sitting right next to the power pole. I think they were very lucky that they didn't hit the power pole head on.

Stables are done!

2007-09-14T11:36:00.000+08:00

As you can see, the stable walls are done. They were finished this week. We do have the roof trusses but it will be a while before they go up as we're now going to concentrate on the house for a while.

James has been building the verandah this week and oh what a difference it has made to the house. We thought the house was big before, now it's just plain massive. A warning to our family and friends - you're going to have to come and stay with us so we don't get lost!

We are now having a lot more better weather for building. Before it was crap days with some good spots, now it's good days with some crap spots.

On the horse front, we've been restricted by this equine influenza that's going around. Whilst it's nowhere near us, we're still not allowed to move the horses off the property. It's doubtful whether we'll be going to any shows this side of Christmas which isn't too bad - more time for training really.

And speaking of Christmas, it's now only a little over three months away - does that make you feel better or just plain scared :)

Quick update

2007-08-21T11:33:00.000+08:00

Well, the stables are moving along in leaps and bounds. There are now only two more rows on the walls to go and then we'll be able to put the roof on. Looks the horses will have their house before we do - typical.

As for the house, we're still waiting to pour the footings for the verandah. The weather has delayed this somewhat. Whilst it is nice for the drought in our area to have broken, the timing sure sucks!!

It doesn't get any better than this

2007-07-05T10:15:00.001+08:00

Sitting in deck chairs outside the caravan just listening to the sounds of the country and chatting and reconnecting with each other because we have no electricity to watch tv or listen to the radio - does it get any better than this?

Yes, it does.

Moving out of the caravan and into the shed and being able to stretch your arms out to the side and not be able to touch a wall - does it get any better than this?

Yes, it does.

To sleep in a bed where your feet don't hang out over the edge - does it get any better than this?

Yes, it does.

Having electricity again after ten months without it and being able to do a simple thing like turn a light switch on - does it get any better than this?

Yes, it does.

Having the drought break and seeing your brand new megalitre dam overflow - does it get any better than this?

Yes, it does.

Being able to turn the electric blanket on and snuggle in bed when it's -3 degrees inside the shed - does it get any better than this?

Yes, it does.

Watching your dream home become a reality - will it get any better than this?

Yes, it will.

Eventually :)

Raising the Roof in Gundaroo

2007-06-20T16:46:00.000+08:00

The roof, guttering and fascia are finally on and so far, with these winds we've been having, they're holding on. It has been a rather interesting time putting the roof on because at the time we did it, Mother Nature decided it was time to turn the fan up. Trying to lift and screw down 5m lengths of colourbond onto roof trusses is a challenge in windy weather!! Quite a few times we had to put our bodies on the line just to hold the sheets down for a couple of minutes until the wind died down enough to do what we had to do.

The ridge capping still has to go on but it's a bit difficult to work on the roof when the condensation doesn't lift until about 2o'clock in the afternoon. We think that this time of the year is the hardest to work on the outside of the house because it all depends on the weather. And you know Murphy's law - the weather's so beautiful when James is away at work and it's so crappy on his days at home when he's actually able to work on the house.

The external doors and windows arrived a couple of weeks ago and are all wrapped up to protect them from the elements. The frames and trusses for the garage arrived this week as have our internal doors and doorframes. Our next step though is to finish off the roof (ie put the ridge capping on) and then we'll be starting on the verandah. We want to put the verandah on before we put in the external windows and doors as they are timber and the verandah will give them that little bit of extra protection.

The blocklayer is coming this Friday to look at when he can start on the stables again. The blocks arrived a couple of months ago but unfortunately, he managed to get a couple of jobs while we were waiting on the blocks so now he can start. We'll be labouring for him so maybe the stables might just be up before the house is.

The weather is starting to turn cold. We've had a couple of nights where it's been down to -3. We're just so thankful that we're not going through another winter in the caravan. Now that we have electricity we can use the electric heaters and have the electric blanket on. We do have a gas patio heater that we can use now as well. Because of the height of the shed, it is harder to heat it, but we're not complaining - it's way better than being in the caravan!!

On the horse front, we finally brought our new horse, Chad (aka Stop N Paws) home at the beginning of June. It's taking him a while to settle in but he's won over the mares by bringing them into season - hussies! Tracey found him this morning on a neighbouring property - how he got there we're still not sure as the fences and gates were intact but we figure he thought he'd try a bit of cross country jumping. Of course, the owners of the property don't live there and even though there is nothing on the property (as in, no house) they have their gates padlocked - go figure. Tracey ended up having to actually take one of the gates off the strainer post in order to get Chad back.

We've had the all clear from the vet to start riding Smudge again after he fractured his shoulder about 20 months ago and he says it is likely that he will make a full recovery. Betty is also broken in now as is JD so we have four rideable horses after going so long with none.

So no excuses to not come and visit people!

More framing

2007-03-29T11:12:00.000+08:00

Just thought we'd post another "progress" photo.

We've been framed - again!

2007-03-21T13:43:00.000+09:00

Yes, we have finally started on the frame of the house. Monday was a public holiday in Canberra so we organised a working bee to put up the house frame. Our builder mates, Danny and Peter, arrived early Monday morning and we made a start - placing tools, finding the plans and working out where to set up the radio. As every builder knows, you can't work on a site unless you have music!! This is as far as we got on Monday - the heavens opened up and the drought broke in Gundaroo! While we're not complaining about the lovely water falling from sky, timing could've been better :) So the working bee was called off and everyone went home.

Tuesday came along and we thought, yep the weather looks good today let's try again. This time, we only had James, Tracey and Peter. First step was to check the slab markings and James had done a great job of marking out where each frame was to do.

Next step was to lay out the frames where they were supposed to go up. With Tracey directing, James and Peter lugged the frames and placed them in their spots kinda in the middle of the slab, leaving room on the outside to actually put them up. This step took most of the morning as the frames were pretty heavy, particularly the front entry frame and the frame for the bi-fold doors - they were monsters.

We were now up to the stage of actually putting the frames up. Again with Tracey directing, James and Peter stood up the frames and nail gunned and drilled them into place. Surprisingly, things went smoothly and half the house went up pretty quickly. One quite difficult part was the front entry frame. It is sooooo tall and in one complete piece that standing it up and keeping it steady was quite a task but James and Peter managed well despite Tracey panicking every time the wind blew ever so slightly! Heaven knows how on earth we're going to get the window in up there.

It was then Tracey's job to go along and drill through the bottom of the frame and into the concrete and bolt the frames to the slab. After a lot of swearing and getting one drill bit stuck in the reo in the concrete, which we couldn't get out and ended up having to take it off the drill and leave it there, she managed to get it done. There will forever be a 10mm drill bit behind the wall of the guest bedroom now :)

Next stage will be putting on the roof trusses.

2007-01-25T12:00:00.000+09:00

Well, what an exciting week we've had this week. We used the gas oven for the very first time!! We did have to keep the little oven door open slightly so that the flame didn't go out, but it does mean that we can cook stuff that you cook in an oven now. Oh, the recipes are just endless :)

We're still digging external trenches (well, when we say "we", we mean James). He's almost finished and will be glad to hand the jackhammer back to the concreter. Manually digging through solid rock is pretty hard work he reckons.

And that's about it so far.

Happy New Year

2007-01-12T11:35:00.000+09:00

Well, Christmas and New Year are now behind us and we're looking forward to the year ahead and hoping that we will have a house to live in this year. We've been at Gundaroo for exactly a year now and looking back, even though we've done a heap of work, there's a whole lot more to do.

We've recently found out that we can put the frames and trusses up and the roofs and guttering on without waiting for the door and windows to arrive. So, the frames and trusses will hopefully be arriving in a couple of weeks. Hindsy has been up with the bobcat digging all the trenches for water, septic and electricity between buildings. The building site now looks like a ferret's playground.

There is a 20 metre right of way through the middle of our property and the property owner behind us is putting in a gravel road and fencing it out. We knew this when we bought the property and decided to use this road as an alleyway between paddocks. His fencers have been at the farm this week putting in a wire fence on either side of the right of way. On Wednesday, the dopey buggers decided that on one side they would run the wires but not strain them up and on the other side just run a bottom wire. Hellllooooo - horses on the property!!! Don't they realise that horses can get tangled in loose wires and cut themselves! To say that we was a little concerned is to say the least. We rang them and they told me they thought my horses were pretty quiet and would be okay ...... obviously they don't know horses do they - geez!!! Thankfully there was no wind that night, no storms, no shooters and so the horses had no reasons to panic and run around. On Thursday they did actually strain up the wires on the fence on the machinery shed side and put the gates in so at least they can work on the other side in peace and quiet without the horses "helping". Smudgey's been a great help apparently - picking up gloves and running off with them, checking to see that hats are on heads :)

Other than that, it's all quiet on the building front. Some good news is that the water tank off the machinery shed is nearly full. We have had some quite good rain recently and we've also had a lot of dew of a morning (which has been kinda weird for summer) so we've been collecting quite a bit of water.

On the horsie front, the show season is cranking up again after the Christmas/New Year break so we'll be doing a lot of travelling to Victoria. We have a show down there on the Australia Day long weekend as well as the Australian Halter Showcase coming up in March.

Going to be another busy year.

There's nothing like coming home to a couple of slabs

2006-12-07T09:55:00.000+09:00

And not just slabs of beer.

Now we really feel as though we are "out of the ground". Nine concrete trucks left Goulburn at 6.30 on Wednesday morning to trundle concrete out to our place for the house slab and the garage slab. Six blokes worked for most of the day to pour them and when we arrived home that night, there were two lovely new slabs on the ground. We can now get an idea of just how big the buildings are going to be. The bathroom and ensuite kinda don't look as big as what we thought they would be, but then everyone assures us that it's just an optical illusion. Once the walls are in, they'll look plenty big enough! The laundry is massive and looks about the size of another bedroom, which is kinda funny 'cause it's the least used room in the house really.

There won't be much happening for a bit because of the Christmas/New Year break. We will just have to wait until end of January/beginning of February (or thereabouts) for the frames, trusses, windows and doors to arrive. Then it will be our turn to do the actual building.

The Great Gundaroo BBQ

2006-11-27T12:03:00.000+08:00

The Great Gundaroo BBQ started around 3.30 on Wednesday afternoon with a bushfire burning on Lot 1 of our road. By 5o'clock that night, it had spread over the main road, through a couple of properties, up over the Lake George escarpment and down the ridge to Lake George. We were very grateful that the winds were not blowing our way. Had the car packed with all the important stuff - saddles, hats, some photos. Also had some transport arranged for the horses in case the winds turned and came our way. Our evacuation plan was if the road was cut off and we couldn't get out, then we would get some people to help hold the horses on the arena until the fire passed. The arena is 50m x 60m and there is nothing to burn so all we would have to worry about would be smoke and embers. The one good thing about not having a house - you don't have to worry about it burning down. Thankfully, the district's rural fire brigades managed to get the fires under control fairly quickly.

Last Thursday, our 106,000 litre water tank arrived. It arrived in pieces, so the water tank guys put it together and 13,000 litres of water arrived that afternoon - just in time. We estimate that we also have around 2,000 litres of water in the tank off the machinery shed. It is a nice feeling to know that we do have water other than the dam water, especially with the fires we've just had.

On the building front - on Saturday the besser blocks arrived. These blocks will go under the slab so that the slab will be all even. Simon the blocklayer arrived this morning to lay the blocks, Hindsy arrived with his bobcat to dig the trenches for the pipes and also to level the ground in the three open bays of the machinery shed and Steggy, the concreter, arrived to form up the slab for the garage. The drainer is coming on Wednesday to lay the pipes and Steggy will also form up the slabs for the house and the garage. On Tuesday next week, the council will inspect all the formwork and on Wednesday, all things going well, the slabs will be poured. Between now and then, we have to organise for the termite guys to come and put in the termite protection.

James has now set up a laundry tub near the water tank on the machinery shed so that we can wash dishes and clothes (separately, not altogether mind you) in something other than a little bucket. As we don't have the washing machine set up, we can wash the clothes in the tub with the washing detergent and then drain that and put a bucket fresh water in for a rinse cycle. We even have a spin cycle which consists of whirling undies around in the air. Marvellous what you can come up with when you have to!

One foot, two foot

2006-11-15T08:32:00.000+08:00

Now that we've had electricity for a week, we're wondering how on earth we did without it. Whilst the generator worked really well, electricity is soooo much better. The novelty of switching lights on and off still hasn't worn off! It seems much quieter out here now that we don't have the noise of the generator. I'm sure the whingeing wombat lady down the road is much happier now that our generator isn't disturbing her "peace and serenity"!!!!!

The footings for the house and the stables have now been dug and poured. What started out as a one day job to dig the footings, turned into a three day job because of all the rock. James, Hindsy (the backhoe guy) and Steggy (the concreter) spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday digging and jackhammering and drilling out the rock. This house isn't moving in a hurry that's for sure with the amount of rock underneath it. The council came and inspected the footings yesterday and straight after we received word we could go ahead with the next step, seven concrete trucks arrived and the footings were poured. The garage hasn't been done yet as it will have the same type of slab as what the machinery shed is. The slab for it will be done at the same time as the slabs are prepared for the house and the stables. The photo shows the footings for the stables

The surveyor is coming out next week to "re-pin" the buildings. Then we lay besser blocks on top of the footings as part of groundwork under the slab and this will make the slabs level. We're hoping to do this part in the next fortnight so that the plumber can come out and do his preliminary pipework. We're still hoping to get the slabs poured by Christmas.

Power to the people

2006-11-07T07:44:00.000+08:00

We have power!! And a whole three days early. The electricians came up on the weekend to wire up the shed and put in the temporary power box at the house site. The electricity company were supposed to come on Thursday to hook us into the network, but they were getting full and decided to come and connect us on Monday. Oh the bliss of having e.l.e.c.t.r.i.c.i.t.y after eleven months of doing without it!! Had to turn the tele down now that we don't have the noise of the generator. It was lovely to not have to go outside in the dark and the cold to turn the genny off when we wanted to go to bed. Light goes on, light goes off, light goes on, light goes off!! Now that we have proper lights, we've discovered parts of the shed that we'd never seen before by torch or lamp light.

Last week, the building set out surveyor came out and marked out the house, garage and stables. This Friday, the backhoe guy is coming to dig the footings and we'll have our first inspection by the council next week. After the first inspection has been completed (and hopefully passed), we need to get a brickie in to put down a layer of bricks to lift the house up a bit and then the slabs will be poured. We're hoping to get the slabs down by Christmas time. With the Christmas/New Year break coming up we're starting to order the windows and external doors and the frame and roof trusses so that they can be delivered early February. Then the work will really start in earnest.

Dig this!

2006-09-21T10:27:00.000+08:00

We've finally started excavating the sites for the house, garage and stables. As you can see (hopefully) from the photo, it's quite a large area and very, very rocky - so much so that we've had to get the rock breaker in for some sections. The trench has now been dug for the power from the transformer to the house site and then from the house site to the machinery shed and we've started to lay the cable. Won't be long now 'til we have that wonderful stuff called "e.l.e.c.t.r.i.c.i.t.y"! The holes for the water tank and the septic have also been dug now.

We have all the quotes back for the frames and roof trusses and are in the process of deciding who to use. We've decided we're going for a timber frame instead of steel that we were originally considering. Since moving into the shed, we've come to realise just how noisy steel frames are, especially first thing in the morning when the sun hits the shed and last thing at night when it cools down. Also, television reception isn't that crash hot and all the steel seems to interrupt the digital set top box - so this was an enormous factor that influenced our decision :)

We're through!

2006-09-06T11:07:00.000+08:00

We're finally through council and have our development consent. They told us it would only be 10 weeks and it ended up being 13 weeks - not bad considering they told us approval on the shed would take four weeks and it took nine. We now have to pay a $750 "erosion control" bond and then they will give us our construction certificate and we can commence work on the house, garage and stables. As we are constructing all three buildings out of the same materials, they will all go up at the same time. The plan is to lay the concrete slabs for all three at the same time, then put up all the frames at the same time, etc, etc. We decided to do it this way to save money and time, otherwise we'd be getting say the concreter to come out three different times or the electrician to come out three times and having to pay extra travelling costs and all that. Most horsie people I know who are building decide to put the stables up first and then work on the house - nooooo, not us!!

The conditions the council put on the consent are not too onerous or stoooopid. They were easy things to comply with regarding the wood heater, the driveway and the septic system we'll be using. Most of things they said we had to do we are doing anyway, so no biggy really.

Life in the shed is great. We have all our stuff with us now and it's been like Christmas unpacking the boxes and going "Ooooh, I forgot we had that". I used the vacuum cleaner on the rug for the first time in eight months and it really felt like a novelty - one that I'm sure will wear off quite quickly. Those of you who know us know that we have better things to do with our time than cleaning so it was quite funny to feel excited about vacuuming! I also tried to use the iron the other night, but because it cuts in and out, it was making the generator go up and down (noise wise) and it just freaked me out too much so I thought that that housework job could just go by the wayside. We've also been able to use the microwave so on those Monday and Tuesday nights when the pub is closed for dinners, we have microwavable dinners - again, such a novelty!

We still don't have electricity - but we're working on it. We're waiting on one more quote to come back.

Not much is happening horse wise. We've started training the horses to associate the quad bike with feeding time. They've caught on pretty quickly that when they hear the quad bike it means a feed and they come running. We're going to bring JD into work again in the next couple of weeks to see if he remembers his breaking in training.

The Shedders

2006-08-25T07:51:00.000+08:00

We're no longer trailer trash, instead we're "Shedders". Yes, we're finally in the shed! And it's just fantabulous. Just to be able to stretch our arms out and up and not touch anything and to sleep in a bed that we both fit in is the most wonderful feeling in the world. Even though we coped quite well in the caravan after now living in the shed for about a week, we couldn't go back to the caravan. The van is being picked up today and while we certainly won't be sad to see it go, it certainly has been a big adventure being trailer trash. We only have one more load to pick up from storage and then we'll have all our stuff back.

It's been funny getting our stuff from storage to see what we've actually been able to live without and what we've missed. We'll probably do a big clean out soon, but we guess it probably would've been better to have done the clean out before we moved rather than after!! It's the small things like just being able to eat of a normal sized dinner plate that we've missed. We had been using a picnic set while we were in the van for the two days a week that the pub was closed for meals and while that was handy, they were small plates. And for those of you who know what James' appetite is like, well we ended up eating straight out of the saucepan or the frying pan 'cause a picnic plate just didn't hold enough food for James and his pet tapeworm!

Now that we're in a bigger space, we've been able to set up the gas stove/oven, the gas fridge and the patio table top gas heater. With the price of petrol through the roof at the moment, we'll certainly save on heating costs. We worked out that it was probably costing us more money in petrol for the generator than it would've cost us being on electricity!

And speaking of electricity, the trench is dug for the power we're just now waiting on a load of sand to put in the bottom of the trench and then we'll arrange for the electrician to come and lay the cable and connect us up - then we'll be living in the lap of luxury.

The site for the house, garage and stables has now been finished. We're still waiting on approval of our development application from the council. We spoke with the council last week to see how they were coming along with it and they told us that it shouldn't be too much longer. They were able to tell us that our DA already had about 50 conditions on it. We spoke to our neighbours who have friends who have just finished building and are in the same council area. They told us not to worry too much about the conditions on the DA as they could be really simple ones. Their friends had about 30 conditions and some of them were like the fridge space should be closed in on all four sides - so how are they going to open the fridge?? And the bathroom, kitchen and laundry taps all needed to be connected to the rainwater tank - what else would they be connected to in a rural area with no mains water?? We're waiting with baited breath to see what conditions this council has put on our DA....

Our first erection

2006-08-10T07:19:00.000+08:00

We now have our first erection and the landscape of the property has changed for ever. It's no longer virgin land! Yes, that's right, after only seven months the shed is finally up! Originally, we had decided that we wanted to be in before winter, but I guess we didn't specify which winter did we!

James and our good friend and neighbour, that crazy dutch bastard, Shane lined the shed on the weekend. It now has insulation in the roof and walls and is lined with ply. As the shed doesn't have any windows, it was pretty dark so we've replaced four of the colourbond sheets in the roof with four laserlite sheets. We painted the concrete floor to cut down on the concrete dust. We had this brilliant idea that we'd use the lovely tuscan effects paint in the colour Copper on the floor. Trouble is, tuscan effects is one of the paint effects that you see through to the layer underneath and so we had to do quite a few layers of paint. We s'pose that it probably would've been better to have used a concrete paint, but we were going through an inspiration stage at the time of buying the paint. See what happens when you have a thought-it's dangerous I tell you! The water tank is now in place next to the shed as well. We're just going to wait until after the first rainfall before we connect the guttering to the tank as there is quite a bit of crap like filings and metal bits from when the roof was put on. Once the rain washes the gutters clear, then we'll connect up to the tank and finally have some fresh water!

BJ, our excavator, has been working this week on digging the trench for the electricity and putting in culverts under the driveway for drainage. He's also going to start excavating the site for the house, garage and stables. We still haven't heard from the council as to when our development application might be approved, but at least we can go ahead and excavate the site. We're waiting on one more quote to come back for putting the electricity cables in and connecting the shed up so for now, even when we move into the shed, we'll still be relying on the generator for power.

On the horsie front, Betty went on her merry way this week to Andrew's to start her training. We borrowed a friend's float and curious girl that she is, she walked straight on. She was a bit antsy at first once we started driving (it was only her second time travelling on the float), but she settled down eventually. We took her to Collector which is about 15 minutes away and met the horse transport truck there. She came off the float and walked straight onto the truck like an absolute dream. She overnighted at Yass and then apparently travelled really well to Victoria where she arrived at Andrew and Sally's safe and sound. The baby of the horsie family is finally growing up!

Back to the home front and we've bought a new toy. After many years of drooling and dribbling whenever we go past a bike store, we finally bought a quad bike. It's a 250cc jeep off road quad bike and as you can see from the photo, it's in camouflage colours - the horses aren't going to see us coming now!

We've been framed!!

2006-07-27T07:31:00.000+08:00

Yes, we finally have a frame up for the shed. After the downpour we've had this week, it was doubtful as to whether the frame would go up this week or not. Thankfully, the weather has held off and the shed guys came out and have got the frame up in one day. They will be putting the walls and roof on today and the guttering on Friday. This is why we decided to get someone else to put the shed up - they can do it faster than what we can! We are planning on lining the shed this weekend and hopefully have it in a state to move into next weekend.

The little portable gas cooktop that James got for his birthday has something wrong with it. We've been using to cook our "dinner in a can" on Mondays and Tuesdays when the pub isn't open for dinner. Even though we do have a gas cooktop and oven in the caravan, they don't work properly so we've been using the portable cooktop. However, it's not putting out much of a flame and takes ages to heat up. Oh well. Once we move into the shed we will be able to use the big gas oven and cooktop that Uncle Ian and Aunty Margaret have lent us. We've missed being able to cook in an oven. We never realised just how many foods out there need an oven! That's why the good old "dinner in a can" has been great - and even yummy, if you can believe that!

With the cold weather we've been having, we certainly haven't missed having a fridge. We've been using the esky to keep some food and drink in and keeping it outside. We do have a large gas fridge and once we move into the shed we'll be able to use that.

As you can probably tell, we're looking forward to moving out of the caravan and into the shed.

Building has started

2006-07-18T11:16:00.000+08:00

Well, the slab has now been laid for the machinery shed and building is due to start tomorrow (Tuesday, 25 July). On the weekend, we spread out the crusher dust into the three bays of the shed that will have open fronts and out the front of the shed, just so it's not so boggy driving in and out. We also spread out the sand next to the slab where the water tank is going.

We've started moving things like the insulation that is going into the shed and wood for the fire up to the machinery shed site.

We've had a brief respite from the weather - only down to zeroes and ones of a night - and have had a heap of rain which has been rather nice for the dams.

We're still getting quotes from various companies for windows, doors, frames and roof trusses. Because we have to have, according to our Basix certificate, timber frames and double glazing on our windows, this quote is proving to be pretty expensive.

There's movement at the station

2006-07-10T08:28:00.000+08:00

Yes, that's right. Today, the concreter is coming out to form up for the slab on the shed!! Council is organised to come out and inspect that formwork tomorrow (Tuesday) and the slab and footings should be poured on Wednesday - finally. Council should then hopefully inspect the slab next Tuesday and it'll be ready for the shed guys to come out and erect the shed after that. All things going well, we should hopefully be in the shed within the fortnight - that's according to James' and Tracey's timetable mind you!

Lovely James bought Tracey some nice "icebreaker" thermals recently and boy do they work. Not quite as nice as having full time heating, but it sure beats freezing your arse off on those chilly Canberra nights/mornings when the temperature plummets to minus six and you have to go outside for a pee at 3o'clock in the morning! With the price of petrol at the moment (we're thinking of investing in a petrol bowser and strapping it on the back of the ute), it's costing a small fortune to keep the generator going to have the little blower heater blasting. Some mornings lately the frost has been so thick it looks like it's snowed. We've been parking the cars in the "caravan compound" between the caravan and a large tree and covering the windscreens and bonnets with doonas. They get tucked into beddybyes each night now just so that they don't freeze up in the icy cold. We've already had one instance of the commodore seizing up when either the thermastat or the water pump froze!

The horses seem to be handling the change really well. They've gone from nice luscious grassy paddocks and warm stables to paddocks with no yummy grass and lots of serrated tussock. We've been buying those large round bales to hay and putting them out each week with a mineral block for them to lick to get their nutrients. We're also having to hard feed each day as well. We're still using the float as a tack room and feed shed. But they love having a 150 acre paddock (we've fenced off about 50 acres 'cause of really deep gullies in them) to run around in, and boy do they run. It's great muscling exercises for the young ones. James is riding JD these days and he's going really well, except sometimes he doesn't really want to move. He's a bit tubby and lazy (JD that is, not James) but James gets those spurs on and suddenly JD finds that he can move after all.

Unfortunately, one note of sadness in all this was that poor little Spud dog went to sleep for the very last time last Thursday (6 July). Spud had his MRI the day before and it showed that he had a large brain tumour and several lesions on his brain as well as a tumour on his spine. Because of the size of the tumors and the number of lesions they determined he was inoperable. We managed to spend some time with Spud to say goodbye and he was a bit more responsive and even got a bit excited when we put his collar on him. We didn't want to hold him while they put him to sleep - we didn't want this to be our last memory of him - so we left the room. They wrapped Spuddy up in his blankie that we took up there for him and brought him out to us. We brought him home and buried him in a nice sunny spot between the shed and arena and we're going to plant a lovely big tree as well as some potatoes on his grave. Why potatoes you ask - well, his name was Spud!! He is already missed and it's a shame he won't get to be in his new home, but we take comfort that he is in the great big paddock in the sky chasing as many kangaroos and mice as he wants!!

There's light (or rather warmth) at the end of the tunnel

2006-06-28T13:02:00.000+08:00

Well, as the temperature drops into the minus fives and minus sixes, we move ever closer to getting the shed up and getting into some warmth. At the moment, the caravan is the same temperature outside as inside. We sometimes wake up with the top blankie damp-brrr. The council inspector came out very early on Tuesday morning to inspect the footings of the shed and inspect the site for the house, garage and stables. Thankfully, she said everything was okay and gave us the go ahead for the next stage on the shed. James is now organising the concreter to come out and put down the slab. This should hopefully in the next week or so. The materials like gravel, sand and all the crap that goes into a concrete slab arrived today. We're still waiting on quotes to come back on getting electricity from the transformer to the house and shed. Oh, what a luxury that will be when we can just flick a switch for a light or the tele instead of having to go outside into the freezing cold to turn the generator on and off!! We still will not have any plumbing in the shed but we will have a water tank outside that will become our dedicated fire fighting tank. And thankfully we left quite a lot of trees around the shed so we'll still be able to go to the loo behind them :)

On a sad note though, our dear little dog Spud is not well. At first we thought he was depressed (why not have a depressed dog when we have an anaemic horse and a paranoid budgie), but in the last week and a half he's deteriorated. For those of you who know Spud, he was such a hyperactive dog and a good hunter. Now, he shows no interest in anything, not even hunting, is very unco-ordinated and even accidentally walked into the dam the other night. He's now off his food as well and we're having to hand feed him little bits of "people" food that he can swallow without chewing. We took him to Sydney Uni this week for some comprehensive blood tests and they suspect he has some sort of lesion on the right side of his brain. The blood tests have come back negative which means that we now have to go back up to the Uni for MRIs and xrays next week. The vet is putting Spud on steriods until we get up there to help with the pressure in his brain. It's very distressing to see poor little Spud like this but here's hoping they find something that they can fix.

The process has commenced!

2006-06-07T13:34:00.000+08:00

Yes, after 12 months of working on the house/garage/stable plans, wading through the mountain of BASIX criteria and changing our minds half a dozen times on the building location, today we finally took in half a tree in paperwork and lodged our development application with the council! They tell us it will only take 10 weeks to approve our plans, but after our experience with the machinery shed, we're expecting about 20 weeks!

It doesn't seem like six months have passed since we packed up the horses, dogs and furniture and moved out of our lovely brick home and into the caravan. Life has been very simple and very uncomplicated since then with no electricity and no running water. We decided to place the caravan in the middle of a lovely grove of native trees which, at the time, seemed like a great idea seeing as how the days were between 30-40 degrees. Now that it's winter, it doesn't seem like such a good idea, although we are a bit protected from the strong frosts that leave the cars iced over. The nights are down to -5 degrees with the days around the roaring 13 degree temperatures.

We applied for electricity in the week before Christmas and on 18 May 2006 the transformer was finally attached to the pole on our boundary. Even though we do have a generator which we mainly use to watch tele (yes, we just couldn't stand not watching the new seasons of McLeod's Daughters, Lost, Big Brother or Amazing Race), it's just not the same as reaching out and turning on a powerpoint for instant power. After the first cold snap in May, we decided to search our storage shed for our small blower heater and miraculously found it. We only have it going when while we're watching tele but at least it's better than wearing the three layers of clothes, beanie, scarf and gloves to bed that we were! What we now have to do is dig a trench from the pole to the house site (about 250 metres) and then from the house site to the shed site (about 150 metres). Then the electrician will come out, lay the cables and connect us up. We sure won't know ourselves with full time power!

We lodged our development application for the machinery shed (which will be our home until the main house is built) in January and nine weeks later we received approval from the council. On 23 May 2006, the excavations commenced. We now have a level site for the shed, a driveway, a 60m x 50m riding arena and a whopping dam. After the rain last week, we now have about five feet of water in the dam, which we actually didn't want as the dam's not quite finished - but who are we to complain about getting rain!!