The kitchen

The kitchen is close to finish. Imagine three big sliding frosted glass doors (dutch: matglas schuifdeuren) in the pantry.  We have four white leather barstools on a chrome footing to put on this side of the bench. They arrived last week.

Last update : delivery of the house on 15 November.

Ready for the swiss cheese

Everything ready for the footings to be drilled. This is the view from the back of the land, looking down onto the area that was prepared yesterday. Pam is standing where the back of the house will be. As you can see, our driveway (oprit) is stable enough for a big truck. Allan drilled the holes this afternoon, tomorrow morning the concrete will be poured in.
Allen is the contractor who does this part of the house building, he is a one-man business, working for Halley Homes and a few other companies. I had a chat with him in the pub, after the work for today was done. He actually lives in his truck most of the year. Bed, microwave, shower, toilet, fridge, satellite TV. He travels from job to job through the country doing the same as he does for us: putting houses on posts. And he does this already 29 years.  The saving in motel/hotel costs pays for the write-off (afschrijving) of his truck !

Again a step closer..

Yesterday I got a phone call from Halley Homes to let me know that this week the footings for the house are going to be poured. The footings are the concrete foundations -in the ground- for the steel posts. The 26 holes that have to be drilled and filled with concrete. Originally they were planned to be done on 9 November.
We still had some earth moving (grondverzet) planned next week, but this can only be done without these footings in the way. So there was only one option: it had to be done today.

Well it IS done. Russel Augustine was available with his backhoe (een graafmachine) so the back area of the house is level, the slope (helling) is nicely done, all the dirt is even and smooth, and a trench (greppel) for a big drain is ready too. This drain will catch the rain water, coming down along the land during heavy rain, and keep it away from the house.

Frangipani

In a few weeks from now, the front of the garden where we are living now, will show an abundance of these flowers: Plumeria's, more common name here is Frangipani. They are related to Oleanders.
There are 5 or 6 of these trees here, and they really start to show spring time now.

Ironbark

Ironbark is a native Australian hardwood. It is used for instance to make beautiful floors. But it is also used to make traditional split fence posts. A 210 cm log (dutch: stam) is length-wise split in 5 pieces with a chainsaw. These split post are used to make very rustic traditional fences.
We are living now in rural country, plenty of ironbark around. So I got a bargain (dutch: koopje) to get 55 split posts. They will be used!!!
But sh.t, they are heavy. I barely can lift the smaller ones, the others I can only roll. Thankfully I had some help from Mick, he threw them on a pile for me : his arms are the size of my upper legs.

Translation (=vertaling):

Ironbark is een inheemse Australische hardhout soort. Het wordt bijvoorbeeld gebruikt voor prachtige houten vloeren. Maar het wordt ook gebruikt voor traditionele “gespleten” afrasteringspalen. Een 210 cm lang stuk boomstam wordt met een motorzaag in de lengte in 5 stukken gezaagd (je krijgt dan 5 gespleten palen van 210 cm lang !) en deze palen worden gebruikt om rustieke traditionele afrasteringen te maken.

We wonen nu op het platteland, en er is hier een overvloed aan ironbark. Dus.. Ik heb een koopje kunnen bemachtigen van 55 palen. Die zullen een prima bestemming krijgen !!

Maar “nondedju” wat zijn die krengen zwaar. Ik kan de dunnere NET optillen, maar de andere alleen maar opzij ROLLEN. Gelukkig heeft Mick me geholpen. Hij heeft de palen op een hoop voor me gegooid: hij heeft dan ook een paar armen, zo dik als mijn bovenbenen !

Debutante ball in Mount Perry

Quite a different look for the country girls and -boys in Mount Perry. For the first time in many years, the school organised a so called "debutante ball". Similar to the proms in the US. It is held near the end of the last school year, presenting the girls and boys to the society. Their official introduction to the big world.
All the debutantes were officially introduced to the mayor and had their formal dance. All of this in front  of a big audience: the township was well present. I bet 150 people, including Pam and I.
After the official ceremony it was a nice party evening with live music.
Funny part -in my eyes- was that the Council Hall where the event took place, has no liquor licence. So it was  BYO (Bring Your Own) alcohol. Big cooler boxes in the size of a bedside table (nachtkasje)  with ice, wine, bottles of rum, Jim Beam and BEEEEEEEEEER.

Translation

Not everybody reads and understands my English without trouble. There are a few Internet translate solutions available. Like "Google Translate" and Yahoo Babelfish"
Below is the translation into Dutch from yesterdays post (called Explaining) as produced by Yahoo. I am not sure if this helps any dutch reader though:

Ik zal proberen en verklaren hoe de Huizen Halley het huis op het blok van land zullen krijgen. Hoe zij volkomen die twee grote eenheden naast elkaar worden, manoeuvrerend rond de posten dat het huis gaat rusten op. Deze posten zijn tussen 60 cm (bij de rug) en 1.2 m in hoogte bij de voorzijde, 26 posten in totaal. En HH gebruikt geen kraan om alles op te heffen. Eigenlijk is het vrij " simple". Er zal geen posten zijn wanneer het huis binnen wordt gebracht. Een paar dagen zullen zij vooraf 26 grote gaten in de grond (ongeveer 1 m diep en 40 cmdiameter) en slechte concrete positie voor de posten met een staalplaat op bovenkant, niveau met de grond boren. Maar geen posten (nog)! Wanneer het huis aankomt, zullen zij de twee secties precies zetten waar zij met een tractor zijn, deze secties aan de definitieve hoogte met een paar hydraulische hefbomen, gezette houten blokken moeten opheffen onder het gehele ding en de wielen weg nemen. Dan zullen zij precies de 26 posten aan de gewenste lengte snijden en zullen hen aan de staalplaten lassen die ik vóór en aan het staalkader van het huis vermeldde. Gedaan werk. Door de manier: er zijn een paar nieuwe beelden van het (nu geschilderde) huis in photobook

Explaining

This one is for Nan, so that she does not have to worry about "cutting" the house. This picture should explain  how the house is split in two sections (the veranda is build on the spot, once the house is on its final place and bolted together again).

I will try and explain how Halley Homes will get the house onto the block of land. How do they get those two big units perfectly next to each other, maneuvering around the posts that the house is going to rest on. These posts are between 60 cm (at the back) and 1.2 m in height at the front, 26 posts in total. And HH is not using a crane to lift everything.
Actually it is quite "simple". There will be no posts when the house is brought in. A few days in advance they will drill 26 big holes in the ground (about 1 m deep and 40 cm diameter) and pour concrete footings for the posts with a steel plate on top, level with the ground. But no posts (yet)!  When the house arrives , they will put the two sections exactly where they have to be with a tractor, lift these sections to the final height with a few hydraulic jacks, put wooden blocks under the whole thing and take the wheels off.
Then they will exactly cut the 26 posts to the desired length and weld them to the steel plates that I mentioned before and to the steel frame of the house. Job done.
By the way: there are a few new pictures of the (now painted) house in the photobook.

a little more progress

We cleared the area under the trees at the border of our block. Cut some branches (dutch:takken), evened out the soil. This will be a nice shaded area with the perfect trees to put a hammock (hangmat) in between.

The last news is: on 5 November Halley Homes will split the house in two. On 9-10-11 November it will be put onto our block !!

Bread basket

Since we have our bread maker, Pam has a lot of fun in trying out all sorts of bread. Today she took the dough out of the machine, shaped it in a bread basket, and baked that in the normal oven. Together with a few small buns. Looked great!

Royal Dutch on a larger scale

One week difference

progress !

Yes....spring is starting

Summary	Tue Oct 5	Wed Oct 6	Thu Oct 7	Fri Oct 8	Sat Oct 9	Sun Oct 10
	Possible shower	Late shower	Late thunder	Possible thunderstorm	Mostly sunny	Mostly sunny
Maximum	31°C	30°C	31°C	26°C	26°C	26°C
Minimum	17°C	17°C	17°C	18°C	15°C	14°C
Chance of Rain	60%	40%	70%	70%	5%	30%
Rain Amount	< 1mm	< 1mm	5-10mm	5-10mm	< 1mm	< 1mm
UV Index	Very High	Very High	Very High	Very High	Very High	Very High

A nice shower in the late afternoon or evening.  "Beautiful one day, perfect the next"

The chairs

Two old chairs (more than 30 years old), beautiful timber, still looking great, but rotten seats. Time to get in the hobby mood. We got some hardwood from the dump (dutch: stortplaats) and I made new seats from hardwood, to replace the rotten stuff. One is finished, tomorrow the next. All timber is cut, cleaned and sanded. The back will have nice cushions.
They will look great on our verandah and are very comfortable too.

Birds again

You probably have seen enough birds on this blog now, but I want to share these two fellows.
Normally the little Lorikeet chases the other birds away, but this time he obviously tolerated the King Parrot. Isn't this a nice display of colours?