Wow, what a busy few days!

Ryan and Andy finished flashing the roof (that could sound bad to some – but in context it is good and correct LOL).  And I love our finials J.  That is one of the patterns in Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language (the book I keep saying you should read if you are thinking of building a house).

 

 

 

 

 

Then the gyprockers finished the three coats of plaster so the walls all look pretty now J - they are back tomorrow to a final sanding to finish off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Michael, Andy and I spent time getting strawbales in.  We let Ryan and Andy have a few days off so we could do this job to catch up a bit before we need them again but Andy volunteered to help out for several hours today – what a champion!  And I mean CHAMPION because this is no easy job!

There is nothing elegant about trying to get those strawbales vertically into the wall frames – it is just pure, brute, strength (from menfolk, not me…).

It looks something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And we use these whackers too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy has his own method – which works well too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now despite it being way beyond possible for any of us to get the strawbales in easily, we did get the kids to attempt one bale each into their bedroom walls ;-)

They had fun trying at least!

And my job has been to fill the gaps between the bales with the loose straw – no shortage of that stuff around here I tell you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of two massive days of baling – there is one wall complete – and 4 others over half complete – and we estimate we have about 150 bales to go.  Roll on the weekend when we can get them all in J. 

If you are free, come on down, friends and family are always welcome to join in the fun!

We are strawpenters!!

Bale raising has started – and the roof is all baled up – both sides! 

This was 6.42am yesterday:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three hours later – now you see them in all their glory (that is our wonderful neighbour who volunteered to help out – Thank you Birgit!!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 …now you don’t (Andy doing the covering in Albany Wool Batts sarking and it is still only morning tea time!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard was here too – re-tying the loose bales so they fitted in some gaps – but somehow he escaped the camera.

The guys then spent time getting the roofing all on:

 

 

 

 

 

 

… so this morning we could do it all again! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 All baled up!!! Yay!!! (By 9am – just amazing!)

One bale too many up there though - I bet it was satisfying throwing it down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now here is a trick question for you – What is the longest distance in my world? 

That would be this 12 horizontal metres and 2.5 vertical metres to get strawbales onto our roof!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My goodness it was a lot of hard work and in between me whinging about how heavy some bales were I did remember to say a prayer of thanks that we are healthy enough for this hard work and that we (will) have a wonderful home to live in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 So that has been our Monday and Tuesday so far J.  It is good J.

PS.  And you might notice my joie de vivre has improved (thankfully!) – it is amazing what a little blood, sweat and tears can do for a girl J.  And if I ever thought I was pretty good as an amateur psychologist, I have nothing on Richard Rowell!  Rich reads this blog so he knew of my melancholy and as we chatted about the progress on the home he nailed my concern on the head (which I couldn’t do!) – I was worried about letting the guys down.  We are getting to the point where the bank account is dwindling rapidly and when we run out of money, if it happens when Ryan and Andy still have work to do, it will really feel like we have let them down – I know how much effort they have put into building our home and we appreciate it so, so much!!  (I know we will run out of money, we have to really, otherwise we will just spend forever.  I know that too will happen, but it will have to be after we can say – “This house is finished (for now)”.  So I am madly balancing our budget too – got to make sure we can pay for all the big things that are on the horizon.)