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Published: March 30th 2010
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Even tho’ some computers invent their own viruses when they see another of my blogs coming…here it is….
Cows, lots of cows, relentlessly shuffling towards the milking shed. And not your old wooden-slat, bendy roof, iconic rural shed but an all-steel, concrete floored, gleaming, stainless steel pipes and tanks…and no-one in sight. It all looks somewhat authentically rural but it’s not.
On closer inspection, like rolling down the window, the stench hits you. This is not your rich country smell of cattle and wet hay, of memories of Royal Show livestock sheds, of small farms of my youth, it’s unnatural, almost chemical, it stinks of something really off.
This is the smell of 21st century mechanized, industrialized, milk manufacturing.
The cows are like robots, cowbots?…the thick mud stinks,
The dust was blowing into every crack in the caravan. I had all the windows and vents tightly shut but still the dust coated every surface. Then the rains came. How come the dust can’t blow right out again or the rain come in and wash it off?
Then the big rain came. 250mm on the first weekend. Lots of gouging, land slips and
one leak in the van. The deck was awash, I was stuck indoors, cabin fever. I went and sat in the car for a while then went back to the van. My embryonic caravan existence.
The solar garden lights are having difficulty in the wet. One was always dodgey, Something in the wiring was arse about, it glowed during the sunny day and went black at night.
The rest of them work OK although, after an overcast day, 3 of them start flashing erratically around 3am. Somewhat disconcerting to awake to the acid-flashback-disco effect!
However, I digress, blog is supposed to become house diary.
I woke up and rolled over, like the first sod being turned, slowly.
It was all happening. Timber flooring, 26 sheets of chipboard and decking, 1220 meters of Silvertop Ash, 10,000 screws…..the house is about 75 sq metres and the deck 150!
With my usual impeccable sense of timing the flooring came first, then the house and finally the sub-frame. And the subframe has been so thoughtfully packed that some of the first bits I need are at the bottom, but there’s only 7 tons of steel in the pile…jajaja
nice workout to start the job.
I denied my former life and got the surveyor to set it out, just too tricky for moi with 4m fall over 17m. However, the professionals still managed to locate 2 piles directly over the power line!!
I can’t deny a few moments of heart-in-mouth as we drilled several holes very close to the power line and also the bloody Telstra cable that crossed the site. But we are Safe!
Billy the concreter was a lifesaver, as have been most of the local people who have helped me thus far. He set out the holes, directed the auger and the concrete pour and smoothed the surfaces.
Wednesday morning at 6.30am the kithouse truck arrived. Needing some flatness to unload he had to park up the hill and bring it all down, doesn’t look like a hell of a lot to it(?)
Friday, 7.30 am the steel truck arrived. Fortunately everything is reasonably close to the site and hopefully stable….so that when I cut the tiedowns it won’t cascade down into the tank and the caravan.
Well, I told you it would be brief……
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