… and then there were two
February 23rd, 2008 - Posted in ducks, self-sufficiency, sustainable living, wildlife - by Sarah|
When I walked down to the paddock this morning instead of being greeted by a chorus of quacks there was just a large, white, motionless lump lying on the bank of the stream. One of our ducks had been attacked and killed by an unknown predator. We suspect that it was a New Zealand Falcon as we saw one flying above us yesterday. We hope so as the Falcon is an extremely rare bird (rarer than the Kiwi) and we’d much rather lose a creature to an endangered local than to someone’s uncontrolled pet dog or cat.
I quacked a few times in the hope of locating any still alive and was answered from the sheep paddock by two very tense and nervous ducks. They stuck very close to me while I rebuilt the enclosed pen we used to keep them in and ushered them into their house. The chickens were very upset too and took a couple of hours to settle. The forth duck, Stumpy, is officially MIA but as it would be about a tenth the weight of the large ducks we are assuming it was carried away to be eaten.
Still, it’s not all bad news as the kill was very clean and the wound was on the ducks back. So this afternoon Brendhan spent half an hour plucking and cleaning it and it is currently in the oven roasting for our dinner. Mmmm…..
Almost roofed
February 21st, 2008 - Posted in eco-building - by Sarah|
The current phase of building seems to be taking ages. This is partly because we’ve had a few days of rain and clambering about on wet ladders is not a good idea. The other reason is that it is really hard work doing everything at height – moving ladders about, climbing up and down and reaching and stretching. Brendhan’s height is proving invaluable as he can reach to do much more from the top of a ladder than I can. I am often restricted to holding ends and passing fixings.
The order in which things have gone on the roof is slightly unusual. We have soffit boards above the truss sprocket ends (the bits of the trusses that overhang the walls) and under the purlins nearest the outside edges of the roof. These have to be placed and the purlin spacing marked on them before the purlins (125mmx50mm Lawson Cypress) are lifted on and attached (with a purlin cleat on the upper side and 2 skew nails on the lower side). Then we have to backnail the soffit board to the purlins from underneath. This sounds so innocuous but is really hard on the forearms as you have to throw the weight of the hammer at the nail to get it through the soffit board and gravity is working against you.
Over the trusses on the inside of the workshop we have got 75mm chicken wire overlaid with a ‘whitecap’ which is white on the underside and silver foil on top. The purlins are attached to the trusses through this. They are still big heavy wood (50mm x 125mm Lawson Cypress) so getting them onto the roof and into position has also been a bit of a workout. Each purlin is fixed with a CPC 40 (see previous post on truss details) and two skew nails. The purlins are spaced closer together at the edge of the roof where the wind will catch it more.
Anyway, we had the building inspector round to check our our framing connections yesterday and pass with flying colours so we can now go ahead and put the roof on, along with everything else that entails. As this feels like a worthy milestone, Brendhan has put together another timelapse video showing our progress since laying the slab.
Enjoy…
