Trees

      No, we still have not made any progress on our building due to rain. Instead I will subject you to a rant about trees.

       I have gone on quite a journey about what trees mean to me since buying a block of land which is covered with them. I am more familiar with species of exotic trees since I used to be a bush regenerator and that involved me learning about 'weeds'. In comparison Australian native trees are a bit trickier to accurately identify. It is usually fairly easy to identify the genus, and I can mostly pick out a 'gum' tree - only sometimes being caught out with the Tristanias, which often look very similar to the gums.

      For example, it is pretty easy to spot an acacia tree, otherwise known as a wattle. But figuring out which wattle it is exactly, is much more difficult, since there are about 100 species in Australia alone. And telling the difference between the different gum trees is also very difficult. I have had people try to explain it to me in the past, but no-one couldn't come up with a better explanation than 'it just LOOKS like a such-and-such gum' - not very helpful!

       So when I looked at some Australian bush, I used to just go 'Ooh! Trees!' I have since discovered - by asking various local people who have visited our block - what most of the tree species here are. We primarily have spotted gum, stringy-bark, iron-bark, and grey gum. This is along with the acacias and casuarinas, and another tree known as a brush-box (which used to be known as a Tristania but then got re-classified. No wonder I get confused!). So then I progressed to going 'Ooh! It's a such-and-such tree!' and congratulated myself on learning identification skills.

       When I asked people for more information about these trees, I received a lot of conflicting advice. The first person who identified the spotted gum told me that the timber was 'shit' and not even very good for firewood because it burns quite 'cold'. I was disappointed to hear this since spotted gum is the dominant species on our block, and I was hoping that we could make good use of the timber after the trees had been cleared for the bushfire break around the house area.

      I have since learned that the spotted gum is actually a very good timber for a lot of uses, which includes making fantastic electricity poles (due to its habit of growing very straight with no side branches for a significant height), making good fence posts, and making great timber for internal use - such as for furniture and for lining the internal walls of your house. The only thing that you do not want to do with them - is put them untreated into the ground, as they are quite susceptible to termites and wood borers. This we have seen for ourselves in the shed rafters, which are pretty much eaten hollow from the wood borers flying up, and the termites making mud tunnels up there too.

       On the other hand, the posts which were made from stringy-bark are still completely solid. I have also been advised that stringy-bark and iron-bark are very desirable timbers, with very hard wood that is difficult to cut, but great to use for lots of things. Apparently iron-bark can actually burn TOO hot in a wood stove, so combining it with spotted gum sounds like a perfect solution.

      This education about species means that now when I look at trees I see something completely different. I think 'Ooh that tree would make good timber for such-and-such' instead. Of course I cannot forget that these trees are at their highest value while alive and growing, providing food for insects, animals and birds, shelter for creatures, and oxygen for everyone.

       But I do now understand that old saying 'Tim-ber!' when a tree is felled - the tree changes from being a living thing, to being something which humans can chop up and use. I still feel immense happiness when looking at trees, but now that happiness has some added details and information.

New Life

     Yes the heavy rain that was forecast came and deluged us. I tried an experiment by covering some of the footings holes with pieces of corrugated iron to try and reduce the amount of water that would go in the holes. When I went and checked it after a few inches of rain, it very obviously had not worked at all. It had gotten to the point where we really didn't care if it rained even more, because the holes were so full they were overflowing.  The good news is that I found a frog happily living under one of the pieces of corrugated iron, quite pleased with the new pond that it had found itself. Whilst we are waiting for the weather to be suitable in order to make progress on building the house, the life that abounds here does not wait for anything.

     Within a couple of weeks of the trees being cleared, there were little seedlings everywhere. Acacia, grass, and more that I don't know. The willy-wagtails were being challenged for territory by the swallows, who  were literally dive-bombing them with poos. We've seen a few different frogs around, and it's gotten to the point where we don't even run and grab the camera anymore. I saw three big kangaroos on the driveway the other morning, just passing through. I am slowly raking the dirt to create pathways and sort out the rocks, and the disadvantage of this is that I am killing some of these new seedlings. I am making sure that I take it slow so that I am not destroying too much at once. Meanwhile I have been busy mattocking little runnels for the water to run off and hopefully drain a bit quicker, to reduce the muddiness around the house site, the tank site and the driveway. It's certainly amazing how much water continues to run off the land even hours and days after the last shower of rain. If I manage to get myself organised, I might even be able to set up an official pond while all the water is still running.

I said I would like some ponds...

There we were, with 23 lovely footings holes ready to fill up with concrete - and the driveway seeming just about ready for a big truck to come up it... thinking about ringing the concrete company - and then it rained. Oh well, a little bit of rain shouldn't matter too much. But it rained a good couple of inches. Oh well, a couple of inches in the holes shouldn't matter too much, we can just scoop it out and it will dry off in a few days. Then I went down and had a look at the holes after all that rain.

The holes were significantly full of water. Considering these holes were 60cm deep, that's a lot more than a couple of inches at the bottom! I had carefully arranged piles of soil around the uphill sides of the holes so that they would act as swales to redirect the water runoff. I am not sure exactly what went wrong, but it certainly didn't work the way I was hoping. Some of the holes were so full they were practically overflowing, yet other holes had only a tiny amount of water in the bottom. There was no visible reason for the random water distribution. There is a good chance that the water came from underground, in which case there is nothing we can do.

So I tell my partner the bad news, and we spend the entire day scooping out the water, and much worse - the clay slurry mixed with rocks. I started the day with a flimsy plastic scoop, but spent the rest of the time experimenting with small buckets, big buckets, and metal bowls to try and find the best tools for the job. There was also some intense mattocking action as I created little gullies so the water tipped out of the top holes didn't just run straight into the bottom holes.

I also had the genius idea to set up the 30m garden hose so that it was syphoning the water down the hill with pure gravity. First I tied some insect screening over the head of the hose with a rubber band to act as a filter, so that the hose didn't get blocked up with gunk and little rocks. Then I tied the hose head with a piece of string to the handle of a small bucket, and then put a rock into the bottom of the bucket.

Then I pushed the bucket down into the bottom of the hole of water. This way the hose head remained near the bottom of the hole, but not on top of the clay slurry at the bottom of the hole. This kept the water going into the hose relatively clean, though I still had to clean little rocks from off the filter every so often. There was a surprisingly strong suction current after the water got flowing! And when I sucked the water to the bottom of the hose with my mouth to start off the syphoning effect, the water actually tasted quite pleasant - not the mucky muddy mess I was expecting.

Then when the hole was almost empty of water, I made sure the bucket was full of water and the head of the hose was kept submerged - and quickly transferred the hose to the next hole full of water. I was very impressed with my handywork, and the way that I could empty out one hole by hand at the same time as another hole was emptying itself. It also came in handy for one of the holes which kept refilling itself full of water - I guess that is a good example of this underground water that comes from nowhere!

Now we have had another week of dry weather, so it could be about time to pour the concrete again - but of course heavy rain is forecast over the next few days. Before we risk the big concrete truck getting bogged in our driveway, we need to have a worst-case-scenario back-up plan of how we are going to get the concrete up the driveway. I will have a bit more of an attempt at redirecting water away from the holes when it rains, and may even try and cover some of the holes and see if that helps. But otherwise I think we are back to playing that waiting game we are used to. Hopefully after having so much practise we should be really good at it!

Passed First Council Inspection

     Today the council guy came out and had a quick look, measure and photograph of our footings holes and said yep, they are all fine. First we got up early and dragged our weary sore tired muscles down to the holes for some more tidying up of the bottoms of the holes, which was horribly painful. Not even time for a cup of coffee :(
     But then I asked the council guy some questions - for example, is it ok if we move the greywater trench somewhere different to our official OSSM map, since the spot chosen by the 'expert' seems to be uphill from the house site. He said yes that's fine, just as long as we stay 50m away from the creek. I also asked about the various stages for the future inspections, and we aren't due for the next inspection until we have put up all the framework. This can include putting up the external cladding and the roof panels, just as long as the inspector can see the frames from the inside.
     There is also a stormwater inspection which we have pre-paid over $100 for, even though we don't have stormwater pipes here. The council guy admitted that it is only relevant for town allotments that actually flow into stormwater drains, but still said that they would do the stormwater inspection at a later date. I will keep that one up my sleeve for when I am next in the mood to be arguing with the council!
     Here's a pic of the warning sticker on the digger that made our footings holes.

     We are now free to fill our holes with concrete - just have to wait for them to dry out a little more, and for the driveway to harden up a little more. We have plenty to keep us busy in the meantime, with over an acre of dirt that needs to have the rocks picked out of it...

Bull Ants are Bullies

     The destruction of the bull-ant nest which is right next to the house site seems to be going well, if not complete. After pouring all that boiling water down there the other day, a day or two later I saw a couple of bull-ants carrying larvae uphill to what must presumably be another nest. I tried to follow them to find where they were going but kept losing them. I tried a new strategy of killing all the bull-ants individually which I found roaming around - which is quite a tricky feat in itself. You can't squish them under your boot because they just emerge from the dirt and keep going. You have to basically crunch them between two rocks, and if you chop them in half, the front half keeps walking around and trying to attack you. Very much like the Terminator. The next step was to disturb the nest and kill all the ants which came out, and when they stopped - to disturb the nest some more. Eventually I ended up digging about 10cm down into the dirt and discovering a whole bunch of larvae.

     I couldn't actually find any kind of head or mouth on these things, so not exactly sure how they feed in order to grow bigger. I felt bad that I was destroying the ant nest when they were just trying to live their ant lives - but they are so aggressive! And when they bite it really hurts! So I thought I had destroyed the nest because I couldn't find any more ants, but today there are still more ants appearing from the same spot when I disturbed it. They seem a little less aggressive these days, but I still want to remove this nest completely because it is so close to the house site. We don't want to be bitten every day while building!
     Today we cleaned out the bottom of our footings holes, which was quite a tricky task - some of the holes had roots sticking out, some of them still had wet sticky heavy clay, and all of them were difficult to access. Lots of swearing was necessary to get the job done. Just a little more work tomorrow morning before the council guy is due to come and inspect. Fingers crossed it goes well and we don't have some kind of spanner thrown in our works.

Small jobs take ages by hand!

     Before we can get the concrete poured into the footings holes, we need to clean out the loose dirt from the bottom of the holes. Before we can do that, I have been pulling back the mounds of dirt around the holes so it doesn't just fall straight back in again. A few hours hard work today, and the 'clearing the dirt' part is only half done. This is gonna take a while!

     It's a tricky job, trying to get clumps of dirt and rocks from the bottom of a deep hole. The long-handled shovel wasn't very useful, the campshovel is the right angle but the handle is too short, and the hole is too small to stand it. I tried a small bucket and one foot in the hole and the camp shovel - best combination so far but still tricky and time consuming!
     We will have to make sure it is done before the council guy comes to inspect on Tuesday. And since council regulations say that you can't work on Sundays (forcing everyone to follow Christianity) that leaves Monday to be a very busy back-breaking day!

New Life

          It has been amazing how quickly the messy clearing with its lumpy dirt and rocks has renewed itself with new life. Grass has been popping up almost everywhere, and baby acacia trees too. There would be a massive seed bank of lomandra, casuarina, and tea tree - along with the various varieties of eucalypt - just sitting in the soil waiting for an opportunity. In fact I was thinking that I should dig some lines with the pointy side of our mattock out at the front of our land - the part where the trees haven't been cleared - and get some acacias growing out there for extra privacy. They love growing in open disturbed places and it seems like the perfect opportunity.
          The lone banksia tree on our place which we specifically saved from the clearing has rewarded our thoughtfulness with a burst of flowers. Suddenly the tree is getting light that it never had before, and I hope this is a sign that the tree is much happier now. Otherwise it could mean that the tree is about to die and wants to flower one more time before then! The birds, insects and glider possums will be very happy to have a feed of delicious nectar.

          Some of the animals seem to like the new habitat too - there are a couple of Willy Wagtails who have claimed it as their territory. They spend all day flying across the dirt and perching on sticks, waggling their tails and chasing insects. When the Yellow-tufted Honey-eaters come too close the Wagtails chide them, letting them know that the area has already been claimed.
          The microbat also seems to enjoy flying along the open edges of the clearing at dusk, having a clear path to chase insects instead of having to avoid trees while flying! I like to imagine the bandicoot has had a bit of a wander down there too, checking out all the disturbed grubs making for an easy dinner. The bull-ants also seem to be having a lovely time, biting us when we stand too close to their nests. I am trying the method of pouring boiling water down the nest right next to the house site, but it is not completely successful yet. Any suggestions about how to safely remove such aggressive monsters?