You may have also guessed when the weather for building is not suitable we’re busy working on other projects for the farming side of our enterprise.

These projects are conventional at the moment but we soon plan to introduce some of the unconventional.

We have several woodlots planted across the block with hundreds more trees scheduled to be planted late in August this year. The trees will be part of a managed forest so we are able to reap benefit from the trees through selective harvesting for firewood and lumber. There will also be many stands of high quality fodder trees planted allowing us to continue feeding fresh material to our animals long after the feed in the paddocks has died off into summer. With the tree lots will come bee hives and honey will soon be available.

At the moment we are free ranging quality beef and sheep in conjunction with one of our neighbours. We would soon like to add pork, ducks and chickens (meat and egg) to that list of free ranged livestock. We also have plans for rabbit and quail although these will be intensively farmed to protect them from predation and the rabbits confined to mosquito proof housing to protect them from the calici and myxoma viruses.

Part of the unconventional will soon include an aquaponics setup. Aquaponics is the combination of hydroponics and aquaculture that delivers a symbiotic benefit to both systems. With fish present this also means chemicals such as synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides CANNOT be used, making the end produce as good as organic – without the certification of course. In this system we will be able to grow a variety of delicious heirloom veggies, bringing back true flavour to the dinner plate.

On the fish side we hope to soon be able to bring native perches and freshwater shellfish to the market.

Once this is all in place farmgate sales will be ready for retailing produce direct to the consumer.

I got caught out by the Easter break with Bianco being closed on the Saturday so I had to get my white cement from Bolzons and boy it was expensive – $10.95 a bag against the $8.50 I usually pay. Entirely my fault for not paying attention to the dates and not being organised enough.

Bianco for white cement – $382.31
Bolzon’s Garden Centre for white cement – $109.50

Total project spend is now at $296,144.65
House only is now $82,192.15
Cost per square metre is now $285.39

Pic 1 above is the smaller windows for (left to right)  the main toilet, ensuite toilet, shower room and walk in robe. Pic 2 shows the kitchen window looking through Elise’s craftroom window opening. The kitchen window is the first major variance from the plans. It was meant to be 1200 wide, but this did not look right when I formed the opening so I’ve cut half a block from each side to widen it to 1800. It now looks “right”.

Pic 3 is the same openings as pic 1 taken further back up the hill. I decided to form across the entire span to assist with keeping the small columns plumb. Pic 4 is the cross bracing being used to keep the columns between the windows at the front of the house upright in the strong breezes we get up here. The timber is crossed at 70 degrees and bolted to the columns using the threaded rod cast into the walls to allow framing to be fixed. Wood screws fix off the cross piece.

Pic 1 above is the view down the west wall from the front door. In pic 2 the openings from left to right are laundry, main bathroom and main toilet. Ensuite toilet, shower and WIR are in the next wall section.

Pics 3 and 4 is a progress comparison view from the sou’west corner where the WIR is located.

Pics 5 and 6 are from the sou’east and nor’east corners respectively.

Blocks poured to date – 467.42
Bags of cement used – 213.5
Blocks per bag – 2.19
Cement cost per block – $3.84
Sand cost per block – $1.55
Blocks per square metre – 5.55
Wall cost per square metre – $29.91

Cubic metres poured – 23.69
Guesstimated cubic metres wasted mix – 3
We are getting better at managing the wasted mix but it is not completely avoidable.

We are about 200 blocks away from reaching level 7 around the perimeter and getting all sections to this is the next goal. From there the verandah tie downs are moulded into the wall, using laser levelling for accuracy. Once that is done there are only 170 blocks left to complete the walls!

Bianco for white cement – $295.21
Garden Grove for sand – $1185

Total project spend is now at $295,484.32
House only is now $81,531.82
Cost per square metre is now $283.10

First pic is from the perspective I’ve been trying to keep for comparison sake of progress down the west wall. If you scroll back the last few posts on building progress you can see how this is progressing nicely. The wall is reasonably straight, the vertical rise and fall along each layer is I believe caused by shrinkage rates due to rain and temperature and is beyond our control.

The cracking around the front door has been caused by the wood blocks as they get wet and swell causing the earth around to crack. So much for the expert advice of using oil treated wood set into the walls to fix doors and windows to. I have now resorted to using threaded rods, ligatured to the upright wall plate tie down rods and we’ll bolt the frames to the walls rather than screw through the jarrah blocks.  You might be able to pick those rods out in the second pic in the window openings.

Pic 2 is a view from half way down the driveway and shows the 2 largest opening on this side of the house. One is Elise’s craft room window of 1200×1200, with the second one being formed at the right of the formwork seen in the pic and also 1200×1200. Much to the dismay of most people there is no laundry door as we didn’t see the point of having a door on the side of the house where most wind and dust from the road comes from. All the openings this side are the smallest permissible for habitable spaces for this reason.

The poor old thing is getting tired and has literally worn out the yoke that holds the bowl causing the gears to miss and drive to the bowl to stop. I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about how to fix the issue without a literal rebuild in a machine shop, and here is what I came up with as a fix.

Pic 1 is removing the bowl with the assistance of a verandah beam and a pair of ratchet straps. Pic 2 shows the wear from the back of the yoke. Pic 3 shows almost identical wear at the front of the yoke where the bowl sits. Pic 4 is where I’ve marked the sleeve I need to manufacture and fit start and finishes.

In Pic 1 and 2 above I’ve used a bit of pipe with an inner diameter roughly the same as the pin. I’ve used the pen marks from the pic set above to cut a radius of the pipe. To the back of the radius I welded some 3mm strap steel and then used the grinder to shape it so it fit snugly around the pin as in Pic 3. The yoke is cast iron and is a pig (no pun intended) of a thing to weld anything to, so many repetitive rounds of weld and grind end up with the result in Pic 4. The sleeve itself is not full width of the yoke, as the wear pattern is much like 2 cones stacked point to point and therefore impossible to fit in one piece. Instead I have made a 40mm section fitted to each end.

I repeated the procedure with the front side of the yoke, also adding a layer of weld rod steel to the face of the yoke to harden it and hopefully help keep things aligned to avoid this sort of wear again. I’m not sure how long this fix will last, but I’m sure hoping it at least sees out the build. I have greased and run the mixer unloaded and the “tipping point” noticable in the bowl before the fix is gone.

First pic above shows progress down the western wall. The drawing above is the section chart I use to plan what needs to be poured for the next work day. We now have sections 1 and 2 of the 6 sections to 7 layers and have started the first of the window voids as seen in pic 2. Pic 3 is showing the formation of the remaining expansion joints in this wall.

I have 6 blocks left to pour in section 3 and then we’re onto the skinny blocks for the rest of this wall. I can now go back to pouring full width blocks on the east and north walls as well continuing with the skinny blocks. With so much formwork in place I expect to get a lot of blocks poured over the next few weeks.

Once the build is 7 layers in height right around the fixings for the return verandah will be incorporated into the pour of layer 8 and we’ll use a laser level to get this accurate for the corner blocks then use a string line/spirit level combination to get the correct levels for the remaining blocks.