Wednesday 4 February 2009

Romantic visions

After Lulu's comment about wanting more piccies - we've had an email from a certain gentleman requesting pictures of the lean-to construction.  So here are some piccies - Lulu of course meant more piccies of goats and we're a bit nervous of responding to the certain gentleman because we fear he'll point out all the errors were making.  But hey.

Positioning piccies amongst text is far from easy in the blog programme (and for some reason I've lost the ability to change font - so that's the corporate house style blown!).  But here is:

A positioning shot
looking up our new fence towards our new gates.  The lean-to will be on the right.








An ariel shot of the work so far and a somewhat seasickness inducing closer view.  
All we've done is make 
three holes for the front of the lean-to and half filled them with cement.  These will be were we'll eventually place the timber posts that will support most of the structure.  

We didn't build forms - other than packing with good sized stones.  Once these have set we'll build proper forms along the foundation trench.  Most of this trench runs directly onto bedrock, where it's not bedrock it's on what in my archaeological days I called 'natural' - and it's compacted glacial sands with large erratic inclusions.*

Block work.  
When the foundation trench is cured, we intend to build it up with block work - to - oooh I dunno - yay high - and then the wooden structure will be built onto that (and securely fastened to it).  There are lots of blocks kicking about, but one source will be the gable end of the nissen hut that collapsed in the autumn.  

On dry days I entertain myself with lump hammer, bolster and wrecking bar breaking up the sections of wall and trying to clean off complete blocks to be re-used.  Part blocks might be beaten to a pulp to provide a foundation for the flooring of the lean-to - or they might border some of the smaller raised beds or I might make a 1:50 model of the Taj Mahal.  You never know.

*Does that sound impressive?  I don't know what I'm talking about really.

2 comments:

Lulu Stader said...

Wow, thanks! The certain gentleman is outside, either with the chain saw (no, that was yesterday) or on the new machine (which is so quiet I can't hear it from here) but he'll see the pictures later, no doubt

Did you climb on top of ... the roof of the strategically placed van, for the aerial shots??

The Speaking Goat said...

I stood on top of the new gate - there's tensioning wires across the top of the new strainers so I could hang on to those.