A very lazy weekend rolled by in which the definite highlight was "Prognosis Death", Girlclumsys improv comedy gig. Seriously if you live in Brisbane go and check it out, it is side splittingly funny. However I didn't get anywhere near enough done on an extra pen for the ducks and chooks. The medium chooks and the guinea fowl are outgrowing their super secure digs and they are big enough to go into more mature digs and eventually free range.
This is one of the blessings and curses of Lantanaland. When we came here, there was nothing here, just acres of lantana and a small house. Compare that to the other house we looked at while house shopping. It had an established orchard, stable, chook pen, fences and an easily accessible dam. The down side would have been if I hadn't liked the way any of that stuff was set up, it's a bit of a waste to pull it down. Mind you, chicken mesh and star pickets don't come cheap, which is why today I started my bamboo poles in concrete experiment.
The new run also had a recycled screen door and a chook house made from pallets that work was throwing out. It's not just the chicken runs though. Getting a cow will mean repairing and adding to the run down fence I have before stringing the electric lines up. It all costs money but sitting in the spa watching the misty rain roll in over my new pen I realized, it's also a heap of fun.
Thanks to Pol for helping out today, it's so much easier to do stuff if you have someone to hold the star picket straight or hold the door while you drill.
Lantanaland from the iPhone
Best I could manage today was digging a hole and concreting in a Hills Hoist. Lantanaland this ain't!
ReplyDeleteHad to do a fence over the weekend to keep some bucks from eating everything other than the required grass - they love tree bark. Correct tools do make a job much easier....and so does help. lol
ReplyDeleteYou're using bamboo poles set direct in concrete as uprights? I'm probably teaching my Grandma to suck eggs here, but... where you are, when the rains come they come fast and hard. You need to paint a very weatherproof sealant around the bases of your bamboo poles - both on the poles themselves, and on the surface of the concrete around the poles, and most especially over the narrow crack at the join of bamboo and concrete. Otherwise water makes its way down along the bamboo and sits in there. And your poles will rot out within a season.
ReplyDeleteObvious alternative is some kind of a stirrup, joining bamboo to concrete. Not easy, given the randomness of bamboo sizing, but... maybe some sort of hose clamp? Instead of putting the bamboo into the concrete, you could maybe put a couple pieces of reo in there, with enough space for the bamboo in between. Then use a couple of hose clamps to anchor the bamboo to the reo. Still need to weatherproof the reo, of course.
That last course has the advantage of making your uprights replaceable...
...and as I said before, please forgive me, Grandmother, if you've been down this road already!
Hmmmm no
ReplyDeleteThis is my first foray into building with bamboo, i find it a fascinating timber and i'm growing a fair bit of it for use round the farm. I did not however coat the base in any sealant. Live and learn.
You can get a stirrup cup for bamboo overseas but buggered if i know of anywhere in oz.