My empire of dirt...
- Thread starter Chizel - Founding Father
- Start date
After what seems like an age i have finally finished stripping paint and removing the glass from the windows for the master bed.
I'm just waiting for the filler to dry so I can sand and start painting em
Whilst waiting I've started planting out the strawberries in the pvc guttering.
Bought what I thought was 24 plants but one bundle turned out to have 24 plants in and the other 12. I'd say it's a bonus but now I don't have enough space and will have to make more planters...
And I've run out of potting mix and straw..
I'm just waiting for the filler to dry so I can sand and start painting em
Whilst waiting I've started planting out the strawberries in the pvc guttering.
Bought what I thought was 24 plants but one bundle turned out to have 24 plants in and the other 12. I'd say it's a bonus but now I don't have enough space and will have to make more planters...
And I've run out of potting mix and straw..
Things still progressing very slowly last few weeks as I've had some paid work. All I've really manged to do is get a sealer and undercoat on the set of windows.
Although with the money I earned I've also managed to get the cladding for the exterior bedroom wall , where the window will go, 6 panes of glass, a solid core door for lobby to lounge and doors for the master wardrobe, the timber for the paneling on the ceiling, hardware for the windows and all the paint required. Think I just need a bit more glazing putty and the hardware for the wardrobe doors and that's every thing needed to finish that bedroom.
Just over 2k for that little lot..
Now all I need is about 100 -120 hours of free time and it will be done!!!
Yesterday was finishing a mates job and picking up materials and pub. Was going to get a full day on it today but whilst at the pub I foolishly agreed to go to Auckland with b.
Great, miss a days work at home and a days wages on Monday.. and spend a 100 od bucks on fuel...one step forward an all that.
meh....
Now I'm about to get up and unload all the tools and crap outta my car as I'm not doing a 2.5 hour drive in b's pos car...
No pics...
Although with the money I earned I've also managed to get the cladding for the exterior bedroom wall , where the window will go, 6 panes of glass, a solid core door for lobby to lounge and doors for the master wardrobe, the timber for the paneling on the ceiling, hardware for the windows and all the paint required. Think I just need a bit more glazing putty and the hardware for the wardrobe doors and that's every thing needed to finish that bedroom.
Just over 2k for that little lot..
Now all I need is about 100 -120 hours of free time and it will be done!!!
Yesterday was finishing a mates job and picking up materials and pub. Was going to get a full day on it today but whilst at the pub I foolishly agreed to go to Auckland with b.
Great, miss a days work at home and a days wages on Monday.. and spend a 100 od bucks on fuel...one step forward an all that.
meh....
Now I'm about to get up and unload all the tools and crap outta my car as I'm not doing a 2.5 hour drive in b's pos car...
No pics...
Enjoy Auckland, I hear it's divine
intervention!!Enjoy Auckland, I hear it's divine
Before I left for the uk I used to love auckland , well, most of it. I lived on the outskirts in the country side not far from the west coast beaches. We had the best of all worlds. Fast forward 24 years and it's just a rats nest of town house, slums and traffic. Not my scene at all.Enjoy Auckland, I hear it's divine
This is the veiwfrom Bridget's parents back yard. Up until 3 years back you could see the harbor from here.
Most city's dude
Finally got a Lil done today!!! Thought I had a job to do at a mates place just down 't road , but when I got there this morning it turned out he wasn't ready and the job wasn't a big deal at all, hardly worth it for me but I'll do it at some point.. anyhu I spent the day fucking about with doors after that
Think I've mentioned before about the cost of doors in the style we want , it's crazy. The wardrobe doors would cost $98 a piece for a 450mm door with the vertical grooves in em but $57.00 for a 900 blank. So I got 2 blanks, cut em and routed the grooves in.
They are hollow core doors so when I cut em in half I had to take out a bit of the honeycomb interior and glue and pin a bit of timber in there. Piece of piss..
Took 3 hours to do that and router the grooves in to those and a solid core door for the lobby. Doing it this way saved us just over $400 all up.
I've done shit like this on site with a skillsaw and planner many times but doing it at home with a table saw and thicknesser was so much better!
Ya can see in the pics how a went about it, probably common knowledge for those that do thus stuff but a good tip for those who dabble a Lil is, if ya don't have the correct length pins for ya pin gun, you can cut em down with a grinder. Hold a block of timber on em for a guide and to ensure the don't come apart and remember to buz over the ends on an angle to remove the burring or they will jamb in the gun..think the smallest you can cut em down to is 20mm before the won't work in a paslode pin gun...
Think I've mentioned before about the cost of doors in the style we want , it's crazy. The wardrobe doors would cost $98 a piece for a 450mm door with the vertical grooves in em but $57.00 for a 900 blank. So I got 2 blanks, cut em and routed the grooves in.
They are hollow core doors so when I cut em in half I had to take out a bit of the honeycomb interior and glue and pin a bit of timber in there. Piece of piss..
Took 3 hours to do that and router the grooves in to those and a solid core door for the lobby. Doing it this way saved us just over $400 all up.
I've done shit like this on site with a skillsaw and planner many times but doing it at home with a table saw and thicknesser was so much better!
Ya can see in the pics how a went about it, probably common knowledge for those that do thus stuff but a good tip for those who dabble a Lil is, if ya don't have the correct length pins for ya pin gun, you can cut em down with a grinder. Hold a block of timber on em for a guide and to ensure the don't come apart and remember to buz over the ends on an angle to remove the burring or they will jamb in the gun..think the smallest you can cut em down to is 20mm before the won't work in a paslode pin gun...
Where we at?
Again painfully slow progress. Didn't get a great deal done last weekend, got hinges on the windows, cavity slider in and a few bits in the garden. B savagely pruned the apple tree and the branches have been laying in the garden, pissing me off for weeks now so on sat I stemarted trimming all the small twigs off with the shears and piled em up to dry fir kindling and got a new blade for the chainsaw with a view to cutting the larger bits up. Sl8w going shit job, got it part done then fucked off to the pab at 3 for pool.
Anyhu, I couldn't be arsed carrying on with that on Sunday so did the work on the windows.
I've dunked off work today to do a push at home. This morning I had an idea, at some point in the near future I'll be building a chicken coop. We will be doing the deep litter thing in their run and for this i need wood chip. So I've borrowed a mates chipper and am half way done with the pile of branches in 45 mins. Much more fun than what I was doing!!
Anyhu, just having a beer break and back to it..
Some pics.
Again painfully slow progress. Didn't get a great deal done last weekend, got hinges on the windows, cavity slider in and a few bits in the garden. B savagely pruned the apple tree and the branches have been laying in the garden, pissing me off for weeks now so on sat I stemarted trimming all the small twigs off with the shears and piled em up to dry fir kindling and got a new blade for the chainsaw with a view to cutting the larger bits up. Sl8w going shit job, got it part done then fucked off to the pab at 3 for pool.
Anyhu, I couldn't be arsed carrying on with that on Sunday so did the work on the windows.
I've dunked off work today to do a push at home. This morning I had an idea, at some point in the near future I'll be building a chicken coop. We will be doing the deep litter thing in their run and for this i need wood chip. So I've borrowed a mates chipper and am half way done with the pile of branches in 45 mins. Much more fun than what I was doing!!
Anyhu, just having a beer break and back to it..
Some pics.
Also yesterday after work, I started glazing the windows. Shit job, i struggle to get what i think is a good finish on the putty but most of that is cause I'm fussy, truth be known, I've painted hundreds of windows and my glazing is better than most I've seen, that said, most were shit so that ain't saying much.
Anyhu, they have come up acceptable, I'm just slow at it and hate the job... I've done 4 and will do the last 2 on this set of windows when I'm done with the wood chipper...
Anyhu, they have come up acceptable, I'm just slow at it and hate the job... I've done 4 and will do the last 2 on this set of windows when I'm done with the wood chipper...
Done with the chipper! Took a Lil longer than expected as I'd forgot about the peach and Quince tree prunings stashed done the side of the house.
Came out with about 3/4 of a cube of apple chip and maybe a 5th of cube of apple peach and quince combo. This willbe used for smoking as ive enough of the apple for the chicken coop and ya can't use peach chip with chickens apparently but ya can for smoking.. anyhu, just gotta dry it all now.
Gunna hang the mix in shadecloth in the lean to ( when my mate come to help me lift it) and the apple is on a sheet of ply.
Apparently if you cover with plasticity will naturally heat up and if you put a few holes in the top, the moisture will escape. We shall try this and if it don't work I'll come up with something else....
Came out with about 3/4 of a cube of apple chip and maybe a 5th of cube of apple peach and quince combo. This willbe used for smoking as ive enough of the apple for the chicken coop and ya can't use peach chip with chickens apparently but ya can for smoking.. anyhu, just gotta dry it all now.
Gunna hang the mix in shadecloth in the lean to ( when my mate come to help me lift it) and the apple is on a sheet of ply.
Apparently if you cover with plasticity will naturally heat up and if you put a few holes in the top, the moisture will escape. We shall try this and if it don't work I'll come up with something else....
Nice community chipper bro!
Ya need it? Got it for a few days. He wants to sell it but wants 5k ish. He paid 8 all few years ago..
No we dump all our stuff. Those Hansa's are a quality bit of kit tho
Yeea it's a beast, apparently it's will do branches up to 90mm diameter. I belllieve it.
Unfortunately although it only has about 30 hours on it, he lives in Helena bay and the salt air has rusted it. It runs like new but it looks shity, I doubt he'll get 5k for it..
So my B is away this weekend to see her dad. I've enough on my plate trying to get the house done but she has been banging on about keeping chickens for since we moved in, so, to cheer her up , I'm building the fucken chicken coop and run as a surprise.
Tbh I like the idea as eggs are like a doller each these days and chickens manufacture eggs for fuck all....
So today I bought the bulk of the materials to build said set up.. $750 nz pasos !!! And that's not even all we need!!!!!! I've done the math and these fuckers need to produce and egg a day each for the next 3 years just to break even!!!!
OK, it could be done vastly cheaper but I'm not looking at a fucken ramshackle eyesore every fucken day till it falls over or I die so I'm doing it my way ..
Anyhu, after work and shopping for the shit required, I got home at about 3 30 and have just stopped as it's dark now.
Our yard is a bit of a swamp at times so the idea is build up a base well above the water table. So I got some 150 x 150 sleepers and have planted em on 100 x 100 Lil posts concreted in and will fill 100mm with top soil and the rest with the apple tree chippings.
Ahhhhrrggg... tooo much to explain...
A Pic of what I'm up to is better and more pics to follow. I can't get it finished before she is back but I'm hoping B will be cheered up a Lil. She loves the idea of chickens as she would like an intelligent conversation now an then and I don't cut it apparently..
Tbh I like the idea as eggs are like a doller each these days and chickens manufacture eggs for fuck all....
So today I bought the bulk of the materials to build said set up.. $750 nz pasos !!! And that's not even all we need!!!!!! I've done the math and these fuckers need to produce and egg a day each for the next 3 years just to break even!!!!
OK, it could be done vastly cheaper but I'm not looking at a fucken ramshackle eyesore every fucken day till it falls over or I die so I'm doing it my way ..
Anyhu, after work and shopping for the shit required, I got home at about 3 30 and have just stopped as it's dark now.
Our yard is a bit of a swamp at times so the idea is build up a base well above the water table. So I got some 150 x 150 sleepers and have planted em on 100 x 100 Lil posts concreted in and will fill 100mm with top soil and the rest with the apple tree chippings.
Ahhhhrrggg... tooo much to explain...
A Pic of what I'm up to is better and more pics to follow. I can't get it finished before she is back but I'm hoping B will be cheered up a Lil. She loves the idea of chickens as she would like an intelligent conversation now an then and I don't cut it apparently..
No we don't. The only predators we have here were introduced by the English, rats, cats, dogs and possum. This is why there was a lot of flightless birds in nz , including the kiwi, as there was no land based predators... apart from man when wh turned up, arguably some 600 years ago....
You are going to need really serious defences to protect the chickens from rats. A concrete base for starters ...
Na, rats are a menace but not as prevalent as in the uk at all. When we moved in, the previous owners had a spot in the back yard where they just dumped everything from food waste to empty beer bottles. Our neighbor, Mark, had a real problem with rats. Since we cleaned that up, neither us or Mark had seen a rat. He has lots of traps but hasn't caught one in over a year.. its possible the chickens will attract the rats but unlikely if kept properly. A full grown chicken is more than a match for a rat.. a cat? Perhaps not. This is one or the reasons I prefer rats to cats. Both are Vermen and deserve to die but cats do way more damage to our native bird population. Cat owners are like vegans in my mind....
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I hope you're right. Good luck.
In twenty years living here in my current home, I've seen precisely one rat - but I know they're here. Fact.
You're not wrong though - vegans, irresponsible pet owners, pharma bitches, paedos ... all cut from the same cloth.
I would be tempted to put chicken mesh on the floor under those sleepers. The rats will find their way under there.
If you have chickens, you have rats. Occasionally they eat the eggs but mostly target the food. You should invest in a proper feeder. You will get more trouble from stoats but they are not as common as rats. Chickens like their nesting boxes to be above ground about 300-400mm and they like a roosting bar. Also the size of the nesting box should be considered as if it is too big they will stay in there and trample the eggs. There is a guy at waikaraka who sells 6 week old shavers. They are machines!
*elsewhere in AustraliaNone of the humans are native. Basically all Kiwis are shipwreck victims who have been lashing oil drums together for the last 1000 years in a bid to escape. The first successful attempts are now starting to wash up in Australia.
FTFY