Al Gets Tough

Well I have gained access to most of my piccie archive again. This has given me the chance to hunt for a tricky WIIW image.
I suspect no one is going to get 100% on this one.
So with out further ado: what on Earth do you think this might be?

Bay of Fires

My Piccie of the day is one I took a few years ago at the Bay of Fires in Tassie

Up, down and then up again

Well as I said last night I have had a hectic three day weekend working on our cottage.
So first up I did some framing work on one of the bathroom walls.

Then I shoehorned in the first of the windows I ordered.
 We have a bathroom window!


And from the outside.
 
Woo hoo!

But then a real downer, on Saturday I began on the diagonally opposite corner of the house, at what will be our bedroom.
As I began tearing the old weatherboards off I found the bottom wall plate was completely rotted through, here…

And here...
 (the blue piece of timber is a temporary prop to hold up the corner of the house)

The old boards have been leaking, possibly for decades and a lot of the frame is rotted.
This means more expense and more time. Sigh.
But by Saturday evening I had shot an hour’s drive down the mountain to collect some replacement timber and managed to salvage some of the original timber to reuse.

Sunday morning saw me working on reframing the bedroom wall.

Then as it began threatening rain I started covering the wall in insulation foil.

This will be the view out our bedroom window. I have to say I love the mountains and the way it feels as if you are in the weather.

So just before dark I had the foil over the wall finished. It will keep the weather out for the coming week.

Next weekend is Easter which means four days in a row working on the cottage!

Late and what Al is up to

Well just a quick post tonight.
I have been burning the candle at both ends and have not had a moment to post.
So first up let’s answer last week’s WIIW

Well one person was bang on the money.
Old Kitty and Linda G thought it was a piece of knitting.
Nope, not wool but kind of what I hoped people would think …
Vicki thought “flowers”
Nope not nearly so pretty

But it was Marcy who hit the target with: “I was going to say snakeskin.”

Bingo!

On the way back from the cottage last weekend we came across this fellow lying across the track.  S/he is a smallish carpet python (Morelia spilota).
I measured him/her at 7 feet, they grow up to about 14 feet long.  These guys are non-venomous and farmers like to have them around as they clean up plenty of rodent pests.

I moved it off the road as they aren’t smart enough to get out of the way of cars.

So on to this weekend; for the past  three days I have been working on the cottage.
I will try to post an update over the next couple of days. Suffice to say I did not finish this evening until the moon was out and the sun setting…

Tired and WIIW

Well I have to say I am a bit weary this evening. It seems to have been a long week already.

I have struggled to come up with a WIIW this week but then I hit on this rather blurry image I took the other day.

I suspect it is too easy, but Deb said it was not so straight forward.

So what on Earth do you think this  might be?

Cape Bridgewater Lighthouse

Just a piccie of the day.

Al Gets Cracking

Well we have had a couple of glorious autumn days. Hardly a cloud in the sky and things are starting to dry out.
After a couple of weeks of gutting the interior of our cottage and measuring and planning we took it up a notch this weekend...

Because of the weekend nature of the work and the recent weather down this way we are proceeding in stages.

So yesterday I took to the weatherboard cladding on the bathroom corner of the cottage.

This first piccie shows the view from inside
 
All the boards and bracing gone just the studs holding up the corner of the roof.
By the way the unsealed track you can see in the piccie is the "road" from the cottage to civilisation.
This track weaves 5km (about 3 miles) down through mountain rainforest to get to a road proper.

The forested mountain you can see in the background is across the valley and is on the property the cottage sits on. More about that another time.


This next piccie taken from the outside shows the next step.

The studs are out now. You can see I have a trailer at the front to cart the old timber away.
The weatherboards are old, about sixty years old and they have to be replaced, they simply don't keep the weather out any longer.
Unfortunately that means I am going to have to replace chunks of the frame as well,
The little window in this piccie is one I have ordered a replacement for.
By the way the rather ugly little tank stand is the hot water tank. Water is heated by a slow combustion stove.
No mains power either.

First thing this morning I began the process of framing up the replacement wall.
 
This is a bit nerve wracking because I have jumped  ahead a step and am framing up for a replacement window before it has arrived. If I get it wrong I will have to tear part of what I do down again.

So this is what I got to when I finished tonight, the framing for the bathroom finished and  the corner wrapped in aluminium foil insulation.
 
 The aluminium will keep the rain out until I re-clad and will also be part of the insulation going forward. The wiring is the remains of an old 12 volt solar system that used to provide light here. Hopefully we will manage something more sophisticated down the track.

Enough for tonight as I have to be up early for work.

An answer

Well I have finally got back to this week’s WIIW.

People were kind of in the right general area.
Marcy guessed: “a close up of a snake's nostrils? Or some other amphibian, maybe?”
It is nostrils but not a snake. 60%

Old Kitty guessed “A bracelet! Tadpoles! A frog!”
Not so close, but I did say bonus points for wildly inaccurate guesses, so that earns 60% too!
Linda said: “The nostrils and mouth of an amphibious animal. Or me on a really bad morning. ;)”
Well it is not an amphibian, but it is an amphibious mammal and it is its nostril and mouth so I guess that earns 100%

Susan guessed: “A salamander face?”

We don’t have salamanders or newts in Oz, so I guess that earns 60% as wildly innacurate.

So what is the mystery beast?

A platypus!

I have only seen these guys in the wild a couple of times, so as you can guess I was happy to catch these shots a couple of years ago.

He/she was sitting on a rock scratching with a back leg.


Then s/he seemed to catch sight of me and shot back into deep water.

Piccie of the day

I have been working late on the cottage today, so just a quick piccie of the day.

Al Recycles

Unfortunately I am not at home with access to my piccie bank tonight, but it is Wednesday so I am going to recycle this WIIW image.

So does anyone remember what on Earth this is? If not are you prepared to hazard a guess.
Bonus points for wildly inaccurate guesses!

Pants Free ?

Well I was flat out over the weekend still working on the cottage.
 First I was cleaning up all the demolition rubbish so I can make a start.

Second, I was measuring all the windows. This is a typical example.
As you can see there are some lovely views to be had, but the windows are old and small. They are also quite literally falling to pieces from neglect.
 I managed to get to a window manufacturer to order replacements during my lunch break.
 

Finally, it is jumping the gun a bit, but I put some boards into the hole in the bathroom floor.

I needed to begin something constructive to counterbalance the destruction I have been wreaking on the place recently. Plus it will stop me falling through the hole as I contemplate things like windows!

Eagle eyed readers may have noticed a pair of blue jeans in the above photo.

As odd as I am I not in the habit of working sans pants.

They are actually an old pair I was using to push dust off the boards as I drilled them for nailing (Oz hardwood is so tough it has to be pre-drilled to avoid splitting).

The Cringe Factor

I am not sure if I said but my new job is only four days a week.
Ultimately I want to use the three day weekend for my writing and photography.
But for now it means I have extra time to work on the cottage to get it fit for habitation.

Before I say a word about that I should mention this week's WIIW.

A few good guesses but no one was on the money. Now I warn you I will give the answer at the bottom and it is likely to cause the same reaction as it does for Deb - a cringe.

Now back to the house.
Today I managed to get the last of the lining out.
This piccie is looking from what will be the lounge room through the bathroom wall and into the enclosed front veranda.

Speaking of the bathroom, when I checked the floor a large chunk of it was rotted so I have had those floorboards out.
 It looks pretty dismal at the moment doesn't it?

So now to the answer to WIIW.
This fellow is a medium sized "huntsman" spider about 4 inches across. Up in the rainforest country we see them up to about a hand-span across. Totally harmless - except to arachnophobes!

What is it Wednesday??

It feels near miraculous but we have had a dry, and sometimes sunny day down this way.
After three weeks of nearly continuous (often flooding) rain it is a real relief

Anyway it is Wednesday so I had better post a piccie.

What on Earth do you think this might be?

When the rain stops

Well the rain stopped this afternoon.
The cloud broke up long enough to give us this...

Take mountains add rain

Each work day (I am now working four days a week) it feels like a gamble that I might not get to work. Or get back

Not because I am in any danger but because it is so wet that roads here are going under, then being opened a few hours then closing again.

For example my boss was late today because she couldn't get to town her usual way; the road was under. By lunch time her husband came through; it was open again.

My piccie of the day shows what the weather continues to be like up here.

This is the view from our cottage, normally you can see mountains.
But they have disappeared into the cloud

Coming down

Well I have been busy all weekend.

I have managed to pull the lining out of what will be our bedroom


and out of the kitchen

At the moment I am just chucking the lining board out the front door.

Then (rain allowing) I load it into my trailer and run it down the paddock to where I will ultimately burn it.

Now it is late and I have to be away early to to get to work on time...

In which we make a start and Al gives an answer

Well as you know Deb and I have "gone bush" and relocated to my Mum's house as a temporary measure.
Temporary because we have to do significant work to our little cottage before we can move in.

This first piccie is of the lounge room wall and ceiling. The house has been standing empty for nearly twenty years and has been leaking so the old masonite partitions and ceilings are beyond salvaging.

Last week end, as you know it was raining (as it is again) so I made a start on pulling out the lining

I started by pulling out the walls. You can see the old weatherboards have had it, they will need to be replaced too but it is just too wet outside!

Then I pulled down the ceiling, and what a mess came down. The old insulation formed the basis for my WIIW (all of you who guessed insulation get 100%) 

What you can't see (thankfully) is 50 years of rat and mouse droppings that also came down!

I am hoping I can refinish the house to keep the buggers out in the future