Forever House #10

Friday 3rd May 2013 Well, here we are again - at the caravan table. It's just after seven at night - but it's been dark since 5.30 or so - daylight saving has finished so I doubt my musings here at this table will be when the sky is the colours of the setting sun. It is autumn and the days will get shorter for my next several visits.
I'm so excited. Even though the last time I was here was 24th March - work did not stop on the Forever House. I have a new loo! Thanks to Dave, my new Currawinyan offsider. He and I had a chat about that being his first project when we met in March. We talked of using saplings growing too close to the house, as the uprights and frame; and basically to use what he could find laying around the worksite to enclose and roof it. He also found a door in the shed which I need to paint to protect it from the weather. The rose bush (which is of the mean prickly variety) was saved and here is the delightful result.

I couldn't be happier. It is a strong and functional version of its old self. He even kept the original river rock effort I had made, and the painted besser blocks my sister Fran had done for the Andy-built version of the loo. Now it is my job to make a small panel of stained glass for the  singular window he placed at eye level as one sits.
After circling the loo several times, trying it out for comfort and taking pics from every angle, I unpacked the car, got into work clothes and set about putting the remaining two hours of daylight to good use. Actually what I did next was to take out of the ute the purchase I made at the Antique shop in Casino on my way out today. I have been eying it off for quite a while and had stopped to check the price on a previous trip. $65. So, on my list today was to stop, being a Friday during working hours, and purchase this stunning shower screen from an earlier age. It reminds me of Nellie Nana and Pop's bathroom, my Dad's parents' house in Putney Point on the Parramatta River in Sydney - with its etched screen and glass jar full of sculpted pink and blue shell soaps sitting on the end of the bath. I asked the Antique Shop for their best price and got it for $60 - very happy with that. I am in love with it - I have saved it as my screensaver on my phone. I can see it in the Forever House bathroom already.

The 44 gallon drum that sits at my mudding station for the straw was empty, as was the blue water drum. There was no evidence of cows having been in the house I was pleased to find. I remembered to bring out the axe so chopped the remaining straw - which filled the drum. And I did a good number of trips back and forth from the water tank with full buckets of water. I might add to the pile of sifted dirt by digging first thing in the morning, then I will get as much mudding done as I can during the day. Dave is coming over around ten to talk about what next. I'm excited to thank him for creating a dunny totally in keeping with the Forever House aesthetic. It took him twenty two hours and all he had to buy were dyna bolts for the stirrups at the bottom of the poles. My $340 loo.

My friend Susan, another Currawinyan with her partner Bill, lives at Mallanganee - a little village I drive through on the way out to the farm. She has invited me to join her at Keith Cameron's property on Plain Station Road Ewingar for some kind of creative festival. Way back in 2004 I bought all my metal from Keith for the Forever House roof and a couple of the front walls where a metre-or-so-high stone wall had survived the fire, and my brother in law Andy built a metal wall on top of the stone. Keith sells metal and farms cattle and soy beans. But he is also a prolific metal sculptor, facilitates metal workshops and has other sculptors working in residence in his massive shed. I am looking forward to going and seeing what this festival is all about on Sunday. There are stalls, food, music, art exhibits. I am going to invite Dave and Gab to join me for the outing. I'll have to work hard that morning before I go.

I also have made a plan to go and visit Quan tomorrow (Saturday) arv after I've done six or seven hours of work. Quan lives on Currawinya about 2 wild kilometres drive away. She and her late husband, Peter, arrived here from the Riverland in South Australia around the same time I did. Peter circumnavigated the world twice, according to my cousin Christine, with the number of miles he drove back and forth between here and the Riverland, bringing his many and varied (and I mean many and varied) chattles onto his and Quan's share. I'm not quite sure what he planned to do with most of them - he could have built a small village and provided vehicles for twenty families. But we will never know really what he might have done with it all, because sadly, he had an accident in an ultralight traveling home from SA at the end of 2010. He passed away in a manner fitting a man who was into everything. Quite a character was he.
Peter had taken aluminium windows and doors that were excess to my needs after I bought a job lot from a recycled building materials place on the Gold Coast. In return, Quan is going to let me look for a front door and some windows suitable for a couple of unaccounted for window openings we left in the block wall in the lounge room. I have some cedar arches which were bought on ebay from Melbourne especially for these openings - and the openings were made especially to fit those arches - but the arches are now being used in the new dining room at our house in Tuckurimba. I have in mind to use sets of French doors as windows in these spaces. I need to get something suitable so Dave can get on with building the metal frames above the block walls. See the picture - we only had blocks to take the wall so high - so we have to fill in the gap above it.

A few big days coming up - into bed with an extra blanket - there's a nip in the air.