Forever House #18

Saturday 29th June, 2013

Arriving at Currawinya for my week's work

When I left home around eleven thirty today the car was bulging. Jeff looks at me and says nothing. But eighty percent or more of communication is non-verbal - so I try to fill in the blanks for myself. He knows I have made these trips to the farm for years, but I don't think he will ever be able to witness it without wondering how much of a wild woman his wife is... I had six pine pallets in the back, collected for burning; two building horses, my camp chair, buckets, and mandarins and rice that had missed making it into the food box. In the cab, I had work clothes enough for my sister Peita and me, to save her some luggage on the train; an esky and food to see me through to Monday; towels; extra linen for Peit; camp light; blue tooth speaker for music; extra gas bottle; container of two stroke to mow; fifteen litres undercoat, fifteen litres of ceiling paint, two trays and two rollers; all the bottles I have left to cut plus wool and nail polish remover to continue that job; tiles and old crockery I have collected for mosaics,silicone style adhesive, and fly screen to make the mosaics on; torches; matches; candles. I was supposed to tow our camper trailer out but plans changed. My sister Danielle and husband Mick, their two kids and four Cornish visitors looked at the weather forecast and decided not to come for the couple of nights they had planned. Although Danielle will slip away with our friend Wendy on Tuesday - the two of them will come out and camp in Wendy's tent for one night.

So I'm here on my own until I head back to Lismore on Monday to fill the trailer with the second load of hardiflex sheets, joiner strips, stud adhesive, and in the ute, seven more bags of insulation if they fit. I'll shop for more food supplies and collect Petia off the train at Casino at 6.44pm. We'll probably eat pizza iin the car on the return trip to the farm. Peita's here for six sleeps. 

The first thing I did on arrival at the farm today was fall flat on my face on the way to the dunny. I was looking at the dunny roof, and not where I was walking, trying to work out where the gutter would need to go to to feed a small tank for handwashing. I tripped over a small tree stump and fell down hill. My hand/wrist hurts a little but nothing serious I trust. 

Clean house

spot for resting both day and night

I usually am  in mudding mode when I arrive, and head straight to preparing materials for an early start the next day. But today I decided to clean up the house. I've swept and swept - creating areas to paint and store painted ceiling sheets, and sit by the fire on the deck at night; and I'm making a mosaic studio in the freshly cleaned shed from last week. Daphne and Stan called by this arv when they saw my car and informed me that the Mallanganee tip is not open on Monday as I had thought - but Sunday. So I'm not sure whether I should duck over there tomorrow (about an hour and a half round trip) or tow last week's trailer load of rubbish and metal recycling all the way into Lismore tip on Monday. I'd hate to leave bits of metal strewn along the road - the trailer is full of it - Mallanganee tomorrow is probably the better plan. It's closer.

While cleaning up this arv, I tipped out the bucket of snot that I brewed over recent weeks. When I came back three weeks after leaving it to soak the stench was pretty bad. Jeff was gagging. But I trialled it with salt and lime as per my recipe, and painted a patch next to the original patch (where the mixture was lime, boiled linseed oil, PVC glue and water). It's pretty clear which one of the recipes works - and it's not the one with the snot. That brushed off the wall easily, whereas the original patch is still as good as when I painted it in mid May. I'm still researching though - as that patch still leaves white on my fingers when I touch it...

Supplies for mosaic - in clean studio shed

After this nine days, when I probably won't get much mud done if any, the ceiling will be up enough for me to go on and complete the mud walls. I can't really guesstimate how many days mudding that will take, but I reckon I'm aiming at having the mud done by Christmas. That's six months away and say twenty four mudding days I've calculated. Imagine having all the mud finished by Christmas - that would be a happy sad day. I'm quite attached to mudding. It's a very creative past-time that connects with my inner child.

Dunny window - with glass bead flowers

I've drawn up to scale the design for the dunny window. I would have liked to have made it up between last weekend and this - but with four days work in between that was probably always pie in the sky. I had been looking around for glass beads to use for the petals and finally found a selection at Bunnings. I laid some out on the drawing - there were only a couple of colours to choose from - amber and blue - so I'm a few steps closer to a finished window. My aim is to bring out the completed window next trip - which is the last weekend in July. I need to get some supplies of copperfoil, flux and solder ordered soon if that is the case - pretty low on all that.