Foundations, plinth and slab done

Ready to go up!
The conduits for the electric wiring and gas are installed.
Slab down.
Greyton was in the upper 30s today and sweltering.
Kath and I visited, dropped off gates and fireplace, and had lekker lunch.

Foundations Done!

The foundations have been dug beautifully and bricks brought on site for the plinth and pillars between the sandbags :)

We spent a fun week-end at the Hippo and visited the plot.

The dig starts!!

Richard has started to dig the foundations!

Dealing with a hierarchy of contractors is challenging.

Andy the main contractor
Arn his Cape representative
Richard, Arn's chosen builder
Andrew Swain - initial architect - now consulting
Terry - current architect

And then making sure we are in line with the aesthetics committee and the council.. Quite tiring..

New updated plans

Final plans updated with a lekker outdoor braai and stone chimney.
Also much bigger doors and little walls around the stoeps.

Dam Coming Along

Dam had it's lining put in, and then river rocks to line the borders.
Makes a very nice swimming pool, but need to find a couple of big flat rocks to make a place to get in and out.
Also a pump to fill it up during our leiwater slot.

 

Hier kom 'n Dam

Richard Hess is managing the development of a dam for us.

Here's George and co putting his digger to work.

Check out that soil!











We are probably going to have to pump water from the lei water to fill the dam (to the top) but I still want to find a way to just pour the stuff in through a sluice from the lei water channel.

For our first summer we've bought a weekly Saturday afternoon 30 minute slot. I reckon about 5l per second flow - so we should be able to keep it topped up nicely all summer for the princely sum of R1200 all in.

Trees are gekap

So the trees are down..
Gekap.
The big old gum at the entrance and the big old pine in the middle.
The gum was a bit of a headache with the Stodart treefeller company.
They took it down and then carted off all the timber which wasn't part of the deal.

I had to get them to return it - which they did. The aspect of the plot from Park Street looks quite strange without the old tree there. I got the feller to leave a 4 foot stump - with the intention of carving something out of it. Not sure what yet or how or who can help me with it.














Then the old pine. The dam's going to go in the hole left by it. I really dislike removing any trees, but I have to keep telling myself it's ok. We are going to plant at least 20 in their place.

Now I'm just hoping that we can move this wood down the plot before it 

"grow's legs" as my neighbor says. :)

The plans evolve

1st night camping on the plot

We just had a real fun whirlwind camping trip in Greyton for the Easter weekend.

We rammed all our camping gear into the car and headed out, first spending a day with the cousins Luyckx from Oz and then a lovelly evening with the folks in Somerset West.

In all the times we've been to Greyton I've never been to the market - which is a pretty cool market. Our first stop was to buy some organic eggs and some veggie seeds. Here's Erin at the market :)

After that we set up camp on our freshly mowed wonderful plot. We cleared a small place to dig a hole for the fire. The earth looks really dark and fertile :) Can't wait to grow things in it. Kath noticed that we've actually got 2 big lemon trees, and they're both bursting with fruit. 

Being Easter, it seemed the whole town was full to the brim. All the guesthouses at lots of cars outside and all our neighbours seemed to be around. But our plot is in a very quiet spot and is very private - love it.

I was a bit nervous making a fire with all the dry cuttings everywhere - but we filled a bucket from the leiwater - and all was well.

I took the kids up the mountain while Kath had a nap. There are so many routes and we're going to have a blast exploring these mountains. We went up a path that gave us amazing views over Greyton. We found a kloof to explore, but the path looked a little overgrown and we turned back. Ben and I will go up there sometime soon. We saw a huge waterfall up there.

First draft earthbag house plans

Our architect introduced through dealings with the Greyton aesthetics comittee (he's the chairman I think) - is Andrew Swain, and he's put together these impressive 1st looks at the house.

We're going to do a few changes.. But looking good so far. Going up there next week-end - can't wait.

Practising farming

Kath and I've been thinking about food.

We want to make the plot as self sustaining as possible, but neither have us have grown more than a carrot in our lives.

Now we have 2 beds of veggies in big planters in Imhoff's. It's a practise run.

Today we went to volunteer for a couple of hours at a permaculture garden in Constantia at the Alphen vet. It's being run by our neighbour's tenant Karen. Going to learn a lot there. Can't wait.

Trees got to go

Got quote from tree felling company.

I'm loathe to cut down any tree, be it blue gum or pine.

Both have to go in this case. The Gum - it's raining on my neighbor. The Pine - apparently it's a very invasive species.

The hole left from the Pine is going to be the start of a small leiwater dam.

We'll try and harvest as much timber as possible - or else firewood.

Goodbye big trees

1st House Planning

Saturday 1st March

Kommetjie school sport's day. Erin won her race :) Ben had to sit out with his sore ankle :(

Then packed the car and off to Greyton to meet the potential prefab wood builder.

Erwin's designs are amazing - www.amazingplaces.co.za  . He walked us through some potential designs and then we we up there on the plot trying to measure them out to see if they would work.

This is a pic of his Greyton home which would be similar to ours if we go for the prefab pod house approach:

And these are the drawings he did sitting with Erwin in his house:

Ok so tried to measure out the deisngs from Erwin, but not enough rope actually so decided to buy more, and a longer measuring tape and try again tomorrow.
Off to the Blue Hippo for the night - what a special place.

The Tee-Pee village is inspirational. 

And Jay has been hard at work here

Back to the plot and trying to measure out the potential structure for the house. The plot is extremely narrow -18m - and flipping long -130m.. But that narrowness means we are close to the neighbours and need to be clever about the structure and future plant growth for privacy.

Big old and very friendly tortoise keeping the grass short.

Then after burning in the sun all day on the plot, we went to remind ourselves of what lay on our doorstep :)