Week 5, day twenty-two

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

Ahh, covered services

It's been a week or so between posts - the weather last week wasn't fab, but things kept happening nonetheless. Like Mr Bobcat turned up to cover over all the plumbing and electrical pipes etc, also doing a bit of groundwork and tidying up around the place until the rain set in once more and again turned The Block into what Warwick has christened 'Pig's Digger' (apparently it's a children's book about a pig, his digger, and a whole lot of mud).


The brickies came most days too from late last week, and now we have something very much resembling a footprint of what's to come (which is why they call the bottom-edge outline of a house that in the biz, I imagine). Today the brickies finished up on the main retaining walls, and another bobcat driver with a less sore back - who we shall name Mr Digger - shifted truckload after truckload of clean fill into the house area that has been created by the retaining walls. End result is that the floor level has now been brought up to about where the slab will be poured (in a couple of weeks' time).

Footprint - by jingoes, that's a lot of mud to 'landscape', ain't it?

Hopping up on top, the view is quite a bit higher than at ground level - maybe we can post a view from the (currently imaginary) bathroom next time, because it's a vast improvement on what I thought it would be like (chainlink and weeds have almost become treetops and roofs).

Trent's babies (yet to be bathed)

I do like these baby walls - Trent the brickie has done a lovely job, even making artistic calls on some feral purplish bricks that had made it into the pallet, tapping the nasties out after he'd laid them a few rows below because they just looked 'ugly'.

Rats in the ranks

On a completely side matter needing some blog-community input, I'm having issues with the neighbour's bird habits - she feeds the cockies and PIGEONS (urrgh! where do they come from up here?!) every afternoon when she's around. Apart from the idea that she is encouraging rats with wings to live, and that one of the favourite ripping posts for cockies is western red ceder (which our gorgeous, locally made and utterly expernsive double-glazed windowframes will be fashioned from) and there are now huge posses of them hanging out next door, is this even legal?? I'm looking for any grounds here, people - I'm no animal hater (apart from pigeons, of course, but they don't count), but I just can't manage to relax about this little-old-lady fancy. Am I officially in the ranks of uptight (almost) homeowners?