Week 22 to 29 July
Dave had gone off for a full week skippering, so each morning and evening I put on my big boots and floppy hat and went to work on clearing up the site. I wanted it safe for us to walk around, which meant getting rid of the nail-driven wood, first off.
Given that it was only comfortable to work between 8 and 9 each day, am and pm, I didn't get on very fast, but by Wednesday I had stacked away the wood that was worth saving for the stove in the winter, with splinters saved for kindling. I was also collecting the bent nails, as these are very handy in a cob build, nailed into logs which are known as 'deadmen' that are embedded in the cob - the nails helping to key the wood to the cob. The deadmen are then used for screwing window and door frames in to. The picture shows my red bucket for nails and wire, black recycled-tyre bucket for wood splinters, and in the background, a huge blue carrier, full of re-useable shuttering for the bits we have to add concrete to.
Most of the rebar had been bent by the workmen when they took out the shuttering, but bent rebar is easier to pull out of the ground than straight pieces, although straight pieces are much more useful afterwards. We may be able to cut the bent bits off, leaving some useable straight bits. I didn't want to leave the bars in the ground, as they would prevent even tamping down of the underfloor surface. I rescued seven short shuttering boards, and surprisingly, found just 14 straight pieces of rebar, and made some useful steps down the earth bank at the end of the site. Good, hey?
An even bigger splurge, that needed a mega-tool and archimedes ('give me a long enough lever and somewhere firm to stand ...') to lift off the ground. This one was outside the structure, in the area where we want to dig a drainage ditch, so it had to go. I couldn't get it further than this - it has to wait for Dave to break it up now.
Dave had gone off for a full week skippering, so each morning and evening I put on my big boots and floppy hat and went to work on clearing up the site. I wanted it safe for us to walk around, which meant getting rid of the nail-driven wood, first off.
Given that it was only comfortable to work between 8 and 9 each day, am and pm, I didn't get on very fast, but by Wednesday I had stacked away the wood that was worth saving for the stove in the winter, with splinters saved for kindling. I was also collecting the bent nails, as these are very handy in a cob build, nailed into logs which are known as 'deadmen' that are embedded in the cob - the nails helping to key the wood to the cob. The deadmen are then used for screwing window and door frames in to. The picture shows my red bucket for nails and wire, black recycled-tyre bucket for wood splinters, and in the background, a huge blue carrier, full of re-useable shuttering for the bits we have to add concrete to.
Most of the rebar had been bent by the workmen when they took out the shuttering, but bent rebar is easier to pull out of the ground than straight pieces, although straight pieces are much more useful afterwards. We may be able to cut the bent bits off, leaving some useable straight bits. I didn't want to leave the bars in the ground, as they would prevent even tamping down of the underfloor surface. I rescued seven short shuttering boards, and surprisingly, found just 14 straight pieces of rebar, and made some useful steps down the earth bank at the end of the site. Good, hey?
This is our mountain of earth, to go back into the structure to be the underfloor.
One of the larger chunks of splurged concrete, prized up off our gravelly soil, and me in floppy hat and big boots, taken by the auto setting on the camera.
An even bigger splurge, that needed a mega-tool and archimedes ('give me a long enough lever and somewhere firm to stand ...') to lift off the ground. This one was outside the structure, in the area where we want to dig a drainage ditch, so it had to go. I couldn't get it further than this - it has to wait for Dave to break it up now.
When I popped down the shop for a large crowbar, he only had this one. It's nearly as tall as I am! Bound to come in useful. And below - my trusty set of site-clear-up tools (in pretty colours).
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