The return of mains water

It has been rather a hot one today; 38 degrees according to the thermometer on the dashboard in Thomas, and it is set to continue like this for the rest of the week. A final blast before we start entering autumn I think. What a lovely year it has been though; this is what I expected when I came out here, not the storms of last year.

Moon up in a deep blue sky

I had a slightly better night last night but was still pretty battered when A got up and stayed in bed a bit longer; it's great being able to be a bit lazy in the morning and I'm always a bit better if I can wake up slowly. I was jumped on by Louise though which stopped any ideas of a really lazy start so got up and we had our morning brews in Room 13; tomorrow I may suggest we go sit on the top bank with them and watch the sun come up. When A went to get the men I headed out for my morning chores. First of all I raked together the grass that A had cut the other day, then I went and turned all the other piles of drying grass which will probably be ready to put away tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. Finally I headed down to the boundary fence to start taking down some more dead trees.

This needed to come down

Loose brush collected

My first target was a stump that had split with a large part of the trunk now laying on top of the fence and outside over the bank. Before I could attack that I needed to take down some of the smaller branches which I did without too much hassle. I also cleared quite a lot of other bits of deadwood from around the area and I pulled quite a large section of the fallen tree from down over the fence however try as I might I could not get the purchase or leverage to get the main trunk free. It would need two people and some rope.

Ants on the new stump

Having failed at that I turned my attention to the larger trunk and made some good progress towards chopping a V out of the side so I could control its fall on my own. I stopped when the chainsaw started smoking a bit too much and decided I would ask to borrow Bekir's bigger chainsaw for this challenge. I noticed that the stump of the smaller bit I had cut was now covered in ants which must have started to eat this dead tree.

A pair of stick thieves

The girls had been very good all the time, coming to me obediently when the other builder arrived in their van, and then staying relatively close so I could make sure they stayed away as the van left again. As I was throwing sticks and twigs around they were having a ball at the same time and kept running off with unfeasibly large chunks of wood, normally with both of them holding it together one at each end. They are dangerously cute.

Cement goes onto the balcony

I had pretty much finished my work when A got back and she came down to see what I had done. It was good to achieve this even with my bad finger but as that was still sore I am glad that I am limiting myself a bit. Anyway on to the other work happening. The men had gone onto the balcony and started on putting the cement covering down, using the forms they had created the day before. The one of them was down on the ground mixing cement while the other hauled it onto the roof with a rope and the third packed it in and smoothed it down. Teamwork. In the meantime Bekir did the very small task of switching the house over to ViK and the sound of the boiler suddenly filling up brought both A and I jumping from our desks and cheering.

Not a tomato in sight

After finishing my work, and sending a missive to my boss, it was time for me to go into town with Bekir, go to the hospital for my finger, and then get the pipes and other stuff we needed for the water being taken to the chicken house. Our first stop was the hospital and after a quick diversion to the staff quarters to ask where Bekir's mate was we ended up waiting in a lean to and then after a short while being ushered in to see a very friendly man who had three nurses helping him out. I had been building up my courage to have the thing lanced however he took one look and they put some nasty smelling cream on it, wrapped it up well and told me to not get it wet and come back in the morning. And that was it, we were away.

My music library arrives

Sally and the windowsills

I knew some books that had been brought from England were being ekonted to me but wasn't sure if they had arrived as the phone was still in A's bag. No matter, I know that the lady at the shop knows who I am so when Bekir said he had some chores I agreed to meet him down at the ekont shop. When I got there she came out and pointed at "this box, and this, and this, and this...." until we were laughing. A total of nine boxes, and I loaded them all into the back seat of Thomas and then sat on the tail of the truck in the sun waiting for Bekir, who was not long. We then went past the builders merchant and got all the plumbing stuff we needed, and some metal for Sally doing the new windowsills, and we were back and home.

The trench gets filled in, with water pipe and cable in it

The middle of the day was taken up working, then having some lovely blue cheese and cooked meat butties for lunch, then an hour long kip which I woke from very reluctantly and then going back out with Bekir to buy the armoured cable to take power to the chicken house, as well as a metal plate to cover the manhole I want outside the kitchen but as I type this I'm questioning whether I actually want it. When I went back outside later on I found that the electric and water was run from outside the chicken run to where it needs to go by the wall and both Bekir and Gyuner were hard at it in the baking heat back filling the trench.

Our flock, flocking

All of the birds were outside pecking around in the disturbed dirt loving all the bugs they could now get to. I stood and watched the men worked and talked to the chickens and particularly the ducks who were making a huge amount of noise. It did not take long at all for the trench to be filled and packed down so I headed off to find A to show her what they had done.

These chickens are hand reared. See.

She was just getting the bread ready to feed to the birds so we went back up there together and A showed off by feeding KitKat out of her hands. They are getting more used to us, though they still run away a lot; how long that will last or if it will ever stop happening I don't know. We went to check the nesting box again and were most pleased to see that one more egg had been laid! We're getting regular eggs finally. Now it's just the ducks who have to worry about when Christmas is; I doubt Ginger/Baker will start laying anytime soon as they are so much smaller.

Balanced and reaching back for rope

While Bekir and Gyuner were up that end of the property and briefly at a loose end I decided to ask them to help me with the large section of tree that remained laying over the top of the fence. Bekir had a look and climbed up on it and hooked a rope to one of the branches and then he and Gyuner hauled it up and inside my land. Excellent work.

Showing me how it is done

He then took a look at the trunk I had failed to cut in the morning and said he would do it with my chainsaw. I brought the machine to him and good to his word he set to and pretty quickly he and Nikolai had the log on the ground where Bekir cut it in half and then they hefted it up and into the growing pile of wood on the scrub ground there.

The final length is chopped down

Finally Bekir turned his attention to the last broken stump on this tree and again with Nikolai using his huge strength to assist this has also now been chopped down and is waiting my attention. I'll leave these down here for a bit while I clear all the brush that is still up near the washing line however it is looking more and more like we'll be burning our own wood for a lot of the winter.

Just about to eat our lovely meal

And so after a while it was time to take the men and the heat was still up (it still is now, near enough 30 degrees in Room 13 with no breeze to speak of; warm!) so it was quite a lazy drive there and back with all the windows down. When I got back I found A well on the way to preparing lovely enchillada dinner for us which when it was ready we took onto the roof to eat again. It was hot in the roof space but there was a breeze which cooled the roof terrace very nicely.

Sitting in the same position

The puppies were being good again while we ate and I kept watching them as they sat in exactly identical positions more than once. They are, as I've already said, painfully cute and they seem to work together at it.

Another stunner

The sunset was, again, absolutely beautiful but I'll only bore you with one picture of it this evening, trying to show off how the sun beams split around that ridge in the middle distance; just stunning. We sat up there until the sun had disappeared then headed down. I went straight outside to do the watering but the free water was pretty slow so it took a while. Eventually A took over from me and I came in to finish this.

So now I put the pictures in place and I go to bed as I'm shattered and A has already gone.