As we approach Christmas and the joy of family coming to stay for the very first time, we are in the midst of the final organising of big trucks. It has been a tad stressful as the weather has delayed things over and over again. Essentially we are awaiting concrete around the outside of the house, and this needs to be done before we can get our furniture in. Waiting, waiting waiting!
We are surrounded by a finished building site, you know, sand and more sand. We ummed and ahhed during construction as to what to surround the house with. Timber decking? - no, too expensive and too much maintenance, we want low maintenance. Paving? - memories of weeds and ants from our house in Perth has put us off, again, too much maintenance. We decided on concrete, specifically coloured concrete. Once it's done and sealed, the maintenance is minimal. After some contemplation we decided on a colour called 'Mocha', a warm brown in keeping with the nature colours we have used around our house already.
Finally the concreter rang to say he'd be coming to start our job. First the formwork. I like curves and luckily curves were no problem!
The first dribble of concrete emerges from the truck.
The front of the house has concrete. But what's this, not rain! Yes, flippin' rain, torrential rain and gale force winds. Fabulous. This is not conducive to the laying of concrete!
I take my hat off to the concreting guys, they were amazing. Not only were they running around in the pouring rain with barrow loads of concrete, they also has to construct this huge lean-to to protect it. Well done boys.
The next day dawned bright and sunny so the concrete started drying out. Looks rather good eh, I just love the curves! I can't wait to start putting some plants in, but that is a way off yet.
The boys were back today doing the next section of concrete. Interesting the difference in colour between wet and dry 'Mocha' concrete. We will put a sealer on it in a month or so, so I guess the colour will end up somewhere between the two extremes shown here. It is BRILLIANT to be able to walk out our front door onto a hard surface, instead of into a sand dune!
A random photo, I hadn't seen the kitchen with just the lighting from the rangehood before, and thought it looked rather beautiful.
Amidst concrete and rain, we also harvested our garlic. Here it is drying out after being pulled.
And after the removal of sand and the outer layers, da dum, organically grown purple garlic! Every time we have roast vegies, we roast a couple of these globes. Absolutely delicious, yum yum yum!
With all the unseasonal rain that is upon us, the grass is growing like a mad thing. I mowed this afternoon, have I mentioned how much I love our ride-on mower Helga? Amongst the sand and mess of building a house, I thought it looked lovely after being mowed, all neat and tidy. The sandy area in the foreground of the photo has been seeded with Emerald Kikuyu, which is supposed to be less rampant than normal kikuyu, so we shall see. I just wanted to cover up the sand from all the construction and trucks driving through. The December rain is helping to keep it growing which is great.
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