Of Frameworks and Pie Wedges

See this happy, smiling face?  This is the face of a hardworking lad who has been squirreled away in his shed for the last few weeks, prefabricating the framework of the wall of the Chook Mansion Extraordinaire.  The prefab is done and we are just about to start carrying the frames down to the site.

Slowly the frames are put into place, with lengths of wood jammed into the ground and clamped to the frames to stop them falling over, they are heavy!  The chook yard is positioned downhill of the vegie patch, with one shared fence.  Eventually, downhill from the chooks will be the orchard, all nearby so we can plonk the chooks into areas to free range, when we want them to.  They have a very spacious yard though, about 8 metres by 4 metres, and the house is in one corner of the yard, about 2.4 metres by 2 metres.

Much measuring, right angle checking and eyeballing of lines ensued.  Beyond the house frame is the chook yard fence, made from sturdy small gauge aviary wire to (finger crossed) keep out foxes, snakes, rats and mice.  We will be digging in a depth of either leftover colorbond or wire underground around the perimeter to stop any enterprising fox from tunnelling in.

The four corner posts have been cemented in and today we popped into Bunnings and bought bags of cement for the Chook Mansion Extraordinaire floor.  The weather has become sodden so that will have to wait.  The building inspectors are seen in this photo examining the progress, they are very nosy!

This photo is taken from just out from our front door and gives an idea of where the chook abode is situated.  From the house they will be behind my fenced garden so we will be able to see glimpses of them and hear the odd cluck, but hopefully they will be far enough away that the chook aroma will not bother us.  So, in the photo on the other side of the driveway is, native garden in front, vegies behind that and to the left, and chook yard behind the natives, to the right.

 

Meanwhile, inside the sewing room, I've been making an Amish Puzzle Ball.  Not a puzzle to deconstruct or anything, just an interesting shape with lots of handholds for a baby.  First step is the cutting out of half circles and elipses in bright, interesting fabric.

Then the elipses are pinned then stitched to the half circles, then those are stuffed, to make little fat pie slice shapes.

Then the little fat pie slices are pinned together to make up the shape of the puzzle ball.  Then, with thick embroidery thread, the ends of the pie slices are sewn together.

 Until finally you end up with an Amish Puzzle Ball!

And the reason for making this was as a gift for a little baby girl who is due to come into the world in September.  Her lovely parents Jamie and Josh came for a visit recently.  Jamie used to work with Steve.  We had a terrific day.  Can't wait to see Olivia's first baby photo!

To finish up, a shot of the almost night sky with the tiniest sliver of moon alongside a big, bright ?planet.... I should be good and go and look up which one it is, to sound incredibly wise, however I can't be stuffed.  :-)