The final stages

This month it has been an all out effort to finish the great wall of Drummonds. The weather has been hovering in the mid to high 20s and aside from a few hours around midday when the sun is overhead, I've been working in shade most of the day.

Having put cement on the top of the steps they next needed to be rendered. I dug down to some lovely yellow beach sand and made a lovely mix which looks great when it's wet. Sadly it all dries to a nondescript white colour which I'm thinking may be too intense, so I'm contemplating painting it at a later date. Still undecided on the colour....

Then it was on to more of the wall. First I needed to extend the chicken wire and stuffing as far as I could go with what rubbish I had around the place. Old PVC plumbing bits, a couple of old windsurfing sails, any old plastic bottles and old shoes lying around, joined what few cans I had and the last of the wine bottles. It appears I hadn't drunk enough to fill the wall after all, and all the donated cans take up so little space once they're crushed.

So with just one small section to go it was time to remove the huge black wattle in the way. Initially I'd thought I could just build the wall behind it, but it became apparent pretty quickly that that wasn't going to work as the level of its roots was just all wrong. They aren't long lived trees anyway, and this one's been around over 10 years so it probably doesn't have long left. And it's just plain in the way.

Sunday was a warm one, and it wasn't long before I was sweating away, slowly removing sections with the chainsaw. I'd chopped the smaller branches off earlier in the week using a handsaw up a ladder, but the lower thicker trunk needed the help of power tools. My cheap little electric Ozito did an awesome job, and with the help of some ropes I managed to remove the sections without them falling and damaging my wall. PHEW!!

Then I had to remove the stump. Wow what a lot of big thick roots that wattle had. Nothing that a shovel, a chainsaw and choppers can't resolve though.

Out it came! And some steps put in to reconcile the levels.

Two weeks later, more donated cans, and the whole wall is stuffed and ready for rendering.

Back to mixing up sand, cement and lime with water and slapping it on. I really enjoy this process, especially the final bit when you try for a smooth even surface. Not dissimilar to icing a cake...

Layer upon layer gets thrown on and the surface builds up to something truly beautiful.

Only a small section left to go

A last minute realignment of the end of the wall, and the final stages of covering up the steps on the southern side and infilling with rocks.

And then I went windsurfing!

Today the temperature heads into the 30s, and tomorrow it's forecast 39 degrees with a storm. So I'm packing up for the week and will see if I can finish it off next weekend.

That's all for now folks...

The ongoing saga of the Great Wall of Drummonds

The last couple of months have been strange, weatherwise, with more than our usual fair share of rain, falling usually on the weekends. This has meant a little bit of a delay in getting finished on the retaining wall, as I'm not one to be out in the wet with power tools. Thank goodness the fronts seem to have stopped, so at last I have been able to get cracking.

The length of the wall is essentially finished, although the black wattle still needs to be removed to finish off the final section and make access to the second tier easy. This is a big job, though not quite in the realm of the bougainvillea wars, because it involves the manhandling of a chainsaw whilst on a ladder. I may just wimp out and use a hand saw, because quite frankly I don't trust a man to get the job done right, even if he's holding the chainsaw rather than me, and not allow the tree to topple down onto my wall and crack the render. If I can chop down all the bigger branches first, I've a chance to get the heavy trunk out using some rope to stop it all crashing down. Then it's just a matter of digging out the roots. Totally doable, just in stages.

So, back at the other end of the wall I've been affixing chicken wire to the tyres and stuffing them with bottles, cans, and when the cans ran out, junk. First was the big pile of fishing rope and twine that washed up on the beach a couple of years ago. I retrieved quite a few useful lengths of rope and netting for use in the garden, but the rest has just been sitting around waiting for a plan. Now it's part of a wall. Then, I added crushed plastic bottles and old clothes. Any old rubbish really, that can fill in the gaps between the interlocked tyres so the lot can be rendered over. Even some old shoes and sandals!

The steps gaps, however, are filled with stones. That's because they are weight bearing, so I want a bit more strength for them. I did the same with the steps on the first tier and they have held up fantastically. It's weird to remember how difficult it used to be clambering up the sliding dune to get to the chicken pen. So easy now.

After running out of bottles and cans, though I still have a good supply of old clothes and other useless junk, I deemed I'd covered enough of the wall to get cracking on a weekend of rendering. The first step in the render plan is checking the weather forecast for a week of mild temperatures so the render gets to dry and cure slowly. It's actually in the shade most of the day, which makes working on it a lot more pleasant as well!

So, Saturday morning bright and early I mixed my first batch of render and finished covering the risers on the top steps and the side walls around the steps, then extended the wall render southwards. This is a really fun job, though messy, as you throw the mix at the junk and watch it stick. Slowly, as you mix more batches and add more, you fill in the gaps and the wall starts to take shape. Then a final layer and a smooth over and it starts to look like a work of art. I took a 2 hour break in the middle of the day when the sun was beating down, and finished it off later when the house put me in shadow again, and got a good 3m done. I'm yet to finish wiring and stuffing further along the wall, but I'm hopeful I can finish it and render it by the end of the month. Once December hits, so does the heat, and working out in the garden for any length of time becomes unbearable.

Sunday was concrete day. I source my gravel and sand on site, so after sifting out the gravel and digging a few bucketfuls of sand, it was time to mix everything up with cement and water and lay it down on the tops of the steps. This was all done by hand. Unfortunately, the promised cement mixer didn't materialise, as the motor was broken, so it was all done with a shovel and a hoe. I don't mind, because it totally shows that if you make batches small enough (and my job isn't a big one that really needs machinery) it's possible for anyone to build what I'm doing with very little technology at all. It's physically hard work - which my body needs given I have such a sedentary occupation - and takes a lot longer than if a machine mixed up the batches, but it's also incredibly empowering to look at what you've made and be able to truly say that every part of that wall was made by you.

The concrete making didn't take as long as I expected and by 2pm I was done. I was also, to put it mildly, shattered. Next weekend I'll render over the steps and then that whole half of the wall will be finished.

I might even tackle that tree...