Lazy!

The weather is getting cooler, and the Baker's Oven is cooking a roast lamb as I type. Where did the time go? Marty has been busy working, I've been keeping things together around here. We did a little renovating!



The stone supporting wall needed a few gaps filling as the mortar had turned to sand long ago. Some of the stones needed replacing, too, because they just fell apart in our hands. Luckily we have a ready supply of those stones in the backyard. I know that sounds crazy, but that's how things were done back in the day. Local materials were used!

A batch of mortar mix was made for the job. It's made by mixing 1 part lime to 3 parts sand. Mixing is done in the cement mixer and we use some old mill balls from the gold mine to help squish the lime into the sand. The mixing can take an hour, but it's a lot easier than doing it by hand!

I repointed the bricks with my new pointing trowel (which is a thin trowel to force the lime inbetween the bricks easier), and filled all the little holes. It still took me around 2 hours to do this one section of wall!

The next day Marty was home and we made a plaster mix. (1 part lime to 2 parts sand.) It took us only an hour together to plaster this section of wall - you can see it's darker in colour because it's still wet. Much faster and more satisfying work. :) The hole you might be able to see, is where the ventilation grate is. It's not quite letting air through yet, but we know where it is now, so we can work on making it open again over time.

Other news here at the Old Miner's Cottage is we've gone and bought ourselves a ute.



It needs a little work, a roadworthy certificate, and registration - but it's all ours! :)

Otherwise, it's been pretty relaxed around here..



The chooks are all doing well - we had one dorking pullet hurt her beak somehow, but it's repairing nicely. I can't imagine how she did it, but I'm glad she's ok! The dorking who brought-up the aracuana chicks has decided she wants to do it again already! I'm not keen to start hatching quite yet. Perhaps after winter! At the moment we have 15 chooks, and we get 0 eggs per day. Can't get much more relaxed than that, can we? :)

We've also been casually looking into property. Don't fret though! Nothing's happening yet - we're still well in the dreaming stage of getting more land for even more chookies. :)

Until next time!