A full-to-bursting dam

It has been raining incessantly at Amherst. In August alone, there was over 110cm of rain, and then on Sept 4th there was another 80+mm. Considering we normally get only around 500mm of rain in a whole year, this was pretty incredible.

When Dave was back in mid-August the dam was already the fullest we'd seen it:






The water was already lapping at the floor of the "dam house":





Then on Dad's last visit a week or so back he said it was over the damhouse floor and you could just see a window sticking up. I wouldn't be surprised if now you can't even see the window (!). Fortunately, Dad reckons it'll all be fine once it dries out as it is all hardwood / treated pine. But still. Seems hard to believe that it could go from being the lowest water level we'd ever seen to the highest in the space of scarcely 18 months.

Work continues on new shed

Given the weather didn't allow for working on the house, Dave and Dad instead focused on getting the new shed erected. Dad had already made a huge start by getting the frame up, but there was still a lot of work to do in terms of getting the roof and walls installed.

Then they set up frames inside to support shelving, and Dave started cutting up some old boards to serve as the floor. Once it's fully finished, it should give us a lot of extra undercover working space, as well as overflow storage.

Olive grove gets a mow too

The olive grove also needed a mow... Here's what it looked like to begin:




And here's the final result...

Mowing the orchard

The fences we put in are working brilliantly to keep the sheep and kangaroos out... but the sad byproduct is that they no longer can eat down the grass. One of Dave's favourite jobs is to mow.

Here's the orchard pre-haircut:



Midway through...




And at the end. Note how Dave took away all the rocks from the trees... they looked lovely but apparently turned out just to be housing for giant grass weeds and spiders.

The campsite gets a (sort of) bathroom

Over his big (UK) summer break from teaching, Dave spent a few weeks working up at Amherst with Dad.

Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time they were there and was absolutely freezing, so they had to get creative about what to do.

One of the things, done largely out of self-preservation and a desire to get warm I think(!) was to get the "camp bath house" in workable condition.

Here's as far as Dad had got it. The bath was hooked up with the tank, with water heated by the wood fire. But it had no walls(!)



They used some of the windows and old wood and corrugated iron Dad had salvaged from rubbish over the years to knock up walls, even stuffing them with leftover insulation from one of Dad's old projects. Some old curtains and wall candles completed the transformation. It's still pretty basic but functional at least for a temporary camp bathroom.

Bullock teams in 1900

Here's another old image that I've just come across, thanks to Museum Victoria.  It's of bullock teams between Talbot and Amherst, circa 1900.

Da-da ... the kitchen doors are in

Some of the finishing at the edges is still to be done, but the patio doors Dad scavenged for the kitchen are now installed. They're centred between the two verandah posts which will (eventually) have steps leading down, and are exactly the style that I'd hoped for.

A collection of ideas

I don't have time at the moment to research these, but didn't want to lose them. So here is a random list of various things that have sparked my curiosity about trying when we finally get to Amherst:

For the garden...

• Growing our own hop vines
• Finding out more about growing irises - "they like to bake" sounds promising...
• Using hollowed out books as planters - bizarre but quirky 
• Indigenous plants for Murray Valley - but Tiff says some of them are same for ours.

Decorating the house...

• George Washington's paint colours - this might be an interesting reference
• Another painting idea - using photos to decorate the wall - tape on and then cover with plexiglass, ala Martha
• This Arts and Crafts shop looks brilliant
• Even better than blackboard paint is this new white paint that turns any wall into a dry-erase whiteboard
• It could be interesting to jerry-rig something like these magic windows using an old computer screen for an inside wall?  I think I'd skip the necklace bit though...
• Even better... just fit a slot for an iPad in a kitchen cupboard and then you can use it for recipes, listening to music, checking mail...  I *love* this concept