Four Walls

Well, we’re just short of a roof and we have a building. The walls went up Friday and Saturday and the “lid” or top plate is nearly finished (doing a bit more tomorrow) and will thereafter be ready to take the roof. Windows and skylights are ordered and we’re getting a door donated by Mrs. Next Door (she’s so good).

Here’s how it went:

The weather was  G O R G E O U S  for the end of the week, during which we took bales from the tents and put them in place. To be honest, it was too hot in the sun, but under the tarp it was alright as long as you didn’t work up a sweat, which we all did.

Steven did a proper marathon of volunteering, three days running, all day long, staying positive and enthusiastic. He was talking about doing another day this weekend, but he sensibly took a day off.

Alec took a turn (as did most of us) whacking bales from the outside while people pushed on them from the inside, trying to get them into vaguely straight walls so they could be pinned from above with hazel pegs through the top plate. Unfortunately, the head of the hammer is not visible, but it’s a huge, flanged hammer that looks like something out of a bugs bunny cartoon. Although Barbara calls it The Persuader, we took to calling it the comedy hammer.

It did seem to make the bales comply, though, occasionally with alarming success. In the end we got something sort of approaching flat walls, with the occasional wobble, which I’m actually quite pleased with. That’s one of the things that attracted me to straw buildings, their wobbly, oatmealy texture and shape.

One of my jobs, as I had some previous experience with a hatchet, was to sharpen the coppiced hazel stakes for pounding down through the bales to anchor them together. My aim got worse and worse as my wrist got tired though, so I had to use my swiss army knife to finish a lot of them.

Once again, we didn’t finish til after dark. Here’s Elmo nailing the lids on the top plate, having stuffed the cavities with straw.

It was a hive of activity, and quite dark under the tarp even before it was properly dark outside. But we got so close that there’s only a couple of hours of work left to do tomorrow, though I have a couple of hours of tidying the site as well

Mike and Heidi came to help out, and on the way they spotted a (recently ex-) fitted kitchen with oak doors marked FREE (down from £250) in front of somebody’s house. Complete with fridge freezer, oven, hob and sink, several drawer and cabinet units and some corner shelves. They took a picture, I jumped at it and called Elmo to get him to pick it up on his way over with the trailer. It arrived, and is crazy-heavy, but it will be absolutely marvellous in the little house. When we get to that point. There’s a lot to do in the meantime, so it’s stashed in the marquee where the bales used to be.

Today’s “other news” is that the rope swing has finally gone up. Rob came with his climbing gear and scrambled up the tree (while me and Alec held a safety line attached to his climbing harness) and hauled the tyre and rope up after him. The tree officer was kind enough to tell me the way to hang a rope swing that is not harmful to the tree, which is to take a piece of old tyre, cut it and notch it to fit round the branch and knot the rope round that so it doesn’t rub on the tree.

With some swearing and a long few minutes of muttering to himself, Rob managed to secure the tyre round and tie the rope. Anna gave it a quick tug and I had the inaugural swing (first of many; I can’t wait to get a bit of strength back. I’ve had nothing to swing off for a year!) but my cute, sweet Elmo was the one who got his picture taken.