Magpie Visits Our Shrine

We don't actually know what to call the wall cavity facing the back door, the one that springs water-leaks whenever it rains, but M. has been transforming this space with ferns. Amid the ferns is a Japanese lantern that M. bought about four years ago, which I have always thought should be in a shrine of some sort. (Perhaps this is because it sat among the ferns around the pond in our last place.) Since it now sits in a shrine-like cavity …

Anyway, the magpies have been getting accustomed to us, and Ted, and scavenging from Ted's bowl whenever he leaves anything behind, or from the bones he leaves in the garden. And, apparently, the Japanese lantern is the perfect spot to check out the food bowl.

Original 70s Orange Tiles

M. found this is the front garden about a month ago. I found another two fragments in the side garden yesterday, where all sorts of rubbish is buried (more on which, anon). Will we find a complete tile?

I photographed the tile against the brickwork in the kitchen, which is where it probably came from. M. wants to replace the grey tiles behind the sink with some like this. Since that the kitchen has been made-over I am not sure we could use them in the kitchen without changing all the other tiles and some of the fittings too, but I adore the colour and want to find somewhere for them. Bathroom perhaps?

Of course, finding whole old tiles like this, or new tiles like this, is bound to be a challenge in itself, regardless of where we use them.

Back Garden Plan No.2

[Old Plan]

The four main changes are that I have [1] substituted one large pentagonal bed and a small deck for the two rectangular herb beds under the gum tree, [2] widened the path, [3] split the monster glass/hot-house in two (now, half hot-house, half chook-house), and [4] added a lower path/deck.

[New Plan]

The minor changes include moving the garden seat closer to the gum (so that it is opposite the deck and, therefore, has a clear view over the house), moving some of the privacy screens and fruit trees. Missing from the plan is the water-tank in the first plan, but I will re-instate it once I have done some more measuring.

A few of these changes were forced on us. If we build anything with a floor-area of more than 10m sq we need planning approval; to get planning approval we need a geophysical survey because we are in a mild land-slip area. Expensive and time-consuming. Two separate structures of 10m sq are fine, one which is 20m sq is not: so the 20m sq glass house has become one glass house and one chook house.

[The Plan]

We wanted chooks and originally, but vaguely, planned on putting them in the top-left (above the X) once the fruit trees were established. Having seen J. and M.'s majestic Summer Palace, and having been inspired by this chook-house on J's blog, we decided to incorporate the chook-house into the plan. Also, since it turns out our neighbours are deaf and stupid (but not, alas, dumb) we thought that the closer we placed the chook-house to their bedrooms, the better.

[Chook House]

As you can see (I have marked north on the New plan), the night-quarters for the chooks will face the morning sun and be accessible from the path behind/outside for early-morning egg-raids. And, because of the sharp fall in the land, will be well clear of the ground, without requiring a steep ramp. Something like this …

[TEXT]

except with an asymmetrical roof, and the coop lower … you get the general idea!

[Planning]

Some of the other changes were inspired by plans that appear in the DIY book (top right in the picture below), which was a birthday present from M. Others are refinements which result from closer and longer observation. For example, now that we have cleared most of the back fence of ivy we have discovered that we will have to build reasonably high retaining walls, a lot closer to the back fence than planned, because so much soil has washed away from the back fence that the bottom of the fence-posts have been left clear of the earth and the fence is falling over.

So, we need to build a retaining wall higher than the bottom of the fence, which is about 40–60cm above present ground level. In fact, we need to build this wall as high as we can without requiring planning approval (which is 1m), and we need soil to put behind it. By widening the path, we can use all the excavated soil to back-fill the new retaining wall. The side-benefit of this is that we get a much wider path and since the existing path is way too narrow for a wheel-barrow, this is a good thing. Also, on a block with precious little flat ground …

[Herb Garden bed, elevation]

The lack of flat ground, and the need for some flat area in the garden, is the reason for the small deck, which is on the same level as the path, and extends the flat area out, under the gum tree. The large pentagonal herb bed is alligned to North. The point closest to the house will have quite a high front face to the retaining wall so that the top is level is 20cm above the path at the back. The front point could be as much at 1.2m above present ground level, which would require six 20cm-wide sleepers—close to the limit, and more than can be supported without spending serious money on steel uprights. So, we think we will construct the bottom two rows in masonry and cement the supports into this base.

[Vegie Garden bed, elevation]

Partly to cover up the masonry, and partly because a path between the house and the vegie beds will be useful anyway, we are likely to use the same masonry to support a duckboard path (see above, at left). Somehow or other we will join this path with the path between each garden-bed and with the deck, but where we will put the steps up to the deck won't be clear until we do a lot more measuring!

Maggie vs Cockies

We had a show-down here the other day between one magpies and half-a-dozen sulphur-crested cockatoos. The cockatoos won the battle, but not the war.

It started innocently enough. The family of magpies that calls this spot home have been gradually getting used to us and, although we decided we will not feed them regularly, it is hard to throw away wrinkled apples and such when you know that the magpies and the ravens and the cockatoos etc etc will make short work of them.

And, since the maggies have been getting the occasional left-over (burnt rice seems to be a favourite), they are now keeping a closer eye on us. So when I saw a lone maggie on our doorstep the other day, I went and got a handful of oats. The maggie was very impressed and got stuck into them. Unfortunately, what I had not seen or heard (amazingly) was a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos.

One after another they descended from the heavens. The first one landed on the phone line above the railing (photo above). Then he jumped down onto the railing and got stuck into the oats (photo below). Then another landed on the railing.

As each one arrived our maggie hopped further away on the railing.

And the cockatoos kept arriving. On the railing, on the over-head beams, and then …

… more on the phone line! I had been bemused to begin with, but once there were two enormous cockatoos on the phone line I went and got Ted to chase them away. I have seen flocks here as large as thirty or forty and, given how much hassle we had getting the phone connected, I wasn't going to let the cockatoos bring it down, either through weight of numbers or by chewing on it as a substitute for the oats!

Ted did his job and I learnt my lesson. No more oats. For now on, we only feed the maggies Ted's left over carrion, which the cockatoos are not interested in!

Our Hornsea Heirloom Obsession

For a while now I have been meaning to mention our Hornsea Heirloom collection/obsession.

[Why, yes, that is twenty bowls]

Two events are responsible for our completist obsession with Hornsea Heirloom. First, about three years ago, M. and I were tempted by, but decided not to buy, a very reasonably priced 70s dinner set at an antique shop. Within a week we were regretting our decision, but when we went back, the set was gone and all we could remember about it was that it was brown. We couldn't recall a maker or the name of the series.

Some time later we found one or two brown pieces of the Hornsea Heirloom series, thought they might have been from our mystery brown 70s dinner set, bought them, and then—having a few pieces to work from—went looking for more on eBay. Not long after, a huge collection of Hornsea Heirloom pieces turned up. We were very excited by the scale of the lot, and the price. I was all ready to put in a last-minute killer bid, I had even organised someone to pick the set up for us, but got distracted and missed the end of the auction! The lot was vast, and it went for less than $100.

Everyone was seriously unimpressed. I/we have been trying to make up for these two near-misses ever since. I started buying up everything I could find at a half-reasonable price on eBay while my sister kept an eye open for pieces too, both locally and online. I bought a few large lots, and many single pieces, mostly from Australia, but a few pieces that I couldn't get here were ordered from the UK. I also scoured the web for information about what we had, and what we were missing.

At first, we decided we wanted a set of four, then six, then eight, then twelve. The problem was, having settled on four or six or whatever, I would buy a another large mixed lot—in order to get some of the more obscure pieces we didn't yet have—and all of the extras, the duplicates, would almost succeed in expanding our entire set to the next round number, eight or twelve.

[Why yes, that is eighteen cups]

Having finally given in and decided on aiming for enough tableware to serve twelve people we found that we still had so many duplicates that we could select the ones we wanted to keep based on the particular shade of brown that we liked, the particular backstamps that we preferred (ones with dates) and so on. We also got fussier about condition, went looking for replacements, had items broken in transit, bought more, and so the collection grew and grew, but grew irregularly and without shape. It took a long time before the Hornsea collection took on any shape, and before it became really clear what we wanted.

We still haven't quite finished our collection, but we now know exactly what we are missing, so I think it might be useful to start doing a series of posts on the different Heirloom pieces, because when we went looking on line we really struggled to find reliable information on the series. We have also, now, joined the Hornsea Pottery Collectors and Research Society (HPC&RS), so we have been able to buy a copy of Brian Heckford's Hornsea Pottery 1949–89: its people, processes and products (1998), which is the most comprehensive work on the pottery and on this series.

What this means is that we should be able to combine our experience buying Hornsea Heirloom tableware with plenty of photos and reliable information, the sort of information we wanted when we started collecting in 2008. It should also help us keep up the 70s focus on this blog while we struggle to finish the endless weeding!

Lost Guttering of the 70s, Part 2

Since we burnt through half of our woodpile to dry the house out, I decided I may as well completely dismantle the first bay—the one with the logs in it—so that I could raise the wood in it off the ground—like I had in the second bay, the one with the sticks in it.

Having removed all the logs, and dug all the weeds and rubbish out of this bay, I used the last of the timber we salvaged from a monster packing crate to make a platform a few inches off the ground. The off-cut from this platform forms a removable cover to protect the wood from worst of the rain. So, as long as we have wood, we should have no trouble getting a fire going.

Having rebuilt the woodpile, I then added to it everything else I could lay my hands on that needed sawing up. Here is the end result.

BTW: I had a nasty surprise while digging in this patch of dirt: a piece of timber that was riddled with very-much-alive, wriggling termites! None of the other timber I found in this spot contained any termites, but I emptied an entire can of Mortein onto the wood and the ground beneath it, and then drowned the wood in a bucket of turps! Just to be sure to be sure.

Lost Guttering of the 70s*

[*as in "Lost City of the Incas"]

Last week-ish we excavated this original stone guttering from beneath six inches of muck (I mean, very rich soil).

And on Friday the Weather Channel tested it for us.**

In the interim I cleaned up most of the tree limbs that scattered the place, and constructed a woodpile, with a roof to keep the twigs dry. (Which, as you can see, worked a treat.)

Because the rain came down so hard and for so long the house leaked. We had water coming through the ceiling in the laundry, and around the window-frames in the lounge-room (a lot) and bedroom (a little). We also had a sick puppy who we couldn't put out in case he was washed away in the flood. (He got wet enough watching us clear gutters, sweep away rising flood-waters etc etc.) By the time we had finished cleaning up the mess both Ted and the storm had made the house was wet all over.

The only way to dry out the house was to fire up the Coonara (wood heater) and burn through about half of the wood in the second picture. After two days everything was dry: the carpet, our sodden clothes and the dozen soaked towels. And Ted is feeling much better!

**Clearly, the Weather Channel are behind the outrageous weather, they are creating floods and cyclones as a ratings ploy. If you'd seen The Avengers (1998) you'd know what I am on about. (I keep having images flash through my mind of Sean Connery as Sir Augustus de Wynter stomping through the halls of Westminster declaiming to the assembled world leaders "Now is the Winter of Your Discontent" and "You will buy your weather from me! And by God you’ll pay for it!" Much more pleasant than images of Sean Connery as Zed in Zardoz (1974) flashing through your mind.)