Breaking Ground but Not Bones

Breaking Ground

The title apropos of nothing in particular has recalled the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk's .."Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread!" There will be a context shortly, but to the title and its real meaning or at least what I meant when I wrote it.

We have ordered our 110,000 litre tank and of course need somewhere to put it. There are very few flat places at 2335 other than where we intend to put the barn so on Thursday, our excavating friend Sean arrived with his excavator and created one. During the dig we discovered that a large area in the centre of the tank pad was quite squidgy. It was a bit like standing on clay coloured jelly and probably the closest thing to quicksand that I've seen. If you moved your feet up and down, they just sank deeper. Created a bit of a panic about whether the effort had been in vain until I rang the tank guys and discovered that it would be OK provided I used crusher dust rather then the initially recommended sand. Mind you that silver lining had a cloud, I don't know what 13m2 of washed sand costs but that volume of crusher dust added another $1,740 to the cost of the tank.

It's still a positive outcome because even though it's only for the tank, there is at last some building activity! Sean also interred a couple of large drainpipes to channel our overflowing dam water under the 2335B road. I reckon we're contributing kilolitres of water to the Diamond Creek. It augurs well for a dam if I can get the required permit.

NOTE TO SELF - GET ON WITH THE PERMIT APPLICATION!!

More Breaking Ground

After conversations with a number of people about insurance payouts I decided to have a very close look at the policy document and under the section headed "Additional benefits", discovered that in addition to sums for, architect costs for a new dwelling, tree replacement, clean up and rubble removal and site clearing there was a a formula for rental payments for up to 12 months. I had previously spoken to the assessor who had told me that we were not eligible for either clean up costs or rental and had taken him at his word. Bastard never even bothered to mention the architect or trees. Turns out that he was wrong and from my perspective the insurance company less than ethical in handling of our case.

I called our insurance case manager and put my findings to him. His response was that the case was closed and he would have to retrieve it from archive in order to review my claim. After a week having heard nothing I called again and was more than a little pleased to discover that we were in fact entitled to a sum slightly in excess of $40,000. I forbore from asking the obvious question although in writing this with John Fane on the radio in the background, I wonder if perhaps it would be worth raising the question publicly as I'm sure I'm not the only one who has inadvertently been contributing to the profits of the insurance industry. I'll ponder that for a bit.

And now to the Not Broken Bones

A significant chunk of the insurance money has gone to the purchase of a new Kubota tractor. My old Kubota went along with everything else on the 7th and the new one in addition to being more powerful and quite a bit more technically advanced, comes with a front end loader, mid-mount mower and a backhoe. I elected to upgrade the bucket to a 4-in-1 which also allows objects to be picked up, not have the mower and replace it with a slasher when I discovered that it would cost about the same as repairing my old slasher. I also decided to get a post hole digger and finish up with the all singing all dancing small farm tractor.

It was delivered by Bruce from Yarra Glen Mowers and Tractors, a very pleasant and helpful chap and I spent a couple of hours after work day learning how to drive it and began the relocation of a large pile of roadbase and turning it into a new road across the drainage pipes. I felt very pleased with myself.

Thursday Evening was very pleasant if a bit on the chilly side. Newly married friends from Nth Warrandyte, Jenny and Grant came for a Thai dinner which we bought from Tikki at the general store in St Andrews. Grant and I found ourselves standing around the fire with Willo listening to a very detailed explanation of the many and varied levels of one of the adventures on his game computer. We were both fascinated by the never ending stream of information in vivid detail which he recounted, barely pausing to draw breath. So much enthusiam is truly amazing and infectious.

On Fridayday I started constructing an access road up to the tank pad so that I could move all the crusher dust.

I'd completed about two thirds of it, when adding another bucket load of wettish clay loam to the growing pile I discovered that no matter how careful one may think one is being there is always the unexpected ... with bucket raised, I dropped a rear wheel into a soft patch which slewed me sideways the front wheel hit the pile of clay and I discovered what the point of no return was. My reptilian brain leaped into action and screamed get out of here you idiot but fortunately the umpteen times I'd rehearsed this eventuality on my old tractor, kicked the thinking part into action and extracted the required memory. With feet flat on the floor and my hands gripping the steering wheel we slowly toppled over and came to rest lying sideways on the ROPS. Man was I pissed off as I reached up, turned the ignition key off, unbuckled my seatbelt and clambered out of the seat.

Ros was out so the first thing was to get the tractor back on its wheels before she got back. After a quick check over and discovering no apparent damage I removed the back hoe and then realised that I couldn't lift the bloody thing. Off to get the Landrover and see if it could help. Nope not high enough and no winch either. Bit of a bother because I didn't think that there was anything it couldn't do.

Fortunately my neighbour Graeme arrived, having driven past and nearly getting home before realising that the tractor was on its ear. With the assistance of his trusty Bobcat we moved the back-hoe and then lifted the tractor to its more usual upright position. With my grateful thanks Graeme went back to his Friday afternoon's work and I set about trying to work out how to get the back-hoe back in place. Nearly forgot to mention that Ros came home while Graeme and I were getting the tractor back on its feet and was very relieved to find that Willo was in the van watching a video.

Back hoe back on and back on the job although for a while very carefully and with a new shorter approach road!