We now have 4 ducks (and 4 guinea fowl, 2 rabbits and 1 sheep) that mandated a new home. Here it comes:
Mr Ramius digging post holes
Edmore carrying planks
Didymus positioning poles
Mr Artwell bringing more poles
Delight using the adz
Garikai chopping poles to size
Mr Mutsambi with the wire mesh
Adding droppers between the poles
Ramius behind the veil
CIA inside the pen
The customer
Baby pine cones
The Steve McQueen look
Puppy pic!
We had some nice new signs for the school made up in Mutare and have just put them up.
Edmore planing the frames
Delight preparing the poles
George and Artwell carrying the first sign from the workshop
Didymus keeps an eye on the vertical
George with the Tadpole sign
George & Tendai with Didymus & Artwell working on the ‘car park’ sign
The first of the big “welcome” signs
Welcome!
Next down to the main gate with this one
Up it goes
A welcome at the gate
George – always cheery
and “Brutus” … always serious
We arrive just in time for the start of unloading these hardwood beams. Edmore and Delight are already in action on top.
The start of unloading seligna beams
It takes an 8 ton truck to bring the hardwood seligna beams
Beams slide off carefully @ +50kg
Beams slide off carefully @ +50kg
Musodza in action on the truck
Two beams at once join the stack
Stacked on pre-leveled poles.
Tidy stacking
Ramius and George unloading
Manjari
Tendai
Makanza & Saunyama
Several loads later the stack grows
End of the day
The challenge is two fold and based on the geography.
First: the electricity line up from Troutbeck enters Hornbydale running through the bottom of a small valley. Along the valley sides pine, wattle and gum trees have grown over the last 20 – 30 years. Now they tower over the electricity (ZESA) lines and we are carefully removing them on both sides. The direction of the prevailing wind is of course just right to blow weaker trees onto the line.
Second: some of the same trees are poised to fall right over the line of our new fence – and that would never do!
The picture below sums up these two challenges pretty well…
Trees on the fencing line and above the electricity lines
Ramius directing
Watching the see when the tree will go
Begins to fall
Falling
Ramius tidying up
Preparing the winch line for the next tree
Two axe-men start work creating the hinge
Time to look up
and we are off to the races…
Tree coming down!
Ramius standing and watching
Megan with the crew
Tendai working in wetter weather
Saving the log for fire wood later
Hamlet the Jack Russell
Megan and Julien (pronounced French way)
Looking for the article about the school
Clearing dead pines before they decide to fall on the new fence.
The winch man – Garikai
George linking up from the tree to the winch
The happy woodsmen
The moment of impact
Next tree
The chopping begins
until this happens
He’s happy
Arrive at D, turn the corner and we are heading for C. Now we have to practice our downhill fencing skills.
Dogs at fencing D to C
D to C just before the decline
George checking the fence
A serious Garikai
Ramius nailing while the end of the fence is stretched strand by strand
Ramius up close
George manually tensioning for Ramius
Looking back on progress D to C
Last pole before the decline
George holding barbed wire strainer
Pulling the extra strainer between high and low poles
The team tackles the high to low problem
Tightening the high strainer
Bottom support for the same pole
More supplies arriving down the steep section
Garikai
A taste of things to come in C to B
And below the Hornbydale entry in the all Zimbabwe Adventure Fencing Competition 2015.
The C to B Adventure Fencing Challenge Competition
Eastern Highlander 