When the rain cleared today we got out and made our first gabion. We've saved $500 by making six cages ourselves, and we'll get quicker and better at it. We hope. This is the first one (below) and it took about two hours to make. Much twitching of wire.
We're making them from concrete reinforcing mesh; cut them at Bunnings and carted them home in the van. We're bending spiky ends in and drawing the shape together with wire on corners and edges. Mish scored the little yellow chair today and hacked a bit off to give us a pipe to bend the mesh. Cunning. You put the pipe over the metal and use it as a lever.
The first one is pretty daggy, but it'll work. And no-one has lost an eye yet.
As we worked we could hear parties beginning around us - three, as the afternoon turns into evening. People clinking bottles and firing up the bbq, getting ready for tonight's 9pm final. We packed it in about 6 and had a sunset drink admiring gabion and thinking about a deck, right where we're standing in the photo, with a raised viewing platform so we can see the ocean.
Gonna be a long night. We'll be watching of course, along with nearly everyone else in NZ. Two and a half hours to go...
The All Blacks are the winners. What a high for the home crowd. Judy
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