The works are beginning in earnest

 One of the front planter boxes is built. 

Interior view of the bracing and side

view from the driveway.

Mish and our handywoman pal Paula sorting their stuff to begin bending and cutting the Corten steel to place it around the concrete free area ready for the tree arriving in a couple of weeks. Change of plan for the tree; we did buy an ornamental cherry but have swapped it for a much more productive and pretty crabapple.

Woman with a power tool. Sparks flying

And woman with paint, spraying the plastic house letterbox installation.

Our small metal letterbox was nicked last Christmas so we had the bright idea to remodel our failed fire as a letterbox. It had been sitting outside since the end of winter 2021 waiting to be either scrap metal or art work.

When we found an actual house shaped letterbox in Napier the vision solidified into using the old fire as the base and plastic house as letterbox on top.

Here it is before painting, in disgrace out in the yard. A little Mish carpentry on top to attach the letterbox house.

Trolleyed it down the drive, blimmin solid iron thing, and worked it into position. We tried to place it over the base of the old letterbox but someone (this writer dear readers) had miss-measured the base  😕 and we got a bit stuck. Heavy! At that point a car pulled up and a beefy grinning neighbour jumped out and gave us a hand. We sort of got it into position and he shot home and came back with a reciprocating saw and took a bit off the old base to make it fit. So now we've met John and Diane who live around the corner. 

Painted, in position, and getting a touchup where we scraped some paint off.

House letterbox is on and ta dah!

Meanwhile, in another part of the yard...

We have to do ground testing to build the extension, so the builder knows how deep to drive the piles in  our sandy soil. A geotech team came this week and did miscellaneous engineering stuff for hours involving 10 metre deep drilling and a soakage test where 5000 litres of water was pumped into a hole (and disappeared - gosh, it's sand). And of course, a liquefaction test to see if the backyard will turn to mud in the vibration of a big earthquake. 

Funnily enough, we did have a good shake this morning, haven't had one for a while. 

A 4.7 quake centered 25km west of us in the sea and 28km down. 

Several hours and thousands of dollars later, findings are pending. No probs expected.