Hi Everyone,
I've had a few busy days out in the garden. The weather has been nice for over a week. Sunny but not hot. It gave me a good opportunity to build Hamlet's and Lily's new house.
Their new house is a shed. It came as a flatpack. I've become reasonably experienced at building these sheds. I built 3 around 1 1/2 years ago. One was Hamlet's and Lily's first home, my sister's writing sun house on the hill and the garage. All of these were challenging for different reasons. These included the cold, rain, and wind; uneven surface,; and muddy ground.
This time round these weren't a problem. The problem was Hamlet and Lily themselves. They love to interfere with work being done. I remember what they were like when I needed to fix the bottom of the fence. To avoid the trouble the two of them would cause. I decided to assembly parts of their house in the garden behind and above theirs. I needed to assemble as much of it as possible without making it too heavy or difficult to move.
I constructed the base, all four sides and the roof structure. They were close to complete sections. The next part of the plan was to transfer the pieces into Hamlet's and Lily's section of the garden. My mum and sister helped with this. My sister held the sides in place while I attached them to the base; electric screwdriver was a great help. My mum distracted Hamlet and Lily with carrots and their toys. She did well for the most part. Putting the first two wall pieces was the trickiest as they kept moving because of lack of support. Once, we got to the third wall, it was much more stable. It didn't take long to get all the walls up and the structure of the roof.
At this point, we had to move the structure again. We wanted it next to their old house and the wall. The ground needed to be evened out. I fixed that using a tile and inserted mud and some rocks to fill the gaps under parts of the base. Another problem of not being able to build the base in its intended final position. Next, I added the roof panels. That completed the main structure of their home and ensured it was secure while we went to lunch (i.e. they couldn't knock it down in an hour).
Next up was adding the trimming to the roof. It doesn't look like much but it is important for covering sharp edges and making it water proof. The task is a little tedious but not too difficult. Hamlet tried to take the chair I was standing on at one point. I managed to avoid falling.
The building of the house was complete. I didn't need to bother with the doors as they have their home open for better ventilation and access.
The next step was to sort out the interior. Their existing home was in a bad way because Hamlet keeps rubbing her body against the walls of their home. I needed to protect the metal sheet walls that tend to bend after being bashed by a pig. In an attempt to prevent this, I put in very short sections of fence all round the interior. I reinforced them with metal plates and additional stakes. To protect the fence, I used a combination of hay bales, sandbags, and sawdust. I placed a hay bale either side. I stacked the sandbags at the back. To make it more comfortable for them, I scattered sawdust across the rest of the floor.
While in the process of sorting out the interior. We had a visit from its future residents. I expect they were curious as usual.
After the interior was sorted, I revisted the base. I pushed more mud underneath it. I did so, to help more evenly distribute the weight and prevent sections getting bent if a pig walked over them. That basically finished off the house. Over all, it only took 2 days to complete. This is my fastest time so far. Hamlet and Lily weren't too much of an obstacle.
Over all, I'm quite happy with how this project went. Moving it down in large pieces was the best move. I initially wanted to assembly more of it in the other garden but I'm sure it would have made it too difficult and heavy to get down.
Now, we just need to wait for Hamlet and Lily to move into their new home. At the moment they are still comfortable in their old one.
They do visit it for brief periods in the day.
My Content
Another reasonably low output of content from me. I published just the one post. It was the results post for the Ice Cream Game. This involvesd quite a bit of work as I needed to build the model to generate the results as this was the first time I had run this contest. It didn't take too long to do as the requirements were reasonably basic. I managed to make the video on the same day as I built the model. I completed the post, the next morning.
The rest of the week, I spent on the book. I'm happy with the progress so far. I'll provide an update in a couple of weeks. That wraps up this Actifit Report and Update. I'm glad to share something a little different as well as it being linked to my physical activity. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io
