Lisa the lumberjack Friday 26 June - Sunday 28 June 2020

Drove up on Friday morning.

Had an initial walk around the garden - there was still a shrivelled fig on the tree, and some cheery jonquils

Was just finishing up when  Terry showed up as he'd seen my car.

Invited him in for a coffee and a chat, and he reciprocated by inviting me to Arleen and David's for dinner that night

The other Terry and his son came over soon after to remove more of the junk around the garden ie behind the sheds (they had already removed a lot of the underpinning dirt)

I had some quick lunch after they all left, and then changed into my coveralls as my self appointed task for the afternoon was to oil the deck of the rotunda

I'd noticed a tin of natural decking oil in the scullery so thought I'd use that.  Easier said than done, as I just couldn't prise the lid off.  In fact I pretty much undid the double furl on the lid all the way around - so that the edges were somewhat sharp.  In desperation I rang up Justin who advised me to try plumbers mates and try yanking it off - still no luck - so reluctantly had to give up

Ended up going and having to buy a new can from the IGA.  Obviously what had happened was that the oil had gummed up around the lid - in effect sealing it shut.

So, spent the  afternoon  doing the first coat - was nice and relaxing

And then a long hot shower - lovely, as although it had cleared up a bit in the afternoon, it was getting pretty cold. 

Onto David and Arleen's around 5.30, no kangaroos

Was lovely and warm in their house, cheese and biscuits to start, smoked salmon and avocado on bruschetta and then some very tasty quiche

A very pleasant evening, infinitely better than the Melbourne leftovers that I would have had for dinner

Left around 10pm and still no kangaroos on the way back

Saturday morning, and it was pretty cold, so read the Age on my ipad in bed for a while

Eventually had to get up though and brave the cold

After breakfast, pottered around the garden,  and decided that the jacaranda need to be chopped up and moved, as the weeds were growing up quite high around it, and it would be too hard to mow around it

I knew that we had an old electric chainsaw that had been my dad's - so got that out of the shed, along with some safety goggles 

Worked out how to use it, cut a few branches, and then  it seemed to be getting a bit sticky, thought it might need some more oil. Found some chainsaw oil in the shed, but decided not to use it.  Went to Plan B which was using a hand saw.  Found that the pruning saw worked best.  (had tried a couple of others ones too)

Was hot and tiring work, especially when the saw got stuck because the cut was closing up.....

 
Did this for some hours, had some lunch, and then after that did the 2nd coat on the rotunda deck (instructions had said to wait 24 hours)

Had my now customary long hot bath when I finished up around 5 or so, then leftovers for dinner, and watched Billions on the ipad in bed

Sunday, and basically just finished off the cutting of the wood.  Gordon dropped by, and said he could finish it off for me- but it was now a challenge for me, and I needed to do it.  Towards the end I was counting the number of cuts left ie 4, 3, 2, 1 - but these were on the thicker bits of the trunk so a lot more time consuming.  I also cut myself some slack ie the thicker bits could be longer than optimal fireplace size pieces, some one else could see to them

Generated a lot of saw dust - resting on the weed leaves

I liked the look of the bark - looked like rhinocerus skin,

And finally it was finished! Doesn't look all that much as per below....

Maile had also suggested that I come out and pick her gorgeous jumbo kalamata olives - so I made a lightning visit, picked a few kg, and also took some rosemary and thyme cuttings for my vegie garden

After all that I picked the last of our olives (quite a few kilos) from our trees, they were starting to shrivel a little, so I decided to cure them in salt back in Melbourne