Privacy issues

"If thy eye offend thee..." Matthew 18:9

No, we're not going pluck it out, but we are going to block out what offends us...

So much for escaping to the country.  Enjoying the quiet and lebensraum (definition: space required for life, growth or activity) away from the invasion of privacy and hustle and bustle of city life.

Hmmmmmmm...?
We have also tried, unsuccessfully, to ask
our neighbour to remove the dead bushes
along the fence as the field mice have taken
up residence in them big time.  Why exacerbate
a mouse problem and encourage snakes
closer?
(He placed the bushes there originally
to prevent his free range chickens from 
visiting us - and our dogs)

Our neighbour, who has a smallholding which is one and a half times the size of ours, has, for some arbitrary reason, chosen to build his haphazard "house" almost on the border of our two properties.  Not only did he build his "dwelling" with absolutely no plans, foundation nor building inspections, but without any aesthetic consideration - for anyone, it would appear.

The position of the two houses on their
respective smallholdings

Added to which his place is becoming more and more cluttered with "spares".  which is all well and good if he was a tidy and organised person, but he's not.

We have tried, unsuccessfully, in a number of ways, to express our feelings in the politest and most "gentlemanly" ways possible via a friendly conversation or two (over the fence LOL)...

...so to 'block out' the "dwelling" and mess...

...we have planted a double row of Eugenia trees (which are taking far too long to grow to a decent height) and...

Eugenia trees

 ... a small grove of yellowwoods.

Yellowwoods planted to give some future privacy

They will all be our long term solution.

But... RMan has been busy again...

To finally resolve the problem in the short term, we ordered, and purchased, 1000 thin Black Wattle tree poles - 3.0 mtrs high.  By the time the wattle poles have degraded, the trees / bushes should be well enough established to take over the privacy solution.

No, it is not a cheap exercise, but it was the more cost effective of all those that we contemplated.

The poles were cleaned of side branches and stripped of bark...

Black wattle saplings stripped of side branches
and bark

... and they are proving ideal as a screen in that corner of our property.

There will be 23 sections in all - two more will
be added to the right hand side

The screen is not completely solid - there are enough spaces between the poles to allow strong winds through...

The screen after the first day of work

... and it is certainly effective as a visual / privacy barrier.

Hopefully, they, and the future trees, will also help mute the clatter of the noisy blades of old windmill he has just erected and the noise of both the 5.5Kw petrol and the 30KvA diesel generators that he has decided he cannot do without.  So much for going of grid...?!?!?!

A pity that our neighbourly relationship has had to sour to this extent.  But it is not pleasant to have the watchful eyes of our neighbour, his (new) wife and his two current live-in workers (he arbitrarily changes them for complete strangers every 2 - 3 months) apparently constantly trained our way - we are  aware of this because when we go outside we are inevitably called to the barbed wire fence for some reason or the other.  I also have a penchant for, and thoroughly enjoy, wandering outside in my gown (a flimsy one in summer LOL) to drink my first cup of rooibos tea in the early morning to hand water those plants which need it.  Not so pleasant with an audience.

Almost finished...
Thank goodness for the trailer that RMan
purchased a couple of years ago - it's been
put to more uses than we conceived of at the
time :)

On the plus side, we now have a bit more privacy - hopefully, a bit of a sound barrier, an effective wind break, and, lastly, we have also provided employment to the locals who cut down the alien Black Wattles, and who earned some well deserved income in the process.

The garage build begins...

We now have an internet contract, so blogging should get back to normal.  Well, more normal than it has been this past month - getting our final solar power installed will be the cherry on top and relieve the pressure of needing full sun to charge our damaged batteries :)


MKid was still here in June when the builder started by squaring off the foundations which had been dug by the digger loader.

Having the garage is critical to our plans.  Once it is finished we can remove all the goods from storage in Swellendam.  Plus, the biggest bonus means that we can purchase, and install our new solar panels on the roof and place the new batteries in their new power room position - a small (but bigger than the old) room behind the garage on the cooler southern side.  But, what about the old power room?  Well, that is so lovely and cool all year round that it's going to become my cold room / larder.  Yeehah!

Once they were square, the builders could start mixing, and pouring the foundations.

But, just as a watched pot takes forever to boil, the build wasn't helped by my constant checking on progress.

They took so long (in my opinion) that once the foundations were finished I thought we could almost throw a party.

Foundations - lovely, lovely foundations...

However, my excitement was short lived.  For no sooner were the foundations finished than the winter weather hit.  Bad enough for the poor builders, but even worse for the delivery trucks.  Snow and rain.  And more snow and rain.  In fact snow fell on the mountains again last night - the third time this winter.  Unheard of!

Unnavigational

All that liquid caused our entrance to became a quagmire - and 6 and 10 ton trucks were unable to navigate the hurdle.  So, that did the drivers do?  Well, they just dumped the fill and stone where they got stuck.  Which meant that when the ground dried enough for other trucks to deliver, they wouldn't be able to, because the stone was blocking the way.  The grass on either side of the driveway was even more mushy - not compacted like the driveway and completely useless as an alternative route to the house.

RMan and the trailer to the rescue

Thankfully, RMan used his head.  We have a 1.8 ton trailer.  And we had our helper, John, and MKids assistance :)

MKid doing what kids do best - get stuck in helping

Bless him - MKid moved a fair portion of the stone.  And then hopped on the back of the trailer for a ride back to the building site.  He loved it :)

Stone - just dumped on our driveway

To give you some idea of where the stone was dumped check out the circle in the pic below.  Close, but no cigar...:)

The circle shows the spot

Naturally, 5000 bricks weighs even more, so the driver initially offloaded a pile of 500 bricks onto RMan's trailer, but, after only loading 1 500, I guess he got tired of waiting whilst they were being offloaded by hand  So, whilst RMan and the trailer were delivering the third load to the builders, the driver just dumped the balance inside the gate - and left!  And, not having a forklift on the truck meant that they had to be manually loaded and offloaded...

RMan and his trailer - collecting the bricks from the gate

So - although this caused quite a delay, we were lucky for at least we had the wherewithall (a.k.a. the trailer and the builders hands) to get the material where we needed it.

That took 2 1/2 weeks to complete the foundations and build the foundation walls.  Next - we needed fill before we could throw the floor slab.  And that meant another 10 ton truck had to deliver...