We’re a drillin’ for water

Posted on December 8, 2006 by admin.presshost

The next stage of the garden renovations have taken place with the sinking of a bore to get water for watering.

Because of the water restrictions we are only allowed to water two days a week (Thursday and Sunday) and not between the hours of 9am and 6pm and once only on these days.

By placing the bore it removes the two day restriction meaning we are able to water twice a day if we wanted to, although the time restriction still applies. Not that I would water twice a day.

Most importantly it reduces the burden on the scheme water supply, after all, what is the point of pouring drinking grade water onto a garden.


The well, a PVC pipe dropped 15 metres into the water table below.


A stainless steel pump being lowered down the well.


Pumped to the surface, the water runoff.


The bore housing, now self contained and sealed up.


Laying the PVC reticulation pipe.

The problem with Perth is that we don’t actually have soil. Our ground is sand sand and more sand and it doesn’t really retain water. It’s not too bad if it stays moist but once it dries out it gets a silicone build up that stops water from sinking from being held.

It’s not uncommon to run sprinklers for 10 minutes and only wet about 1cm of topsoil with dry sand underneath. A wetting agent, usually a soap product will allow the sand to hold onto the water but regular watering is the best way to go.

The other problem with allowing the sand to dry out is the onset of ants which eat out the roots of plants and shift all the sand upwards. I won’t get insecticide to deal with this problem so moisture is a happy solution for me.

Posted in Home | Tagged | 2 Comments

It was bloody dark

Posted on December 5, 2006 by admin.presshost

That was my first impression of Daylight Savings when I got up for work this morning.

Yes, now Perth has daylight savings and once again old debates have been stired up regarding the pros and cons of it all.

Myself I am not really against daylight savings but I also don’t see the need for it here in Perth. In fact, this is the fourth time that it has been trialled here with referendums at the end of each trial ending in a vote against the permenant implementation of it.

It’s not just about curtains fading because of a supposed extra hour of sunlight or the cows getting confused about what time they are getting milked, there are some genuine reasons against daylight savings.

While it is easy to say that Perth and Sydney are generally two hours apart in time, this is only a clock time. To be exactly two hours different Sydney would need to be 30 degrees east of perth when in fact it is closer to 36. This actually means that, discounting two hours, daylight starts and ends earlier in Sydney.

Or as the Perth Observatory put it “Sydney is about a degree east of its time-line (150E) and has both sunrise and sunset about 4 min. earlier than a place on the time-line*. Perth is about 4 degrees west of its time-line (120E) and has both sunrise and sunset about 16 min. later than on the time-line* (* at the same latitude). You could say that Perth has an inbuilt daylight saving of 20 minutes, compared with Sydney”

Well, 20 minutes is a difference but it’s not really that big a difference and the closer to the equator you travel, the less effective daylight savings actually is.

To put it in context, here are the hours of sunrise and sunset on the day of the summer solstice, 2006

Perth
(22 December 2006)		 Sydney
(22 December 2006)		 London
(21 June 2006)
Sunrise 06.08 05.41 04.43
Sunset 20.22 20.06 21.21

I don’t think that Perth really needs to have daylight savings. It is understandable on a place like London where, without daylight savings it would start to see twilight at around 2 in the morning, but here it is just an exercise in sun loving and, with such a high rate of skin cancer, is that really the best thing to be doing.

Having said that, I’m just going to wait and see how I feel a few weeks into the trial.

Posted in Personal | Tagged | Leave a comment

New Pond (part three)

Posted on November 19, 2006 by admin.presshost

It was my aim to finish the pond for my birthday but the cost of the liner was more than I had anticipated so I accepted that I would not be able to get the stones needed to finish it off straight away.

My mother got me a Buddha fountain statue for my birthday which I positioned as the feature and that’s where I got up to.. Close, but not done.

A week or so later I decided to cement the stepping stones in place as they were prone to movement, something I would not have done if I had got the stones already, so I guess it worked out for the best. I also found a really clever little light that would sit up inside the bowl in the Buddha’s hand so I put that in and connected it all up to the pump.

Finally I got a trailer load of rainbow stone to finish it off. It did not take me very long to spread it out.

Above and below – Finished product… Almost!

With a quarter of a trailer of stone still left over I found myself wondering what to do with it.

I had already decided during construction that I was going to leave the other pond intact, a decision that was made when I discovered that there were fish living and breeding quite contently in there, but it was the excess stones that made me decide to tie the two ponds together in a common theme.

My dad had already suggested the removal of the ground cover around the second pond and because of the fairly minimalist feel of the first pond I felt that this was a good idea as it was too heavy. I felt it would be easy to get rid of this plant and continue the stones back.

That’s when I re-discovered the garden kerbing that the previous owners had put down to seperate the garden beds from the lawn. Thankfully I was able to lift the concrete up, breaking it at the expansion joints and then move it out of the way.

I could now call the pond finished. I later put some lillies and some koi into it, the lillies look great but the koi are being coy! They find hiding spots under the bowl of the fountain and between the pots where the lilies sit. I am hoping that they will start coming out when I feed them soon.


Finished Pond.


Finished Pond.


Buddha statue with water-cooled halogen light.


Buddha statue at night.


Night view of the pond with statue lighting up and solar powered garden lights bordering the garden.


The old pond, tied in with the new one.

So.. Now for the next project.. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m itching to get started!

Posted in Home | Tagged | 2 Comments

New Pond (part two)

Posted on November 12, 2006 by admin.presshost

With winter passing the weeds had taken over the bush garden causing the pea gravel to get further buried under the sand.

Unfortunately I had not taken photos of the project at this stage so I cannot show you what the garden looked like when I moved in or what the bridge over the old pond looked like. I do have a photo of Cameron by the new garden bed, the overgrown bush garden in the background.

With spring and the weather starting to get warmer I was more motivated to return outside and with the school holidays at the start of October I made a push to try and get finished before my birthday in the middle of the month.

The first part of the project was to clear out the weeds and all the pea gravel. This was done by using a fryer basket that I had bought from the supermarket and shovelling the sand and gravel through it putting the sand into a big pile and the gravel into the wheelbarrow.

Some of the sand I had already used to make a rock garden at near to the back bedroom windows and also had spread on the new garden beds to raise them up a little. The rest was used to level out the garden.


With the garden finally cleared out it was time think about the actual construction of the pond.


Starting to dig I discovered that, during the building of the house, the plasterers had buried the excess plaster in a hole, right where I wanted to put the pond. It was quite a large thick chunk but thankfully easily broke up when smashed with my shovel.

Top left – Using poles and sting to mark out the area I used old paving slabs to form the sides of the pond. I then mixed up some concrete and rendered the sides to hold them in place and formed the bottom of the pond, curving it to make it deeper in the middle but still allowing for structual support along the sides.

Top Right – After the pond was formed I used some black plastic to put down in the garden area as a way of keeping the weeds out and to stop the future stones from getting eaten by the dirt.
I then used pond liner to fill out the pond sealing it for the water to be added.

Bottom Right – Lobelia seedlings had been bought a few weeks prior and put into these pots while they grew.


With the plastic down, the pond is really starting to take shape.


To get the pond liner to form its shape, the next stage was to fill the pond. I also took this time to plant the lobelia seedlings.

Posted in Garden, Home | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New Pond (part one)

Posted on November 6, 2006 by admin.presshost

When I first moved into this house, I started to formulate an idea for a new pond in the back garden. There actually was pond already, but it didn’t look very good so my plan was to fill it in when I create the new one.

I knew where I wanted to put it too. As you come off the patio into the back garden would be perfect.

The previous owners had built a very Australian feel bush garden in this area but it was held in by border paving that was originally designed to form a circle but they had attempted to form an oval with it. As a result, there were gaps where the concrete blocks didn’t quite meet up.

The lawn was starting to push into this garden and, as I discovered when I tried to remove the grass runners, there was no plastic underneath the pea gravel meaning that there was nothing stopping the weeds from growing up through the small stones and nothing to stop the small stones ending up buried in the sand.

The first thing I started to do was remove the lawn along the edge of this garden so I could plant a couple of citrus trees.

I decided to use the border edging from the bush garden to border the new garden bed that I was creating thus causing the gravel to fall further into sand.

With the idea of the pond still in my head I bought some more border pavers and some box hedge to divide the future feature from the existing garden.

Around the same time I also attempted to plant a lot of seedings into the new garden but unfortunately, due to the cat digging them up, very few survived.


With the new slabs and box hedge at the back and citrus trees at the front, the new garden bed has taken shape.

At this point the new pond was a distant plan but something happened to speed up the development.

Above the existing pond sat a bridge. We had been warned by the previous owners that it was a feature only and not really strong enough for people to stand on. I knew that I would have to get rid of this bridge because it was not keeping with the plan I had in mind.

Of course, moving a bridge like that would have been a lot of work so it was not something I was really rushing to get done, however nature had other plans.

Rather carelessly, the previous owner had built the bridge out of untreated pine and then allowed the pine to come in contact with the ground..

Great meal for the termites!

And thus ended the bridge.

And with the onset of winter, the work on the garden also ended.

Posted in Garden, Home | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Just in time

Posted on November 4, 2006 by admin.presshost

This morning we took the bus into the city. It’s become something that we do quite regularly as transporting 2 adults and 4 kids around is not the easiest thing to do when your car only holds five.

Thankfully it’s incredibly cheap to head do. A $7.70 family day rider lets us travel anywhere across the perth public transport network.. All day. We make little excursions out of it.

Today we went into the city to go shopping, had lunch, popped into the art gallery, saw a global warming protest concert, went into Northbridge where they are setting up for the annual festival (which is tonight), had Es Telar (an Indonesian Ice dessert), stopped by Hyde park and played for a while before catching the bus to get home.

It had been overcast all day, but not cold, and the forecast had been for thunderstorms later.

There was lightning in the sky when we got off our bus and the distant roll of thunder. Four hundred metres to walk home.. No problem.

Emily and Cameron had run off ahead leaving James and Thomas with Lia and myself. With maybe a little more than 50 metres from the house I suddenly got hit by a big drop of water.

“Run” I exclaimed.

So we did and no sooner than we got into the house, the rain started bucketing down.

Posted in Home, Kids | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Halloween

Posted on November 2, 2006 by admin.presshost

The other night we had so many kids knocking on our door with cries of “Trick or Treat”

As much as I wanted to berate them about the adoption of yet another Americanism diluting our culture, I just couldn’t do it. Some of them had gone to such effort with their costumes.

So instead I apologetically told them that I didn’t have any treats.

Perhaps next year I should soften my attitude to Halloween and invest in some lollies.

Posted in Home | Leave a comment

Discarded

Posted on October 16, 2006 by admin.presshost

It sat by the door of the shop. Discarded.

A fast food store drink cup that someone had finished with. Someone who was too lazy to walk the 2 extra metres to the rubbish bin.

In the corner it sat until, inevitably foot contact was made by someone leaving the shop and the cup soon found a new home in the heavy traffic area of the mall.

A lot of people saw the cup but some didn’t.

A lot of people side-stepped around the cup but two more people kicked it, the ice inside making music as it swirled around the cup.

The next foot to make contact crushed the cup flat. Icy water draining out of it and splashing over the pavement as the opaque plastic lid separated violently from the waxed paper body.

Now the half crushed cup was kicked away from it’s lid and, when the wind picked it up, it was carried even further away.

Then the pram came by.

The parents pushing were oblivious to the half crushed paper vessel that the wheel picked up and dragged up the mall until it was reunited with the lid.

Together again at last.

That’s what I did in the 15 minutes I was waiting outside a clothing shop for Lia yesterday. What kind of things do YOU do to entertain yourself?

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 2 Comments

Office Renovation Rescue

Posted on October 12, 2006 by admin.presshost

The belated follow up post to the coffee machine.

When I got my new coffee machine there were three reasons behind the purchase.
Firstly, it was on special for a really good price, secondly it was available on deferred payments allowing me to spread the payments out over 6 months and finally it was to be used in my office and claimed as a tax deduction.

It ended up spuring on an extensive makeover of my office, making it look a lot more professional.

To refresh your memory, the office looked like this –

20447

My office. Jamie’s computer on the left, my computer on the right. Emily uses the notebook (currently closed) and the computer my housemate sometimes uses.

20448

Looking in from the “meeting area”

20449

Files. The orange files are a new addition. I printed proper labels for them and I intend to replace all the files to match and paint the archive boxes as well.

20450

Blue Glow. When I upgraded my computer Jamie got the old box. I got myself a new iCute case which included all the fluro.. Cool huh!

Changes


The first thing that was needed was a home for the new coffee machine. A local office furniture supplier provided me with a very nice and inexpensive mobile cabinet which also became home to some of the junk that was lying around. Because of the cost of this piece of furniture, a re-think about the whole office was done.

The previous owners used this room as a formal lounge and dining room. It was decorated by the wife and suited the decor of the room but it really didn’t suit an office environment. I have wanted to do something about the dusty pink colour that had been applied for a little while so I made plans to paint.

I decided to take the colour from my business cards using the blue as the main colour but also taking the orange as a bold feature.

I also went to the stationary store and got the new lever arch files that I wanted, the orange ones, as well as some other items. I hadn’t started the painting at this stage but in my mind I could see the overall effect and just adding these touches were a mild improvement.

A trip out to IKEA found me these tressel benches, unpainted as well as some very attractive and surprisingly cheap lamps. The desktop used to sit on some chipboard and these old draws which were not in the best of condition


When I painted the room I also painted the trestles to match, keeping the existing desktop. The change of colour lifted the room considerably and the orange items that I had added were now starting to complement better.


The shelving that had held my Doctor Who stuff was left off the wall this time and we ended up cutting it down a little to add more storage in the kitchen. I moved the toys and books out of the work area in line with the concept of having a clean and professional work area.


Next was a return to the office furniture supplier that I had got the coffee machine cabinet from, purchasing a new bookcase to match. The old wall units that had held my books were moved to the garage where they are now being used for storage there.


Four archive boxes were painted to match the walls with the lids painted in gloss orange. These now are home to various spare cables, power leads, network devices and other bits of junk I haven’t had the will to part with yet.

Next a typists return was added to the work area giving me space to store paper and my printer. I purchased a print server that plugged into the LPT port and untangled the 10 metre USB cable that was previously connecting it to my computer. This had the added advantage of freeing up my computer from acting as the network server for the printer meaning that the other computers on the network can now access the printer even if my machine is off.

I want to get Network Attached Storage next to take my machine totally out of the loop for LAN users.

My computer was relocated to where Jamie’s machine was, giving me extra room to work.


I found these vases in Mount Hawthorn and decided that they were perfect for finishing off the office. I believe I have reached critical mass for the orange now, anything more will start to make it all look distracting.


It took me around five weeks to get from the before image to the after.


After photo


After photo

Future Plans

I want to get a couple of visitor chairs for clients and extend the work bench along the window putting in a couple of extra machines for the kids to play on.

Posted in Home, Work | Tagged , | Leave a comment