Maintenance

Dianne, her kids Emily and Aidan, Jessica and I took a stroll around the farm and discovered Ian busy fixing and painting the ‘leaking’ roof of River Sanctuary.

It has been a little inconvenient living around buckets when it rains. Now, at last, RS has a beautifully waterproofed and painted green roof, which blends well into the forest green.



Meanwhile the kids have discovered a fun way to spend their time throwing rocks into the river from the top of the riverbank.

The riverbank, which got seriously washed away during the last flood in November 2007, together with the pump house (the one and only pump which helped us supply all cottages and houses with daily water) and the electrical supply board for the houses in the clearing, is now being painstakingly restored.


We hired a backhoe to clear and widen the riverbed and used a lot of the rock to rebuild the bank.

Then the gabion baskets were beautifully arranged and skillfully filled with river rocks.

Now, the next step is to fill in the gap behind the baskets with some layers of fertile ground and other earth from around the farm and develop a gentle slope over which the future flooding waters could easily and unobstructedly flow. (That’s the theory).

Then we will stabilize.

(Watch this space for future development)