Forest Final and Imminence

All the trees have finally been planted and just in time for the rains. We've been watering quite intensively as I've been told that indigenous trees grow as fast as exotics do if they get lots of water. John believes the trees are 'happy' in their new home and I've been surprised by a few trees that have sprouted flowers. The sense of what is to come is positive and I almost find myself wishing away five years to hasten the point where they will have grown enough to become a real forest. In the meantime, bees have taken up residence in two of the three hives I installed in the avo trees. I'm just waiting for a wandering queen to take up residence in the third one and I'll be a happy hotelier with 100% occupancy. It is just a matter of time and I hope by Monday it will be occupied - especially as bees don't rest on Sunday's and that's as good a day as any to move in.

My Google weather gadget has been promising rain for the past week and today was briefly warning of snow (in the African bush- please!!), but all we've had is mist and low cloud. Neil has said that he hopes the rains come after Paul Kruger's birthday on 10 October, which will mean a wet summer. If they come before, it will be a dry one. And now it's a question of what is rain? A light dusting of rain came through on Friday night and hopefully this will not be enough to define a dry spell, but just enough to prompt all of my scattered legume seeds to start germinating. There's a race between them germinating and the guinea fowl eating them. I think the guinea fowl are winning. However, the well-watered Cowpea seeds that were planted around the trees have sprouted and are growing vigorously. I just hope that they will bring the promised nitrogen to the soil especially as they have been inoculated with the appropriate bacteria - just as Geoff Lawton instructed!!

On the house front, the progress has been held up by the fixers who were assembling the reinforcing for the columns. After a final heated exchange, they came and finished the work they were meant to complete weeks ago. Now we are busy making final adjustments to our shutters; drilling holes for the pipe clamps and applying a final coat of sealant to make them last a lifetime. Once the columns are cast, which will take a couple of weeks, we can begin with the fun part which is the rammed earth. Johan keeps reminding me that this is all new to him, as it is to everyone. His staff haven't a clue of what is to come - least of all the carpenter who has made all of the odd shaped forms for no obvious purpose. This all adds to the interest level and based on the anxiety levels of Johan, all of his staff know that they are about to share in something unique. I just hope they won't be disappointed.

The solar stuff is on the water on its way from China! It's due to arrive around the 13th October in Durban. I would imagine our bureaucracy will tie it up for a further two weeks and then it will be delivered. By the end of the month then, we should be expecting a delivery of solar hot water heaters and 8kVA of photovoltaic panels. The 'Justroof' solar panels when installed should look similar to the above picture. With the walls going up at around that time, it feels like we are imminently due to encounter a very steep, perhaps rocky but very exciting learning curve!

I've uploaded an updated house plan except the roof will now change. We've decided to use prestressed hollow concrete beams as shown on the left, so it will take us a day or two to get the roof on. There is very little cost differential and we reduce the build time by around 28 days.

In the meantime, the giraffe is standing patiently ready to begin the hard work that lies ahead. Her head is up which is a good sign and she is connected to the grid and her emergency stop works too!!