Sunday 13th May 2012
Although my last post is dated Wednesday 2nd May, that was the day I started it – then took nearly a week to write it, while doing add jobs around the place. Making a rustic doormat to reduce the amount of sand carried into the cabin, Carrying my valuable hoard of recycled roof-sheeting out of the workshop and tucking it out of sight behind the cabin again. Digging a new latrine pit, since the original pit is now completely exposed in the middle of the clearing created around the cabin during the fire.
I also spent a few hours trimming new growth from two trees close together in the glade below the cabin. The idea is to build a rustic desk, so that I can write in the shade during the heat of the day when the dark wood of the cabin simply soaks up the heat.
Jeffrey still appears once a week, or twice, perhaps. I’ve given up trying to work out his schedule. I think it depends largely on the state of his Account at the Bottle store, unfortunately. I’ve set him to cutting the new growth on the stumps left after the initial alien vegetation clearing operation. In the process we’ve discovered that the soil appears to be better on the Eastern side of the plot, between the two dry rivulets below the pond. No water in the pond yet – maybe I’ll have enough time to clear it and improve the badly constructed wall before the rains start in earnest.
By the middle of this week I needed supplies and also had to change the incorrect fan-belt I’d bought for the Opel. I’d also decided – after a week of cooking on just a hot-plate – that I might as well buy a microwave oven, so I went to town on Wednesday. As usual, I parked close to the Spar store and walked from place to place mopping up other shopping first, such as a stapler and pens from the Chinese R5 Store and button batteries for the Thermometer/Clock from the Somalian cell-phone shop. The Somalian didn’t have the right batteries, but he said “I get, I get!” and made a cell-phone call. Minutes later another immigrant ran in the door, plonked a tupperware container on the counter, and left. The storekeeper rummaged in the Tupperware and found the batteries I needed. Of course they were made in China and the pair cost much less than I’d paid for one in Johannesburg.
At Lewis stores I chose a simple “Defy” microwave with a clockwork timer. I’d been hoping to find an inexpensive electronic model, but the convenience and accuracy was really not worth the difference in price. Besides, “Defy” is a trusted old Proudly South African brand. Yeah right! Wrong! Badge Engineered in China these days…
The only push-button switch I could find at the various “Electronics” shops to replace the broken immobiliser switch on the Opel was a rather large domestic alarm panic button, which I decided was a little obvious for a hidden immobiliser switch, so when I got home I fished around behind the dashboard with a piece of press-stick on the end of a stiff wire. It didn’t take me long to recover the push-button and the spring – both minuscule – from a ridge near the switch. Two dabs of superglue later, I had attached the button to the spring and the spring to the switch. Not the way it was designed to stay together, but it works.
One down, several hundred to go!
The sun sets earlier every day, so I spent an evening experimenting with some flattened TetraBrik cartons I had collected. I stapled eight of them together to form channels with the aluminium foil surface outside to use as insulation for the cabin roof. (See under “Recycling” on the Menu)
On Friday and Saturday I at last started to assemble the first compost bin from the recycled steel roof sheets. During the last trip I had flattened a sheet of IBR and a sheet of corrugated roofing by driving repeatedly over them with the pickup – which is neither eco-friendly nor economical! I needed to flatten another piece of corrugated steel for the second side. Us I usually do when faced with a problem, I spend some time just looking at it. Then I look around to see if I can see something that might lead to a solution.
Eureka! Jeffrey has covered the digester excavation with corrugated sheeting from a demolished privy and weighted it down with some thick beams from the excessively robustly engineered seating arrangement. Solution: place the sheet on one of the broad, 4 cm thick planks, then use another as a drop-hammer to flatten the ridges. It’s loud, but it works. (Well, it’s not quite as loud as the Gospel songs wafting across from the RDP housing. I’m going to find that Believer and buy him another CD – I’m bored with this one now!)
I blind-rivetted the sloping front to the sides on the level area in front of the cabin, then selected a suitable piece of IBR for the back. By the time I’d dressed out a few dents and clamped it in place, dusk was falling as fast as the temperature, so I retreated indoors, leaving what looked like an early prototype of a Da Vinci battle tank on my doorstep for the night.
The compost bin under construction
Of course I’d flattened the front sheet because of Ol’ Pythagoras – the slope required a longer piece of metal to cover it. The slope is intended to maximise the transfer of solar radiation into the bin to speed up composting. The angle of the slope was determined rather unscientifically by the angle of the privy roof from which I’d scavenged the sheet! As it happens, it is near enough the best angle for a compromise between summer and winter efficiency.
Flattening the sheet entirely was a daft mistake though – the front was now too floppy to support itself. I considered taking it off and putting one of the ridges back, but eventually decided simply to fold in angles at the top and bottom to stiffen the front, relying on the compost inside to provide the necessary support.
Aah well. hat’s what prototypes are for, I suppose…