Time for Gravel 2

Part 1 of this saga was summer 2022, the second part of the orchard now has been done.  And with a thicker layer of gravel. You need a layer of about 5 cm, or walking over it will expose the underlying geotextile. For dogs running around you might need more. For a running around Tex there is not enough gravel in the world.

This will be it, we think. 

new stitch

Héél de boomgaard is nu bedekt met grind. 

Héél de boomgaard? 

Nee! Een onverzettelijk klein hoekje biedt koppig weerstand!

The whole orchard is now covered with gravel.

The whole orchard?

No! An unyielding little corner stubbornly resists!

Veni, vidi, vici!

Time for Gravel 1

We're fed up with the very good soil in our orchard. The nasty weeds love it far too much, especially the ones with the nasty prickly seeds that stick to dog paws. A few container bags of the stuff each year, followed by meter high Malva. Pretty pink flowers, but indestructable. 

We don't do RoundUp, so it's geotextile + gravel, after engineer De Waal managed to remove ALL weeds. By hand.  Ramblizo has rolls of geotextile that are 4 meters wide, which reduces the number of seams. We still have sewn more than 100 meters I think. With a different stitch later.

This is the first half of the orchard, done summer 2022.

Neatly overlapped and sewn.

Arrival of 10 bags (4 more later)

Tex being helpful, or not

Ready!

AAAARGHHH!

Coco plucked

Now that Coco is getting older, she gets bristly hair. You can brush her all you want, but those hairs won't come off. But, if you pick at them, with your thumb and finger, they come off! Never knew this! And look now! We have a completely smooth young lady again! (And she loves this plucking!)

Even her ears. What a difference!

Tejado 2

In Tejado Engineer Jansen described work on the roof, in September 2022. It is now February 2023, and no, he has not finished yet.  

The east part of the roof (pic below) has now been totally PUR-red and the ends are filled with lime mortar. What remains to be done to this roof half is put a bit of lime mortar on the cement arcs that were not replaced, for consistent color of the roof. Now there are dark patches where there is no new white blob of lime mortar. 

yes, the walls are still having the barra Sahara mud rain stains

Last thing is: paint the sides, on the seams, with LANKO, a flexible cement originally intended for water basins.

Now for the west side

Same procedure. Test every cement arc  at the end of the roof tiles if they are loose. If so: remove. See if there are remaining loose cement bits with a piece of iron wire bent into a small hook.

Then see if the tile itself is still firmly affixed. If not: remove, clean the sides with a copper brush. Clean the cement ridges where the tile was sitting, we want the tile to be exactly where it was, so no grit in between. Wet both tile and seat with a spray of water from the hose (spray gun), then apply PUR para Tejado to stick the tile in place. 

yes, that is a bird's feather and remains of nesting material

fill the grooves where the tile was sitting with PUR

stick the tile back in place, a thin layer of PUR glues it to the roof

the end opening also is filled WITH PUR, it will still get a blob of lime mortar

When the PUR has hardened remove sPURious (ha ha ha) PUR with palet knife, put blob of lime mortar in the end openings. As the top rows here, bottom rows still have unremoved old cement:

For the west end all tiles have now been PUR-red. 

Now the engineer is rather exhausted, his joints ache, his fingers are tired, and he's feeling old.  These last pictures are January 29th 2023. Awaiting better weather and restored health.

Next step is remove spurious PUR, apply lime mortar blobs, and paint sides with LANKO.

Estimated two more months of work, as you can only do this a few hours per day max.

Results

There are great results too.

The roof no longer leaks, even though the roof tile sides still need treatment with LANKO. 

Another great thing is that we no longer have grit in the house when it is windy. In the past we always had some grit along the central wall in the living room, and in the second bathroom. We even put up a row of IKEA cupboard to catch the grit in the living room. Not necessary any more. The canals under the roof tiles were all connected, and connected to the canal under the roof ridge. That is where the bat was, too. And because of missing cement arcs the canals were connected to the outside, too. So, wind blew the sand that is in those canals into the house. It was not that the gypsum layer was crumbling, that is fine.

It also explains why we always had wasps upstairs in the house in summer, despite all windows having mosquito screens. Where there were openings wasps got in, made little wasp nests under the roof tiles, and by mistake also came into the house. 

Sorry, wasps, bats, birds.