Another cottage update

I love the digital camera. It gives me the ability to immediately recall that we are indeed making some progress, despite frigid weather and driving rain! So after being forced back inside from another downpour late yesterday, I went back and checked our progress.

Reason being is that I have finally removed the nasty steel and iron front fence from the cottage. I don't know who put the old fence up, but I'm sure he was expecting it to survive a nuclear holocaust as he had planted those skinny steel posts in enough concrete to support the Taj Mahal! After digging around the posts, I pulled them out with the ute and a snatch strap.

With the old fence down and a clear run, ( note the rain in this grainy photo ) the first job was to pull out the old H V Mc Kay cast iron gate I've had stashed away and set out the gate posts. H V Mc Kay, or Sunshine Mc Kay,  at the turn of last century, was the largest company in Australia and it's largest exporter. They even re-named the suburb of Braybrook Junction, Sunshine after the famous company! They made an enormous range of farm machinery, implements and general farm equipment and were famous for their quality, it was the best of its kind. Finding one of their gates in good order is a bonus. But I digress....

After securing the gate with it's hefty cast gate hinges I dug out the remaining post holes and set each of the fence posts, including two smaller gate posts for the pedestrian gate, to the string line. With those set in place ( with a combination of rammed earth and dry concrete mix ) I trimmed them all to height and shaped the tops of the four gate posts. These were based on a photo of a picket fence I have seen at the Pleasant Hill Shaker Village. Co-incidently the original fence posts at the nearby St.Pauls Anglican Church ( the oldest in town ) have this gothic arch like shape.

A few days of rain and a particularly nasty bout of the flu later, the rails have being let into the posts. Dovetailed at the top to tie the gates posts together and stop any movement. I had hoped to get the last rail on and fitted but the aforementioned rain beat me to it. It's a gloomy day here again today, but despite the rain, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes you just have to remind yourself to look for it.