Dirt, Manure, Wattle and Daub

So - I didn't really think there were any terrifically interesting pictures of Crimea to post - so we're skipping that and moving on to the Dacha Remont project in pictures. (click to enlarge)

This shows the process - from the state of the wall before -

to the making of the daub - you can see I'm up to my knees in it at one point -

and then the satisfaction of one daubed portion of wall.

Along the way we were helped by Natasha (pink shirt)

Pete - Blue shirt, brown hair

And Iura (blue shirt leaning over Alister at the wall).

We normally had a BBQ each day afterwards and I had promised Pete a Lemon Merengue pie for his Birthday and so it finally materialized during our work as well.

A Summer Series - pt 7

Kiev
Home sweet home :- ). We flew back to Kiev on the amazing and new Wizzair, (It still had a new plane smell!) One hour and a taxi ride later and we were back in our comfy apartment - well not quite so comfy - apparently we had arrived back just in time for the annual two-week cleaning of the water lines - which meant no hot water.

This was slightly uncomfortable - not only for the embarrassment of having to tell our guest that he would have to wash out of a bucket during his vacation - but also because we had been planning to go out and work on our hut during the next week - and had kind of counted on showers. Building with mud and Manure without a shower? - Not a fun prospect. But forge ahead we did. We rented a car - a small tiny thing - but through multiple trips managed to buy and transport beams, lime, brick, chalk, axes, and innumerable other building supplies to our wee potential cottage.

Remont didn't happen as fast as we would have liked - while Pete learned how to Wattle, Daub, Lime, and Plaster all in a four hour course - it took us four days of work just to be able to daub one side. As feared - a lot of the timbers - including supporting beams had rotten from extended contact with moisture. We had to dig out the house - bringing the outside ground level below the level of the interior floor - lay/ relay a brick foundation, hack out rotten wood, and replace it with new strong wood before we were able to even make a mud mix.

My job was battling ants. They had taken up residences all around the hut and were happily laying eggs and munching on the rotting wood. Armed with a shovel and some unknown chemical which advertised itself as "A treatment for the fight against garden and house ants" I set to work digging up anthills. I have never seen so many varieties of ants in my life - there were big black and red ones, tiny little red ones, and medium sized black ones. All living next to each other in organized colonies all around the rotting foundations of our house.

By the end of the week - we had managed to completely dig out the back wall of the hut and daub one third of it. We still have a ton of work to do and will be thrilled if we finish 2 walls of the hut and repair the gutters to prevent future water damage.