September 1996 - a start at last.

I 'retired' and moved up in August 1996. We had sold our house in Nth Dandenong. Janette continued to work at PFD while living with her Mum, Paula Lee during the week. PFD didn't want to lose Janette but she managed to leave on 30th January 1998.
First task was to level out the house site using the Chamberlain tractor. It was hard yakka for the old girl, especially as the weather got very wet as soon as I started. The site would get too wet to work and I would have to wait till there had been a few days without rain before I could start again. Sometimes I would get one or two days in before more rain and I would have to wait again.
With the benefit of hindsight, I would get a contractor with an excavator next time.
I dug into the hillside and pushed the diggings to the area in front of the house footprint so that fill became the flat area in front of the house. The digging was easier at the northern end of the site. Towards the south it got progressively rockier.
The footprint of the house needed to be on solid ground, not fill.
At first, steel posts were used to mark out the footprint. Later white lines, using lime, gave a better 'feel' of the layout.
When she was here, Janette kept quarrying stone.Read more