{"id":4100,"date":"2017-03-06T16:06:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T03:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=4100"},"modified":"2017-03-21T10:20:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T21:20:56","slug":"building-bridges-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/building-bridges-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first two months of 2017 was\u00a0a busy time\u00a0for family celebrations, with a wedding and a birthday dinner in Auckland coming hot on the heels of a 21st party in Wellington. Catching up with all the\u00a0rellies<\/a>\u00a0was\u00a0a blast, but the\u00a0whirlwind of social occasions left me\u00a0a bit short on\u00a0time and brain space for\u00a0blogging. Once\u00a0we got back home I had quite an\u00a0urge to have\u00a0a nice long lie down. Instead we started building\u00a0a bridge.<\/p>\n

As with so many things at the farmlet, the bridge leading into the Seven Acre Wood was on its last legs. It had\u00a0probably never been particularly sturdy, and by the time we inherited the property it was downright precarious. Constructed using\u00a0thin\u00a0decking timber and\u00a0minimal supports, it featured\u00a0several broken planks, and in wet weather was as\u00a0slick as an ice\u00a0rink. I barely trusted it to support anyone larger than the resident midget (That’s me. A good 6 inches shorter than anyone else here).\u00a0Certainly the sight of the Forbearing Husband traversing\u00a0in\u00a0full chainsaw regalia<\/a> gave me cause for concern. I’m sure I need not even mention that the two\u00a0fat ponies were banned from ever making\u00a0bridge crossings.<\/p>\n

\"Broken<\/a>

Not our decrepit\u00a0bridge. I forgot to take photos. This is a much scarier bridge.\u00a0Photo credit:\u00a0Joel Oleson<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

A new\u00a0bridge had been on our\u00a0To-Do-List since we arrived. Bridge building\u00a0materials don’t come cheap though, so that was where\u00a0progress had stopped.\u00a0But wait… A stroke of luck! On his way to work one day our resident sparky<\/a>\u00a0noticed a work-party\u00a0digging out bollards<\/a> at an Auckland factory site. He screeched\u00a0his van to a sliding\u00a0stop,\u00a0and vaulted out\u00a0through\u00a0the driver’s window (some artistic license may have been used\u00a0in this description). On\u00a0learning that the massive chunks of timber were destined for the tip our hero secured 70 of them and took them for a long drive.<\/p>\n

\"Wooden<\/a>

The building materials, shown here resting in the barn after their journey. Well done Stephen!<\/p><\/div>\n

Stephen\u00a0didn’t stop\u00a0there either. Putting on his design hat he masterminded a cunning combination of wood, galvanised plates and something called Unistrut<\/a>. After\u00a0some debating back and forth about what would be needed to support a quad bike (desired future farmlet purchase, weight approx 400kg) and a 500kg pony or two I remembered we have an engineer in the family.\u00a0I asked Darling Daughter whether she might chip in on the\u00a0bridge design. She looked at me with narrowed eyes\u00a0and proclaimed herself ‘Not. Civil.’ I interrogated her about the orientation (vocational) of her\u00a0various\u00a0engineer friends, but apparently none of them are civil either.<\/p>\n

Not to worry, how hard can it be to build a bridge? A few design tweaks later, and we got started. Construction\u00a0involved\u00a0all the farmlet\u00a0residents — a team that now includes Deborah and Stephen<\/a>, who moved into their little house over Waitangi weekend (yay!). In a\u00a0companionable flurry\u00a0of chiseling, drilling, and\u00a0bolt tightening, the bridge moved from imagination into reality.<\/p>\n

\"Trolls?\"<\/a>

Part way through construction. The planks were\u00a0yet to be spaced and fixed in place. Gives you a good view of the troll environs.<\/p><\/div>\n

What do you think? Isn’t it just a little bit Game of Thrones?\u00a0The final flourish will be a post at each corner which will surely make it a drawbridge worthy of\u00a0The Dreadfort<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Bridge<\/a>

Inspector Kitty-Pop signing off on the bridge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Kitty Pop obviously needed to conduct her usual inspection<\/a>, but you’ll be pleased to know our new bridge has\u00a0also been tested for heavier items. Specifically, little fat ponies. Little fat ponies, the larger of which probably weighs around\u00a0500kg, and carries her\u00a0weight on four hooves, each about\u00a0the size of a human hand. Think about that weight concentration as something akin to\u00a0a largish human wearing stiletto heels*.<\/p>\n

Originally we had the idea\u00a0of slowly backing the Vitara<\/a> onto the bridge\u00a0to see how it held up. We decided against it. That car weighs\u00a02 tonnes so\u00a0it\u00a0seemed a bit extreme and, well, maybe we are not quite<\/strong> that confident about our bridge design. Deborah came\u00a0up with a great alternative\u00a0though. All five of us: Forbearing Husband, Favorite Stepson, Deborah, Stephen, and I, (at a combined weight of approximately 450kg) stood on the bridge. To produce the stiletto effect of\u00a0our pony on four legs\u00a0we each balanced on one of our legs and then we all jumped in the air at the same time. We landed.\u00a0The bridge survived. Design tested and approved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take that, you Un-Civil Engineers! (Love you little quail x)<\/span><\/p>\n

* Nurse Jenny\u00a0if\u00a0you’re reading this, yes I am\u00a0thinking of the SLT Christmas Party and the two Davids.<\/p>\n

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The first two months of 2017 was\u00a0a busy time\u00a0for family celebrations, with a wedding and a birthday dinner in Auckland coming hot on the heels of a 21st party in Wellington. Catching up with all the\u00a0rellies\u00a0was\u00a0a blast, but the\u00a0whirlwind of… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-building-things","category-woodland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4100"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4205,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions\/4205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}