Digger work

 

My dream is coming together, I think most pig hunters have that dream of having their own hunting grounds, not having to worry getting permission. Over the years my dreams have gone further and further. What started as having my own place for myself has graduated to allowing other hunters to come in with their dogs to get some extra training. Know I am taking that one step further and getting ready to build a house on that block of land so

that my wife and I can be right their with the animals which will allow me to learn even more on how they live. Not only by themselves but also how they interact with the other animals.

So the first stage of building a house was to get the access tracks and building site right so that we could get a truck up the hill. To do this I have employed the services of a local digger operator, Alister Gibb. The first job was to fix up the first 400 meters of track from the road to the

hut through the covenanted block as it had been scoured out by the rain in places, this took 9 hours work on the digger and is going to save me having to cut the scrub back off the track for the next couple of years. Another 400 meters up the track was the first corner. I could just get my ute around this corner if I took the right line but most of the time I would have to back off rather than risking putting a wheel over the side. On the top side of this corner there where two pine trees and one nice pitasporium. The

pitasporium was the first to go but rather than burying it we managed to plant it back into the ground where it was not going to be in the way. Next to go was the two pine trees and I was impressed at how easy the digger pushed these trees over and put them aside for me to cut up for firewood for next winter. Once Alister started digging into the top end of the corner I got into his truck and moved the dirt to the bottom of the corner as it was the easiest way to move the material

over a distance. This corner took half of a day before we moved onto the second corner. This was another tight corner that angled up hill at a step climb up thorugh a gate. As Alister and I looked at this corner it was hard to envisage just what it was going to look like when it was finished. There was another big pine tree that Alister thought he may have to trim it on one side with his digger. Once alister got closer to the tree he asked my how attached I was to it. There was no

attachment for me as it would make more handy firewood so with that the tree was no longer. That was a real good move as it really opened up the corner. Once this corner was finished there was no resemblance to the corner that we started with. The next day when I drove alister’s truck up to the building site I managed to get around this corner in one go without having to back up. The third corner had a couple of pine trees on the top side so a couple of them had to come out. This corner also had a steep

incline as you went through it at the start but by the time the digger work was done you could approach the corner on a slightly stepper angle then it levelled out as you drove around. The last corner was just bellow the building site so we decided to leave until we had cleared the building site so that way we would know what things would look like. The building site is a much bigger job than any of the other stuff as there is a lot of ground to move. By the time

we had got onto this job I was back with Fonterra in the milk tankers on night shift. As soon as I was at work on my first night I went into the office and asked if I could get short shifts for the next three nights as I was to be working up at the block during the days, they where all good and would only give me eight to nine hours work each shift. So I have managed to get up to the block between 11am and 3pm each day which has not left me with much time to do my other jobs,

so I am writing this while I am sitting in Alistars tuck getting loaded and tipping those loads off the end of the building site. It is really impressing me on how it is coming along. One of the biggest things that I have noticed so far is that there can be wind down by the hut and wind at the top of the hill but when you are standing on the building site you can hear the wind but it does not come in here. So at this stage the building site is over half way done but I have got to get back

out of the truck and head home to feed my dogs, Mr Pig and myself before heading back to Fonterra for the night. Tomorrow I have Richard Hands coming back in for some more training for his dogs and will also be helping Alistar with the digger work when I can. Will up date more on the building site in the next few days.