Term2 Week seven

Monday 8/6 – worked on the veneering in the morning then had a trip out to the Gibson stone quarry to get some more, nicer stone. It was great to see. they had some huge shist slabs (which apparently is where all the money is for them)

Tuesday 9/6 –Second day of the Growsafe and got an assignment to start.

Wednesday  10/6 – Tutorial day, finished the Growsafe assignment, handed in , now finally i have updated my blog!!! Its been a strain on the brain (haha that rhymes) to remember what we had done, not mention the internet is still incredibly slow.

Term 2 week six

Monday 1/6 –Finished what we were doing on the stone arches and prepared ourselves to start the veneering part.

Tuesday 2/6– We started our Growsafe course about legislation, chemical, uses, storage, disposal ant transportation. there is alot to know in this area.

Wednesday 3/6 – Tutorial day so just working on the pests and diseases, should have it finished soon hopefully.

Thursday4/6 – Friday6/6 –With the stone boys, we are veneering up the side of the shed, this is and interesting technique to use morter (unlike the dry stone we have previously done). our morter mix was made up of 5 sand:1cement  70mmls of a plasterside, some lime and a colouring agent. We a workin slow to make it a really neat project, i think we will do that successfully.

Term two week five

Monday 25/5 –Well serve me right for being so slack last week! I turned up today to find out i had a plant specimen test in 10 minutes! we were required to identify 20 samples of the 40 from our assignment by their Latin name. As i had handed mine in earlier (not that day like the others) it was not fresh on my mind. however still passed yay… with many  many spelling errors oops.  

Tuesday 26/5 – And a Double wammy!! another test that got sprung on me, I think ive learnt the leson. this one way on identifying pests and diseases and  how you would controll it.

Wednesday 27/5 – Tutorial day, I took this time to work on my pests and disease assignment and the one i got on paving. Probable should have updated the blog to but i internet wore out my pacients pretty quick.

Thursday 28/5 – Friday 29/5 – The boys had started building stone arches, some were vinearing above window and door frames and some were buildinga free standing one. To do this the had built a wooden arched frame and were mortering the stones on place on top of it, this would be best explained but a picture so ill get one up shortly. I helped out on the free standing one.

Term two Week four

Monday 18/5 – Tuesday 19/5  – These two days I was in Dunedin helping with the careers expo, this was a good experience because i had to talk to students and explain what we were doing,  also i got to meet  some people from the horticultral and landscaping departments at the Dunedin polytechnic.

Wednesday 20/5  to Friday 22/5 – the stone boys were given wednesday off and as its a tutorial for me i had already handed in my assignment, i took the day off, tutour was sick thursday so tramping was in order. Really all i can say was that i was really slack this week and had it off.

Term 2 Week 3

Monday 11/5 – building the stone wall up, nearly at our desired hight. because we are useing the stone that was in the wall already and no ne3w stuff we are having to shape it a bit to get a nice face. the wall still looks tidy.

Tuesday 12/5 – Still on the pests and dieseases, having a lokking at images, identifying which is which, how and when we would try and controll them.

Wednesday 13/5 – PLANT SPECIMEN COLLECTION IS DONE!!!!! yay, handed in early so thats on stress gone.

Thursday 14/6 – Over the last two days the boys finnihsed to stone wall so we had a brief discusion on how they did it. I will try and get a finnished image of it later. As i have been quite slack and im writing this a whole month after it happened, I honestly cannot remember what we did this thursday and friday.

Term 2 Week Two

4/5 Monday-Today we started building a dry stone wall of shist. Our first  task was to dig down into the ground about 100mm along where the stone wall was to go so we could lay in some large sturdy stones that would act as a foundation/ building platform for us to build on. These stones would sit just below the ground surface and you be aprox 100mm wider than the stone wall its self to allow room for the stones to move without it sliding off the platform.  Once we had this good and solid (we could jump all over it and there  would be no movement) we start building the stone wall, selecting and shaping rock to fit into place.

5/5 Tuesday– back in the class room with the hort students.  Pest and Diseases, we spent the morning looking at slide and learning about the different pests and diseases, what time of year they attack and and how to prevent/ control the problem. The afternoon we spent out in orchards looking at examples and trying to find it ourselves.

6/5 Wednesday – today is a tutorial day so just worked on the plant specimen collection, aiming to hav it finished by next week.

7/5 Thursday – 8/5 Friday – Back out with the stone boys building the dry stone wall, over the last two days the boys had begun building ontop of the base we prepared on monday. We worked on cearfully selecting through the stones we had to work with and stacking the stone in the same manner as with the retaining wall, except this time we were building two faces and filling the middle with smaller stones to make stronger.

Who says girls cant do everything!!!!!

diamond cutter,… (just a wee one) shh!

Being the only girl on the course i had to have a go! Here i am cutting the shist stone into square tiles.

stone path.

This is the 'before' picture of the path we were going to start paving

we randomly layed to larger stones through out tthe path

We then filled in the gaps with the smaller stones

ready for pointing. (filling the gaps between the stones with a concrete slurry mix.)

Term 2 week one.

28/4 tuesday – start of a new term. off to a good start! past the botany assignment! new topic of the term is pest and disaeases on the orchards and vineyards. is really intersting.

29/4 Wednesday – This was just a tutorial day, worked onmy plant speciman assignment. got 35/40  mounted!!!! yay.

30/4 Thursday – Back out with the stone boys working on the stone path from last term, a few small patches to fill and finishing pointing the last two sections… looks very nice. FINNISHED!!!

31/4 Friday – field trip out to bendigo. Took an hour and a half stroll looking through old goldmining houses and mines. Talked about there use of stone and mud brick and looked at the style of how they were built. I t was very interesting, i would like to go back and spend some more time looking around, and do the walks.

Holiday Activities

Our holiday break wasnt all sit on our bums or sleeping, we managed to get  a job picking grapes for a little bit of work experience in th vinyards. BACK BREAKING!!!! lots of bending down or kneeling. In saying this though  i really enjoyed it. the vinyard i picked at had a really friendly atmosphere. O nce i finnished harvesting grapes at tht vine yard i cotinued working on the orchard where i have a part time job. Picking up, cleaning and shelling walnuts. Thank goodness its only a part time job. although someones got to do it.