Road Building

The CAT machine must first place a six meter long tube into the creek before constructing the road over and across the small body of water. The tube is about 70 centimeters diameter. It requires two men on the ground to guide the tube into the correct position, while the machine does the actual lifting and placement.

After crossing the creek and clearing-cutting trees ahead of the CAT, we begin carving out the mountainside, layering stones, clay, and gravel that comes out of the land. We were fortunate that we did not have to purchase any materials, other than the tube.

We cut the remaining eucalyptus trees, all but one, with the help of the CAT. It sounds simpler than it is. First we must get cable lines high up in the tree in order to get the best leverage while using the CAT to guide/pull the trees in the direction we want to trees to fall. Sometimes it means someone has to go up in the tree to make sure the cables are not twisted.

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With six eucalyptus now cut, there remains two, "Grand-Daddy" and "the leaner". Grand-daddy is 140 cm wide in diameter, that is a little less than Konswan is tall. It's branches sweep over the roof, allowing dead branches to fall and, at times, break tiles. Just a week ago, we had to replace two tiles. Magnus stretches out his arms to show the tree's girth.

Below he trims off the rest of Grand-daddy's stump after felling it. Magnus uses a 75 cm blade, but has to move around the trunk to do the required cutting. We do not have a blade long enough to span the 140 cm.

This is the house and surrounds after 7 eucalypti are cut. One remains, the leaner, above and to the left of the house. You can see that we have tied it off, in case of a hard blowing wind. The workers are now on their vacations and we will not see them for another 30 days. So in the meanwhile, we will de-limb the trees, pile up the "carcasses", and pray that we do not not get hurricane force winds.

The land has been remodeled on such a huge scale now, as you can see looking at the before picture featured below. If prayers can move mountains, they have done so in the form of a CAT machine helping us to have a safer surrounds to our little home. Now we can sleep better at night, unburdened by the worry of tree limbs landing on our roof.

For those interested in more detailed photos of the process, go to our detailed photo page.