We've made great progress with our gabion basket 'installation' - and that's probably the right word for it, as it's become a bit of a work of art. But let's start at the beginning and our half-metre cubes arrived promptly, but flat-packed. Which makes sense but meant an extra job. The helicoils were strange things, spring-like looking but not spring-like in their nature; they're an alternative way of constructing the baskets, although we found that they're not as tightly fitting as the hand tied wire rings, or lacing, which we improved our technique the more we did.
The helicoils looked good though. We've used them on the corners of each basket to ensure neither of us scrape our legs on the corners. To start with I wasn't sure about their whirly-whirly look, but it's growing on me.
Assembling the baskets took longer than we expected, but I'm pretty sure we sped up as we got into a rhythm. It was definitely a 'gloves on' job, although I'm not sure why MOH has two odd, but still yellow gloves, on. I don't have yellow gloves, and yet he's two pairs...
We found it tricky to keep the basket assembled while we were assembling, and I thought I had just the thing - and I did - freezer bag ties!
They were super helpful and meant we needed many less pairs of hands.
The 'lacing' was very much like sewing with wire. Harder than it looks, but definitely do-able. Especially after watching a few videos on YouTube!
One down, twelve to go. Or at least I think it's twelve, it depends on how many we'll use. And if I get any other bright ideas along the way. Our next challenge was how to fill them, and I'd a plan for that
We're a little way off filling the baskets here, but we have made good progress - the least interesting part, but essential, was levelling the area for the larger baskets which will house the Pizza oven.
Not the most glamorous of posts, especially the last phtoo, but an essential one as no one needs a wonky pizza oven!
