June 14, 2012

As the picture indicates, I had to pull out another stump. It was small. Instead of trying to dig it out, its shape inspired me to use the sledgehammer on it. But when I struck it from one direction, nothing seemed to happen. After a few strikes, it still hadn't moved. Strange. I could tell that it was soft and should have come loose. Pondering for a moment, I attacked from the other direction. It broke loose instantly.

I made a bunyip, also known as a water level. I saw the design in Brad Lancaster's book, Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond. The principle is simple, water always finds its own level. By adding the loooong hose, I'm now able to check the levels of wall sections at a distance from each other, as opposed to just side-by-side; up until now, I've been using a hand-sized carpenters level. I added red food coloring so that I could see the water line at a distance. Food coloring, by the way, fades VERY fast in direct sunlight. After a week, I had to add 

to add more.

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Bunyip in progress. Two-by-two piece of lumber. I pre-marked it, because I thought the foundation would get in the way of marking it later. I simply poured some Quickrete into the bowl AFTER I centered the wood in the bowl. That way the bottom of the wood was flush with the bottom of the bowl and didn't get any concrete under it to knock it out of square.

By the way, the word bunyip originates from Australia and is, as defined in Wikipedia, The bunyip, or kianpraty,^[1] is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.

Full how-to video below.

Suburban Hermit of Fayetteville signing off.