You reap what you sow

I was paging through book on Taoism this weekend, and in the preface it was mentioned that the writer based his philosophy on the idea that "you will reap what you sow".

I like this philosophy when it comes to building baking ovens. Take your time, build strong and build straight, and you will reap the benefits tenfold in the form of delectable oven-baked delights. Considering that I am not a qualified builder, I enlisted the help of George the builder to lay the cement base for the oven - the foundation was 250mm wide and 200mm deep! George built a strong cement base to support the oven, and I had to make sure he never strayed - otherwise there would be greater problems at a later stage in the process. The size of the base was 1800mm wide, 2m long and 800mm high.




Next, when the base was well dried, we poured a slab of cement on top of it. We used gum poles to build a box to hold this cement in place, which would later be removed.




When the plans for my oven started taking shape, a family of Lesser Striped Swallows started building a nest on my patio. Their nest is made up of a bowl with a long tubular entrance, and it consists of mud pellets - so there were two building projects on the farm using earth! The female started brooding a few days before I started my building.

After all the hard work, who will reap the benefets first? Will it be the swallows, or will it be Charl? The race is on!