18th - 24th October

Now that the veggie patch fence was finished, we could turn our attention to populating it. It is intended to be based on permaculture principles which, our book assures us, is a no-dig approach using a local resident workforce so we needed to make their quarters. This involved more geometry, lots of pipe and the ubiquitous white shoe laces.

Then add wire and a roost ...

... and get it into the veggie patch (ah, could have done that before we put the fence up).

Then, great excitement, get some occupants. We considered we were 'rescuing' these from the local battery farm and opted for 9 new entrants and 3 soon to be graduates (or worse!).

We let the geriatrics out first just in case there was any case of establishing a pecking order and, poor things, they looked rather exposed without any feathers.


Then out came the youngsters and all seemed good.


We decided the baldies needed some help and fitted them for the latest in hen fashion ...

... and soon they had some trendy new clothes.


And we invented a new version of 'Where's Wally?'

And we had some eggs.

We even tried to get some of the feathered ones to use the roost but perhaps that was a bit much to expect.

Then we left them to it while Dave prepared a pond and a strawberry bed - the latter very much non permaculture but we like strawberries and lots of them.


And finally we planted some new natives over the soak field.

4th - 18th October 2010

Once the builder had gone, we decided to turn our attention from the final finishing off in the house, to the garden and the veggie patch in particular. The weather was warming up and it was prime planting season. We had to sort out the hares, bunnies and pukekos before we had a chance of growing anything for us and so the next plan of attack was a fence. Yes, we know pukekos can fly but they fly very clumsily and usually only to escape so just perhaps this will keep them out. It was a three part affair with some part buried excess roofing iron to stop burrowing animals and plants (the kikuyu grass) ...

... and fortunately Alice was home to lend a hand ...

... then some complicated geometry and posts and wire ...

... and then chicken wire and windnetting. A lot of work and we're still not sure it will keep out all-comers.

We bought a washing line which of course had to be set in concrete ...

... and was awesome on its first outing but then collapsed on its second!! Fortunately it had a 10 year guarantee.

And in between, we made some more progress inside with the pantry, yay ...

... and a specially designed spice rack for the drawer under the hob. The prototype didn't quite work as, Dave explained, 'The bottles were the wrong shape', but the finished article was just perfect. I have a slight suspicion that this not so essential item appeared as Alice had just brought back news of Uncle Tony's amazing spice rack.

20th September - 3rd October 2010

So much to do, no time to take photos or write blogs!!

After the family gathering last week, all the various outstanding odds and ends were quickly remedied and soon we had a working solar water heater (the plumbers had in fact installed the solar panel without the control unit which caused it to blow the pump), some shower walls, tv and internet and a working septic tank.

We then had a week to move in properly and clear and clean our rental house. This all went according to plan, and we shifted all but the largest items to the new house ourselves. This just left a few big and heavy items for the 'professionals' to move for us and the nerves were stretched a bit we saw the team of movers consisted of a strapping young man and a very weedy very old mate. He proceeded to drop 3 of the 8 items but not too much was broken and fortunately the piano arrived intact.

The cats had been very upset by their move to the rental house so we tried to make this easier for them. We shut them in the garage the first night and struggled to find them in the morning ...

and then lost them again the next day as they did not like the noisy builders.

Neil completed the architraves and moved on to shelves in cupboards ('happy thought indeed', to quote our favourite family saying from Pride and Prejudice) ...

... and then to shelves in the pantry.

He finished these on Friday 1st October, so thank you so much, Neil, for a great job done.

And we were left to fill the nail holes in the architraves before applying a last coat of polyurethane (best estimate = 600m of architrave and about 3-4000 nail holes to fill), the pantry shelves to polyurethane, and a house full of boxes to unpack and tidy away.

We had a spell of atrocious weather to add to the fun and at one stage our garden (and much of the surrounding countryside) turned into a series of ponds ...



... and the cat was rather sad and sorry.

13th - 19th September 2010

Things were hotting up now as we were getting anxious to move out of our rental house and, also, we were expecting 12 guests at the weekend for a memorial get-together for Grandad. And there was still no power or water...

But fortunately everything went well and all the important jobs were finished before the end of the week. We gained a (replacement) fire ...

... and a chimney.

Gordy returned and, yay, we had lights and appliances in the kitchen...

... a couple of aerials were installed although not yet working...


... and the plumbers returned with a bit of persuasion and we had water and, oh joy, a toilet or three. Meanwhile, Neil was pressing on with the architraves and finished the most obvious ones in the lounge and kitchen.

Various other things weren't quite sorted - the solar panel wasn't installed and the glass walls for the shower weren't ready but on the whole the house was usable (and lovely).

We thought it best to check it all out the night before the relations arrived and had our first dinner there, just about, lit the fire and slept on a mattress on the floor.

And Saturday came and went and was a lovely day for all, I think, and everybody had somewhere to sleep and lots of food so that was a big relief.

And then, on the Sunday, we discovered that the alarm on the septic tank was sounding and the control on the solar panel had blown out and was leaking all over the floor! Ah well, we can get it fixed at our leisure now.