October 2011

Long time no blog, but that doesn't mean things were not still happening on our new section! It was October, the month of the breezeway deck. Following the very slow progress last month, and my very harsh comments on it, the deck fairly shot up! The piles had all been finished and were correct in height to the millimetre so the woodwork was a piece of cake and grew by the moment. There were bearers ...



... and joists and dwangs ...

... (quite a lot of them) ...

... and then decking with lots of pretty melteca samples from the kitchen showroom as spacers.

And it grew and it grew and I was even allowed to put in spacers and take them out again although I caused so many hold-ups when actually drilling holes and putting screws in that I was soon relieved of those duties. BUT I had drawn up a plan of the whole deck so that all the joins were staggered and as little as possible of the decking timber was wasted and most of the blemishes on the wood were avoided. And for the most part he stuck to the plan and soon ...



... it was looking very fine. Ahhh, apart from the designer chair of course and the step that wobbled. But they are tasks for another day.

The garden was going well and the next magnolia flower appeared.

And the willow hut, or not-willow hut, sprouted well and promised much.


Still not sure if it really is willow though - some leaves looked round, green and shiny while others looked long pointy and shiny. We shall see.

Joanna's cherry tree looked lovely (in a sparse sort of way) ...

... and one of the smallest camellias in the new hedge actually managed a flower.

Our friendly eastern rosellas were frequent and quite noisy visitors and seemed to enjoy the flowering tree lucerne.

And the vege patch was abundant. Lots being the keyword with so many wonderful healthy broad bean plants that imminent gluts seemed likely to be the biggest problem.

The strawberries were looking good and were covered in new black netting soon after the start of the month so all we had to do was pick and eat.

Bed 1 - almost ready for the chooks and new planting

Bed 2 - mmm more broad beans and a lot more besides.

Bed 3 - mixed veggies

Bed 4 - another mix but rather a lot of broad beans

Bed 5 - another mix of winter veggies - a bit younger than the previous beds

Bed 6 - OK, full of broad beans, we had become too exhausted to plant anything else.

The trees surrounding the vege patch were doing so much better than the trees in the orchard and we could see lots of pears ...

... and even more apricots (yummmmm).

Actually just over 50, which were counted very regularly.

And the flaxes around the outside were just about to flower.

And Little Grey took up duties watching out for stoats - why waste an egg on bait if you have a willing and able worker!

September 2011

Ah ha, Spring is here and with it lots of lovely flowers. And what a month it was too weather-wise with lots of sun and virtually no rain. Oh unless you count the hail storm when we received hail stones the size of marbles.


And, oh yay, the willow hut sprouted its first leaves! But oh horror, they are not willow leaves, or at least most of them aren't! We have not as yet been able to decide what they are but they are growing well so hopefully they are not something horrible.

The magnolia was superb with two flowers just weeks after being planted ...

... and the cherry trees along the drive had just a suggestion of what is to come (hopefully).

My super special banana box of bulbs exceeded all expectations with the vast majority of them flowering and many of them being rather fine double frilly flowers.


And the biggest of the kowhais was in full song ...

... and attracting some special guests.

The greenhouse was doing well too and started to provide a variety of vegetables and even a couple of strawberries by the end of the month.

Outside Dave was still keeping busy of course and for a while seemed to think up endless jobs that had to be done before he moved on to the breezeway deck. We collected some wood from some native trees that had been cut down along the river - and were actually thanked by the council for tidying it up for them - and of course that had to be cut and stacked to dry out over the summer.

But then he finally relented and ordered some wood. There followed a period of many days when he drew up a scale plan, deliberated over every detail and even discussed some technical issues with me! He seemed to want to get the heights of all the piles correct to the millimetre and which point I realised I was glad I made clothes and curtains and not decks.

The first job of course was to clear the mess we had become accustomed to ...

... and then to build the piles. There were to be 21 and my brain went into overload when I calculated that the first 3 took about a week and a half!! Still I'm sure they were EXACTLY the right height.


He then improved his technique and the rest appeared more quickly, thank goodness, and we also made use of a visit from niece Katie who helped shift some of the bigger pieces of wood.


And on the last day of the month, we actually finished the last row of 6. I say 'we' as I was finally entrusted to make the sandpie supports for these last 6 piles which was lots of fun and speeded up the process.

The cats were having fun meanwhile playing with some new friends - and even sharing on this occasion.

August 2011

August arrived and the sun was back so it was time to progress with the earth works and trellis.

We shifted lots of turf and made patchwork patterns with it and amazingly it looked quite good.

Then the posts appeared ...

.. and more wood ...

... and then we had a trellis.

This was a wonderful opportunity for me to indulge in my love of climbers and I managed to find two very healthy looking natives, a rata and a tecomanthe speciosa which requires a 'strong support' and is likely to overrun everything. And I couldn't resist a very large jasmine on special.

And then the snow returned! If last month's storm had been exceptional, this one was even more so, with so much more snow




And even a skating rink for the daffodils that were just appearing.




But we survived that and had a lovely visit from Alice who was put to work planting the camellia hedge ...

... and a new willow hedge, from the left over bits and pieces from the willow hut. This should give us some shelter to the south.


And we also cleared another patch behind the water tank for the tamarillo and citrus I had just bought.


Meanwhile, the path along the bank to the willow house was growing

- in fact it was growing so much that it threatened to become the main feature of the bank! Dave never does things by halves.

This meant that the soil mountain was disappearing ...




And talking of disappearing. The original sand quarry when we arrived has now gone and they are working on a new slope. Plenty of potential here although the part of the slope with natives on is protected, we're told.

We also heard that the digger driver was in his seventies and had rolled his digger a couple of times. Wouldn't be a good time to repeat this!

By the end of the month, it felt like spring was really here with a fine selection of flowers.

And it really did seem like the breezeway deck was getting closer to the top of the 'To Do' list as Dave re-organised the wood in the woodshed so that the pile in the breezeway could be resited. Yay, at last!!