February 2011

February arrived along with a lot of visitors but we still managed to make progress on our new section. We turned our attention to the garage which was full of clutter and still had no room for the car. There were piles of unpacked boxes and piles of wood scraps and piles of more or less everything else you could think of. This called for lots of sorting ...

... and lots of shelves. Shelves for tools ...

... and shelves for stored boxes - all designed to take the 'standard' box ...

... although of course hardly any of the boxes were actually the standard size.

And then came the workbench, which of course just became another shelf for putting stuff on.

And then more shelves for gardening stuff. So at last we have room for the car in the garage and should be able to find everything (yeah right!)

Summer was continuing nicely and, oh joy, we enjoyed our very first (and only) nectarine.

And Alice returned to pass on a few tips about the art of growing large sunflowers.

We also got some advice from afar about pretty, fragrant plants for shady places from Auntie Lorraine and actually managed to locate some specimens of the plants she suggested in nearby nurseries so we planted up the new beds around the top of the drive. With theirown resident guard cat, they should thrive!




Indoors, the stephanotis at last received the attention it deserved and attached itself to a rather fine new trellis that I got great pleasure from making while Dave was out (little things eh!)

But after a pukeko-free few months, we noticed the return of some of our unwelcome visitors along with their offspring. Let battle recommence!