Latest Update

Not much to report with Crosie being away for the last couple of weeks, there hasn't been much happening at the Ponderosa.

News is that we are about to get a new baby - a little puppy called Gunny - very excited about him coming home in the next few weeks.

The other news is that some charming little boy racers managed to bowl over our letterbox and smash our fence in three places - needless to say am not happy about it. Though why they had to do all the damage while Crosie is away is a little annoying! I did however, give the bumper of their car to the police, along with some tail lights too.



And lo and behold my wonderful little hen, Sparkle, has produced 14 eggs! I have 12, but our resident hedgehog claimed two of them. She is very proud of herself, so she should be!

Enjoy the pics.

Carpet time!

After letting my boss know on Sunday night that i may be late in on Monday, due to finishing the painting, i never actually made it!

Was too busy finishing the painting in the manspace so we could have it all carpeted on Monday and Tuesday. It's incredible we have now finished all but painting the bathrooms in the house and manspace, looks fabulous!

My sewing room is nearly ready to occupy, well it will be this weekend once we finish fitting off all the plugs and lights! Do i need to go and buys some fabric to celebrate?

Think Crosie has gone a little wild ...! hehe - bath anyone? thankfully it will be going back INTO the house this weekend, as we will have finished the painting and flooring in there.

This year is the first time i have grown sunflowers successfully, only the one pictured isn't from a seed that i planted. It's from the bird seed that i leave out for the birds and it grew! Complete with a monarch. We've had plenty of monarchs around, but have only found one chrysalis. I also thought i would include some pics of our awesome tomato crop - though this is just HIS hot house. My tomatoes are coming along. But would like to note that the tomatoes that HE is growing actually come from plants that his cousin or i grew ...

An update

Hi all
Have been mightily slack in doing the updates - but here is the latest one.

So we have had Crosie's family staying recently and that wonderful view that we have? well it did not show it's face until AFTER they had all left! hmmmm ....

Updates for this post include Reginald - who after a long wait, has finally made it up onto the wall - yes that would be a dead animal on the wall in the lounge! While not most people's idea of interior decorating it was the one consession that i have made for wee Crosie as Reginald does mean a lot to him. Now that i am used to having something dead on the wall it's not too bad - but his pheasant can stay out in the garage!

We also have some babies - this time in the form of a Sydney Silky chook and her 6 babies (3 black, 3 white). Crosie certainly is not impressed with them, but they are cute! Not sure about their egg laying ability so will do some Googling and find out more about them.

Only two weeks to go before the rest of the carpet goes down so it is all hands on deck to get the gib stopping and painting done in time. The last third of the house has been gibb-stopped with only minor touch-ups regquired and then we need to start on the man space - thankfully that is only one room. Below is a pic of my sewing room, oops the spare room!

Have one shower operational - the one in the ensuite and am really pleased with how the tiling work has come up. the other shower has been tiled and will be waterproofed this week, with it becoming operation in the next couple of weeks - once the painting has been finished.

It's a great feeling to see that we are coming to the end of the hard work inside, then we can start on painting and landscaping the outside! Have already started the landscaping drawings - but of course this will evlove over time.

A little more chainsawing over the weekend - it's quite surprising how much the pine trees have grown since we started, so there are 10 plus that have been earmarked for topping and a couple came down to open the view that we have - made a huge difference when Crosie did it yesterday. Can now see Mt Taranaki from the kitchen bench!

Loving my kitchen - plenty big enough, well it could be a smidge larger and then it would accommodate all my baking moulds etc. Am surprised at what i have accumulated over time. Still missing are some wineglasses and mugs - but then the garage is still full of belongings - looking forward to having that hidden in spare bedrooms!!

Look at the cute pic of the boys - they had a busy night and decided that they needed to sleep all day!

Happy New Year to all!

What a fantastic Christmas / New Year we have had, with lots of visitors and seeing the family for Christmas dinner - including my gorgeous great-neice, Eloise!

With 16 people there for dinner, we had heaps of room.

Here are some of the latest pics - yes they are mainly of my pantry, but hey I LOVE it!

The very long (3.2m) bench

My awesome pantry in all it's glory!

The latest wildlife to arrive on our doorsetp - two peacocks - though these were not bought to us by Rama, he was too busy watching wide-eyed from INSIDE the house!

We have also started tiling the showers in the house - we are using 600 x 300 white tiles with a 100 x 300 pebble strip on the walls and the floors are a 400 x 400 pebble tile - we are please by how it looks so far:

The main bathroom

The ensuite - with the walls painted Dulux - Double Glinks Gully

Oh and here is the wall that I still have yet to wallpaper and Crosie enjoying sitting on his la-z-boy watching his tv in the lounge. Yes, ocassionally he is allowed to stop working!