Happy New Year

Well it has been quite a long while since i last posted - so not sure if anyone still looks here!
But i will endeavour to be far better this year!

This time while documenting the house finishing - we just need to paint, but as i sit and write this, it is pouring with rain, so no painting today. I am going to use this blog to update you on what we are doing around the section.

Yesterday we welcomed five new babies - my new heritage breed chickens (www.chooks.co.nz ). First one born was a little yellow one, two black speckled ones, a red one (so am thinking it is a Rhode Island Red) and another little yellow one - who unfortunately did not make the night. Photos will follow.

We are also waiting on the mergence of some pheasant babies - yes another one of our (chicken) hens is sitting on 14 eggs. We have three from our first attempt and they are now in the chicken enclosure - with the two sitting hens having been relocated! Photos to follow of these also - but it's too wet to go out and take any.

I will also update you on the offerings from the garden. So far 10 bags (containing 2 cups each) of broad beans have been frozen. I am off to make some strawberry jam - though not from our crop - maybe next year! We are waiting rather impatiently for our first lot of tomatoes to ripen so we can have them. With over 100 tomatoes planted am sure we will get a little sick of them! Varieties include: moneymaker, beefsteak, black crim, purple russian, aunty ruby green german, cherry green grape, green zebra, brandywine pink, bloody red butcher, cherry red and yellow fig, roma, reisenstraube - so plenty of variety!

Right must away and make the jam - here is hoping that it will set!

Take care and i will fill you in on picks of the jam and chooks soon!

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!

314 days and now ..

I have a kitchen!

Yes on January 30, 2010, I officially lost my kitchen - well I knew where i left it, jsut moved out of that house, let tennants move in and use. Crosie and I moved into the Portacom aka Love Shack, and began our adventure.

On Saturday 11th December, i finally got to use an oven in my own house - you have no idea how excited I was, though a little scared as the first thing i made was a Red Velvet Cake for lunch with the girls. Have now used the stove top to poach eggs (which on any given day i am rubbish at, but that is a WHOLE other story!).

Appliances - soon my pretties you will be in your new home!

Below are pics of the kitchen being moved in - the island bench is 3.2 m long with 2m clear either side of it - yes seems huge, yet i do not think that the bench has been clear yet! Bear with me with the pics as i am still moving the kitchen over from the workshop (where it was shared space with the quad bike, man tools etc).

My pantry is soooo cool and filling fast. Crosie was amazed at how fast i am actually filling it up - he wanted to know where all the food had been in the workshop - umm those steel drawers were jammed pack full of food. Though i do think that i am fast running out of space. Have not found a dinnerset, several boxes of glasses and other crockery, then there is all the crystal that is actually sitting in a friend's garage (promise it will be collected this week Trish!).

Have spent two nights in the new place - we do have a functioning toilet inside, but still have to go across to the manspace for a shower. But the bath is up and running in the other end of the house.

Some of the lights in the kitchen / living room

This week sees Crosie laying the kitchen and entrance flooring and then starting on the waterproofing for the showers, so i can tile over the break. As well paint the outside, start landscaping, finish the other third of the house in time for Waitangi weekend family get-together! So only a wee bit left!

Oh and look after the sheep, do the normal chores ...

What can i say - we are loving it and loving the space! Think of living for near on a year in your bedroom at home - which is what we have done - and then move into a space that is bigger than your current house! We are loving it! And loving opening all the boxes and finding things that "we" didn't know "we" had!

The painting has begun ...

Yes the painting has begun and what was the first room to be done? Why the scullery was - am on countdown sleeps until i get my kitchen, sans bench-tops, but they will come soon. Concrete takes a little while to cure, but we need to make them and decide on what colours we want in the concrete!

If one takes a day's leave from work, what does one do? paint skirting that's what!
30 x 12m lengths were done in two colours - no not on the same skirting, but for the skirting and the bits that go around the windows inside.

Two-thirds of the house now have selant paint on and dear Crosie is busy doing another sand, then we will start putting the paint on the walls - yippee!