Coffeehouse.co.nz

After twenty months nagging…

One day, one man on a mission.

One clothesline!

And no, the man on the mission was not me.

A simple process really, but one that had taken far too long to get started.

Step 1. Dig a big hole.

Step 2. Put up a clothesline.

Of course that simplifies the process immensely, leaving out the extreme mathematical overload trying to calculate the requisite amount of concrete, the intense and fraught efforts to ensure absolute main standard uprightness (despite how it appears in the picture above, it is ramrod erect!), multiple trips for additional concrete, and general blood, sweat and tears. But all in all a job bloody well done! And one that I didn’t have to have too much to do with.

That’s probably why it got done! Thanks again, Big Kev!

Maybe it’s time to try something else!

We’ve had Daphnes planted on the front door step for a while now, but all they seem to do is slowly die. One got so bad we replaced it, but now the remaining two look like this:

So we’ve given up on them in that spot, and trying some Choisya Ternata Sundance, or “Golden Mexican Orange Blossom”. I guess we’ll see how long it takes for these to curl up and die!

Just next door to the cornflowers that featured last month and have been holding your interest ever since since are a big bunch of poppy plants that went in about the same time.

I suspect that the seeds were meant to be broadcast over a much, much larger area than I managed at the time. I guess the upsides of them all growing packed tightly together are a) not a chance of a weed finding a home, and b) they’ve managed to support each other though a very, very blustery nor-wester last night. Albeit with a few less petals this morning…

But we’ve decided that they do look good down the barren wasteland that was the septic tank effluent field, so hopefully we’ll be able to collect enough seeds to extend the colour block a bit further next year.

I have no idea what I managed to get up to with the series of the wildflowers and I’m too lazy to even search for it, but I know that these little gems haven’t yet made an appearance. That’s because I planted them myself! but hopefully these cornflowers will start to invade the disaster that is the current state of the effluent field. as long as they steer clear of the lawn though…

A guy at work was asking us the other day where he should go to get some fireworks for bonfire night. My reply to him was “well, as an owner (if you can be such a thing) of two cats, I’d say don’t!”.

And we didn’t, of course, and neither did any of our neighbours if our unbroken sleep that night. But it seems we couldn’t get away without the bonfire. Not that we had it on the actual day, but as Saturday morning was perfectly still we raced out and set things in motion for a bit of a clean up of the front tree trimmings. With a bit of help from the trusty old petrol can to get things going, it went! I think we even managed to get rid of at least half of the bits and pieces.

The photo is pretty much at the end of the process. I’m not sure it really does justice to the the huge flames that were threatening to set the long grass on fire… And it certainly doesn’t do justice to the huge amount of raw material that was shuttled slowly from the tree line to the waiting flames. I hurt. Again.

A few hours later and we were still left with a big pile of charcoal and ash that took a lot of water to stop flaming up in the stronger wind that crept up a bit later in the day. But at least we got half of the them gone before that. We just need one more day like that. Please!

Another week, another bed rises up out of the weeds. Pity a row of beets had to be sacrificed for this one, but it was for the greater good really. For some reason the original garden bed we’d dug was quite a bit longer than the others. I suspect we dug them before we obtained the builders line which now gets rolled out on any occasion requiring a straight reference line. To the general rolling of eyes from someone who thinks it’s a bit unnecessary. But it would have saved the beets!

We also realised we’d made another rookie mistake. When we earlier moved all the wood to give a nice spot close to the gardens for all the compost we moved it all right to where the next bed will go. So before we can start on that one we’ll have to do a bit of rearranging. At least there’s a bit less wood to shift than there was.
We’ve got wood for another four beds. I wonder if they’ll get installed before summer? At this rate, not quite!

It would appear from the lack of recent entries on this blog that we’ve not been up to anything much worth reporting for about a month. That kind of feels about right, actually. Sorry! Hope you managed to entertain yourselves in the meantime. But finally, we have news worth reporting!

Meet a pile of compost. MMmmmmmm. Compost!

It’s quite a big pile really. And will take a bit of shifting. But it would have taken a lot more shifting if we hadn’t got around to moving the pile of wood that arrived a couple of days before out of the way a bit. And once we shifted it out of the way we got around to some light construction with some of it, and finally managed to get some edges organised for the plots we dug out last July. We’d gotten really, really tired of trying to work out just where the edge of the garden and the start of the weed patch was.

So by the end of Saturday we’d finished the first one.

And by the end of today we’d finished the second one.

Just the last one of the original plots to go, then it’ll get a bit more complicated as we try to work out where to add another few. But so far we’re very happy with the result. Looks a lot tidier already. And a lot more maintenance friendly! Only problem is a few of the last winter veg will have to be sacrificed in the name of getting them ready (yes that means moving that huge pile of compost) for the summer veg, but I think we can live with that. Now we just have to cross fingers that the warping and twisting stays to a minimum…

From her:
Don’t worry, we haven’t got our Christmas decorations up already or started the Christmas baking. The massive pine trees we have out the front got a bit of a haircut, as did the neighbour’s smaller ones down our boundary fence.

If you have ever seen the tree trimming machines in action you will know that you don’t really want to stand in line of any falling debris or anywhere near the machine. And the debris can spread quite widely! Think helicopter blades attached to something out of one of the Mad-Max movies. Although they have quite a blunt instrument attached they are still pretty lethal (well they have to be to cut through the size of some of the branches). So if it accidentally flew off I am sure I would not want to be in the path of the blade! To make the event even more interesting to watch, when cutting the big trees out the front was it was blowing a good ole norwester (and for those of you that have not experienced one here they can be pretty damn windy), which made for hard work lining up the tops of the trees.

But with any tree trimming comes the cleaning up, and when the trees have not been trimmed for at least six years that’s quite a lot to pick up. Most of somebody’s Saturday morning was spent moving all the fallen branches from the road-side to inside our boundary. Luckily the neighbours came along with their trailer and a helping hand to help us pick up the smaller branches (not any good for firewood) and then let us kindly dump them onto the fire they had already got roaring on their land. Then we did the same down the boundary line, loading up the trailer and then dumping on the fire. And we didn’t even remember to get the marshmallows out. Although not sure how pine-smoked marshmallows would taste anyway.

Next job is to cut all the wood that remains into firewood. But that’s another weekend’s job hopefully with another helper who wants the wood. Not looking forward to that one. Anyway will leave you with this interesting fact or myth: did you know that apparently pines can grow during night time?!

The photo really doesn’t do justice to the HUGE pile of trimmings and wood there that all need sorting out. But we’ll get there! And hopefully we’ll get a better photo of the wood pile too!

From him:
When someone says “Most of somebody’s Saturday morning” just who do you think they meant?! I hurt. Everything hurts. If it doesn’t hurt, the thing next door hurts and so it makes it seem like everything hurts!

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Even typing hurts. I give up.

We’ve been donated strawberry plants from 2 sources over the last wee while, and to date they’ve been hanging out in the tunnel house suffering various amounts of neglect. As they’ve been the only living plants in there it’s been easy to forget about them. I don’t count the seemingly dormant lemongrass, but it could just as easily be dead lemongrass. (We’ll no doubt work that out sometime soon!)

So since we’ve managed to dispatch the weakest, the rest should be winners, right? Deserving of a home under the open skies? So today we made them one out of the slightly concrete tinted old boxing timber the builder left stashed up the front.

Despite careful planning, measuring and generally looking like I knew what I was doing I still managed to screw the construction up slightly by putting one end inside the edges, not on the end, if you get me (and I’m sure that you do). But the strawberries aren’t going to care, and frankly today I don’t either (more on the reason for that later). It’s likely to be only a temporary bed anyway. But then we said that about the ones we made quite a while ago now, and they’re still going strong, even after being relocated.

As soon as the plants look like they’re happy we’ve even got the straw on standby to mulch them with. I’m sure it’ll last right up until the first nor-wester! Maybe next weekend’s construction project might need to be a netting lid for it. I’ll just have to remember to screw things up in exactly the same way!

Yup, all the signs are there… Fruit trees covered in blossom:

Or about to be.

Lone daff in flower up by the gate waiting for its mates to pop.

Neighbours paddocks are filled with yummy looking lambs frolicking…

Willows down by the river have suddenly turned green.

Outer regions of the place are covered in dandelion flowers. And I have some radishes and peas up. Yup, it’s spring.

Of course what you can’t see and it’s difficult to get a picture of is the very strong gusty winds that we’ve been having that have made it not so enjoyable to be outside to enjoy it all. But this morning’s a pearler! Off to enjoy it.