Coffeehouse.co.nz

Despite all the neglect and abuse the tomatoes in the tunnel house have taken over the last couple of months (e.g. forgetting to open the doors in the mornings, forgetting to water them for a day or two too many etc, etc…) we seem to have managed to get quite a few different types of toms to grow. An now the first batch are starting to ripen. Yum yum!

Just have to quickly get rid of the last store bought ones so we can try them.

The big success of the tunnel house is still the cucumber plant though. We’ve even resorted to making cucumber soup today to use up some of the glut. I liked it, Bec wasn’t so sure, but secretly I think she liked it and just didn’t want to say!

…when puzzle mania takes hold of the house!

Yes, that’s right. January seems to be puzzle month. So we dusted off a beaut. About 2,500 pieces, if I can multiply right. And to make it more interesting we didn’t have a picture of what it looks like once complete (well we do, but we’ve no idea where it’s got to).

But we got there. Finally. Having run through the full gambit of puzzling emotions. The despair of feeling like you’re making no progress. The joy of finally putting in a piece. The frustration as the natural light gives way to artificial, and you then have to hold your head in just the right position to be able to see even the smallest portion of pieces…

We’ll see if we can face another one this month. Not sure yet. Ask me tomorrow.

This is probably the most veges we’ve harvested in one go. Not that we haven’t used lots from the garden already, but we’ve tended to grab one thing or another for whatever meal we’ve been cooking. But today we grabbed cabbage and carrots and spring onions for an Asian inspired coleslaw, lettuce and capsicum for a salad, potatoes and beetroot for sides (and a bit of bottling). Yum yum yum!

The other day we finally got around to planting the sweetcorn plants we had sitting around. The reason it had taken so long? We needed to make a patch for them to be planted in!

A quick bit of carpentry later we had at least a delineating timber square. A slightly longer time was spent digging the ground out inside the square and mixing with composted dirt. It didn’t help that it was hot. Damn hot! Digging is always a bit slow when you can’t see due to rivers of sweat dripping down the eyes and glasses! But we finally got there and managed to get the plants in too.

I suspect that unless they’re really comfortable or lucky plants they’re going to struggle a bit with the wind where they are this year, but we’ll see.

It’s official we finally have our first BBQ! Our Christmas present (the only one, unless Mike is secretly surprising me), to ourselves this year was to install a BBQ on the property. And after looking around for about a week and pondering on what makes a good BBQ (not sure we are any the wiser), and what price one should spend, we finally settled on this one!

And the first batch of sausies we cooked came out OK…… a slightly charcoal bit here and there!

It’s now been about a week since the lawn got seeded and I’ve been out looking for signs of life but no luck. Until yesterday, about 3:30pm. That’s about when I saw the first sign of life that didn’t look like weeds. Yippee! All the watering and rain seemed to have worked some magic.

And this morning there was a huge explosion of growth all over the place. Yippee again!

(Honestly, there is some grass in this photo! I’ve even made it clicky for a big version to prove it!)

Now we just have to keep it alive enough to grow and spread, then think about mowing it all…

It might look pretty much the same as all the other pictures of the lawn to you, but there’s a subtle difference. This one contains the grass seed that was distributed yesterday as well as the last remaining small stones. Yippee!

Now it’s over to us to get some proper irrigation sorted in the next few days so once “the lawn” starts getting a bit damp we can keep it that way so it’ll get a good start in life. Then maybe we can finally move away from staring at brown and start starting at green.

We can also start to finally start thinking about some fences and gardens too… Just have to remember not to use the back door for a few days.

Another day’s work on the lawn area today. Levelling out most of the remaining hollows and humps (not that there were many left) and then running a stone burying machine over it all.

It’s looking really, really good. Good enough for a casual game of croquet anyway! It’s amazing to see how few stones are left of the surface now. I think we can claim some credit as we did a pretty reasonable job of collecting the big stones and carting them away, but it’s still pretty impressive anyway.

So apparently tomorrow there’ll be a lot of rolling with a big roller, and then the seeding. Then it’s up to us and nature to keep it all watered until it’s nice and lush. Gulp! The responsibility after all this work!

The grass covering most of our place has been growing generally unhindered my man or beast for the last year and a half. So it got quite long. And recently with all alternating rainy and sunny days it’s got even longer. Like very long! In some places it was up to Bec’s underarms. I’d managed to keep a few paths cut to be able to go visit the fruit trees, but the rest was well overdue for a haircut. (As am I, of course. Like usual)

So today was haircut day. (For the grass, at least. Mine can wait just a bit longer.) It was starting to die down on it’s own, so time was running out to try to get it ready to make some sort of hay this year. Still not perfect timing, as there’s rain forecast in the future, but what can you do. Not that it really worries us this year. We’re just happy to have someone cut it all for us and take it away. Maybe next year we’ll worry more about the end product.

We’re both finding it all a bit weird though, actually being able to see the land again, and the lie of it all. Weird, but bloody good, and about time! Now, if we can just get the actual lawn sorted… Hopefully Monday will see that done.