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After taking a long weekend off after last weeks physical exertion, we headed back out to get few things done. Pulling up the drive we were stunned by the number of vehicles parked around the place! Seemingly all the white vans in the district, as well as a truck dropping off a few bit of cladding.

We’d kind of got used to the relaxed feeling of the site with the builder and his couple of offsiders wandering around doing their stuff, but today the place was full of people! Everywhere you turned there was someone with a ladder, drill, hammer or screwdriver! There was some sparkies, some central heating guys, a building inspector, the guys doing the Hebel exterior cladding, and the builders. Plus us and the project manager wandering around getting in the way of everyone. I guess we now know how it might feel to have a party. (Although if there are any drills and screwdrivers around when we have a party, I might be a bit worried!)

But we muscled in a bit to talk about what we need to with the project manger, builder and sparky, then retreated to our little spot of garden to plant another few natives: a red and a white manuka, and a kaka-beak. Then by the time we’d given all the native trees and grasses a drink, and trimmed back a bit of the long grass with our new brush-cutter toy. (Ah, the sound of a 2-stroke cutter… Brings back many memories of Japan!)

And no, we won’t be doing the whole of the property like that. Especially after bending the 3 way blade on a random rock on the first day!

By the time we’d done all that, the cladding guys had made a huge start on the job. Everywhere we looked, there was cladding up.

On all sides of the house at once! I’ve no idea what their system is, but I’m sure they’ve got one!

More interesting (to me) was all the wires that they’d managed to run in a couple of days. There was a lot of wire hanging out all the walls and ceilings all of a sudden. I just hope we’ve got all the switches and plugs in the right place!

In the end we just left them to get on with it and finished up our gardening for the day by chucking in a few radish, leek and celery seeds, just to see what they’ll do! Then we ran away!

I wonder what it’ll all look like next time we’re there. At this rate it’ll be finished!

We wish!

On the way out to our bit of dirt there’s a line of cabbage trees beside one of the main roads. After driving past this quite a few times out of the corner of my eye I noticed a fairly well disguised sign that suggested it wasn’t just someone’s front fence-line, but something a bit more public. And for the last few trips we’ve been meaning to stop off and have a look, but either it’s been cold or raining, or we’ve been too gosh darn tired to bother. But today we remembered in time and slammed on the brakes and turned up the road to take a look.

Apparently it’s called Whites Road Reserve. Good luck finding out anything about it on the net! If you do, let me know!

But it’s a nice little wetland reserve, absolutely full of NZ natives, with a nice little path around the edge for a reasonably short stroll. I assume any dedicated Twitchers would recognise more of the waterfowl than I did!

From the gate I recommend starting by going to your right, past the open areas and flax bushes, and then coming back into the slightly denser area.

Which then leads into an almost lovely area for a picnic. Why almost? Well, remember how we worked out it was there by driving past? Work it out for yourself!

But I think we’ll be keeping this on our “tourist trail” list, as it’s a lovely spot, and shows what some of the little trees that we’ve planted will finally look like.

One day I might even try to find out more about what the hell it’s doing there!

It seems like we’ve had an early weekend. A second day in a row of back breaking work sifting stones and shifting dirt.

Today we managed to finish the four temporary garden plots. With the help of some pony-poo (Caleb’s to be precise – pocket money I guess for one of the local kids) and compost, and the sieve (which is still providing sterling service!). We even managed to get a few pebble paths between them! Only thing we could think of to do with the smaller pebbles!

In went the couple of butternut squash plants we’d picked up. No mucking around!

Then all the native trees and grasses we’d bought before the UK trip went in. And not before time for some of them! They were all roots and no soil left in the pots. But hopefully they’ll all take and we’ll have a nice little strip of natives behind the shed. Still need a lot, lot more to fill in the patch we sprayed, but it’s a start. And due to some of the weeds coming through looks like one of the chores next week will be to spray the patch again.

Good news too, I think, in that we’ve managed to get a ring of larger stones all around the water tank! Why? Who knows! But what else do you do with a whole bunch of stones. At least we know where they are if we want any. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll come up with some nice flowers or something to make things look prettier and hide the stones.

Spotting a theme here?! Yes, we have a few extra rocks and pebbles! Want some?!

Last gardening job was to wrap all the plots in some windbreak cloth and staple it all up. Hopefully, as well as the wind, it’ll keep any hares out. We’ll see! Haven’t seen any for a few days now, but the grass is pretty long, and they’re pretty good at hiding!

A quick last minute decision on the way out saw us drop some parsnip and beetroot seeds into one of the beds. I wasn’t allowed to plant any radishes this time! The other plots can wait for the broccoli, leek, and zucchini plants that will hopefully pop up. (Actually, the broccoli seeds have already sprouted, but we’re waiting for the others…)

And that was the day! For some reason it seems like this post suggests that we didn’t get through half the stuff we did yesterday, but I can assure you all of that took just as long as yesterday (actually a bit longer as I forgot to decant the coffee from the caffiterie to the thermos before I left, so there were no coffee breaks. DOH!) And both of our backs are suffering a bit from all the bending and digging. A day off that sort of labour tomorrow, I think. I just hope the promised rain keeps up all week to keep all the plants and seeds nicely lubricated!

I think I’m a bit sunburnt. I’m certainly hot enough, and pink enough, to fit that description! But I think it’s been worth it. Maybe. I’ll tell you tomorrow!

In case you hadn’t worked it out yet, we headed out for another working day out at the ranch. On arrival our attention was split two ways. First up, the house had windows and doors! WOW! It really does look like a house! Secondly, the big orange ball on the water tank was still at the bottom. Gulp! Uh-oh! But which to focus on first! Luckily(ish) Bec had to cruise into town to do a few things there while I got on with some work, so it was up to her to go hassle the water guys and get that part sorted. Meanwhile I wandered around staring at the windows…

All looking pretty good to me, and even pretty clean!

And they even seem to be the right size and everything! I think there’ll be a “no backyard cricket” rule around some areas of the house though. Some of the panes are pretty bloody big!

Then the work began. First up: hammering. Thanks to the guys at the hardware store I didn’t have to do any sawing as well! But a few nails later I’d managed to put together four little garden plots for us to chuck a few plants in. As long as we have water! Which with a bit of twiddling of various valves the builder and I managed to work out we did have. Some at least. I think he was quite relieved. I could see his mind working overtime about how he was going to get a kettle’s worth of water for smoko otherwise! Immediate crisis averted, but still a bit nervous about the whole deal…

But onwards! Now we had somewhere to put some dirt, it was time to find some. Luckily there are a few piles of various sizes lying around from various bits of trench digging around the place. Cue use of the garden sieve that we made a long time ago which has been lurking around in the shed just waiting for its chance to shine.

And shine it did! It coped marvellously with all the boulders, rocks, stones, and pebbles that we have in every shovelful of dirt out there. And with not a saggy bottom in sight! The only thing better than that sieve would be another one with holes half the size to get the even smaller pebbles and chips out. But I think we’re fine leaving them in for now. I’m sure it helps with the free-draining aspect of soil we’re looking for. And besides, the location of these plots is temporary anyway, until we get water down to the proposed vege garden site.

Anyway, during all this Bec had arrived back, having managed to harangue the irrigation guys to come down to check out the water. Which they duly arrived to do. We left them to it while we met the new project manager trainee that is going to have to learn our little ways. And get used to Bec’s sense of humour! I’m sure he’ll get there eventually!

Finished with him. Back to the water, and a confused water guy. More scratching of heads, as everything looked like it was fine. A borrowed ladder later, and the issue was resolved. The tank was actually full, but the little orange float was stuck down, so it looked like it was empty. DOH! Oh well, at least we’ve got water!

So back to the sieving and dumping. Things were moving along a little faster with two of us, with one and half plots full of soil (but waiting for some compost or Caleb’s Pony-Poo to be added as well).

But then we had to pause to wander around the house with the sparky pointing out where we’d like all the switches and sockets. Took a lot longer than we thought it would! But I think we’ve managed to almost get that sorted. Still a few things that aren’t quite going to work like we thought they were due to trusses being in the wrong place etc., etc., but we’ll find a way around that. Hopefully!

A bit of last minute sieve action, a quick water of the trees, and then home for a fish ‘n’ chip dinner. All ready for an early night, ready to get up early tomorrow and do it all over again! Although tomorrow I think I might get the sunscreen on just a bit earlier, and/or wear the long sleeved shirt…

Yes, it seems like there was some sort of issue with some glue and a pipe not getting on too well, and sometime over the last few days there was a “catastrophic failure” of a joint and all the water went bye-bye. Apparently that might have been a sight to see, as it would have happened with some force!

Hopefully that will get fixed this week, and we can get on with all the things we wanted to do. But in the meantime we have a lot of very damp soil that’s perfect for planting in around the shed. And I guess all the other water will eventually seep back down to the bottom of the well so we can pump it back up (again).

In other news, the first 2 radishes popped their heads up yesterday, and we’ve got a few more today. Yippee!

Today we had a long list of things we planned to do out on the ranch. We had a lot of trees to plant, a kit-set wheel-barrow to construct, some raised vege gardens to construct, etc etc etc…

But when we arrived out there Bec noticed that the big orange ball on the water tank was looking a lot lower than it should have been. In fact it was at the very bottom of its possible height. Uh-Oh. And when we had a look around the pump-shed the ground was absolutely soaked. As was the floor of the shed. Uh-Oh again. Not sure if that’s where the whole 35,000 litres of water went (along with any more that the pump had pumped up in the meantime – presumably quite a lot more!), but that’s the only obvious place that it could have gone.

So until we get the irrigation guys in to have a look at it there’s been a bit of a slow-down in any proceedings relating to anything like plants that might want to have a drink now and then. Not a complete halt though. Of the many natives we took out with us we decided to go ahead and plant a couple more Pittos that had been liberated from the garden here, and a larger cabbage tree that we didn’t think would cope too badly, along with a tangle-wood tree that didn’t quite want to go back in the back of the car today.

We did manage to get the wheelbarrow put together though. With a minimum of cursing and swearing! One thing crossed off the list at least…

And it was so bloody hot today, with not a breath of wind, that it was almost a relief to decide to wait for the rest of the list and just sit in the shade of the roof and soak up a bit of the environment. And stare at the long grass and think it might need a bit of a trim very soon!

Ok, so we have a fair bit of land elsewhere that we could devote to the growing of vegetables (and we will) but in the meantime we’ve borrowed just a small patch of Dad and Dawn’s garden for a few radishes just to test out how green our fingers are over here. (Well, I say “we’ve” and “our”, but it’s more like “I’ve” and “my”)….

While I’m pretty sure I’ve not seen any rabbits in the back yard, I just hope any rabbits that do decide to pass by can read! (Well I had fun, anyway!)

Tomorrow we’re planning to plant a few more seeds for planting out next month, and Sunday a few trees. Let’s see how close to plan the weekend goes!

Ok, so we’re still a post or two short from the overseas trip, but more important (to us) was seeing in person what progress had been made on the house in our absence. So yesterday after a night’s sleep (I wouldn’t say a good night’s sleep) so we were actually safe to drive out there we headed on out. Unfortunately it was raining that horrible misty rain, so we couldn’t see the shape as we were driving down the road, but we got a pretty nice surprise when we pulled into the drive. The roof was on!

We’d hoped it would be, but it was still great to see it. What we hadn’t expected was that the house would be wrapped in building paper kind of stuff too. So instead of the matchstick house, we have a paper house!

Wandering around inside now with the “walls” and roof on gave it yet another different feel. And made it seem bigger again! We need some of the sliding doors in to close off some of the rooms to make it seem smaller!

Currently the soffits are going on (or should that be “soffit is”?), then it’s time for the windows and doors hopefully next week. Things seem to be going quickly again! I think it’ll slow down again a bit with the cladding, but we’ll see.

Today we went out again to get instructions on all of the water pumping equipment. It’s not that complicated. Well, that’s what I keep telling myself! We’ll just have to see if we can remember what we need to do and when. I guess we’ll know we’ve got it wrong when we run out of water. No doubt just as we’ve put a big wodge of shampoo in our hair or something!

While we were out there we also put in a bit of physical labour, just to see how unfit we’d managed to get in the month we’d been away. We filled in a big hole left by the power guys with the stack of dirt on the side. Did I mention it was a big hole?! Huge! Well, huge enough for the two of us and a brace of spades…

I can report that I think we’re not as fit as when we left, but possibly not as unfit as we possibly deserve to be after our month away!

Almost forgot to put this post up, which would mean we’d have missed documenting another step in the process!

Or intrepid reporters sent this from a visit last weekend. The fascia going up around the edges of the roof. Or we assume that’s what it is! Hopefully the roof has gone on in the week since this was taken. We’ll see!

In other news, in the last couple of days the water tank and all ancillary plumbing has been installed and hopefully filled. Hopefully now we can get on and plant a decent number of plants around the place and not have to cart buckets of water from the river to keep them alive!

We took some time out of our busy schedule the other day to do a bit of sightseeing. St Paul’s Cathedral, to be exact.

Yes, we did live here for over 10 years, and yes, we have sat outside during that time while we’ve waited for guests of ours to make their way back out, but this was our first visit. The difference this time? Free tickets! Always a good reason to go!

And we were suitably impressed. As you can’t help but be. Although for the next 2 days my calves were feeling the effects of clambering up all the stairs to the very top. I’m glad it was in 3 stages. All in one go might have been just a bit much.

Would I pay? Hmmm. Maybe. I think its probably worth it, you know… to erm, pay to walk up all those stairs and to take in the lovely architecture! It really is quite impressive and quite tall. And the whispering gallery actually works. I even had a smile when Bec made me participate in the whispering just so she could say we had done it. And the views from midway and the top were good too… So all in all pretty good, I guess!

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more the tourist here, though!