Its Already November!!!

Hi Everyone!!

Its been a while again! July was pretty much a write off on the house front because we went to Byron Bay for a week then I went to Cairns for a conference and Annette went to Jervis Bay with Sarah for a week. Its going to be a busy year ahead... I'm now NSW State representative for the EVA (Equine Veterinarians Australia) so I'll have more things to organise!

Annette is doing well. She's now 26 weeks and has a quite a bump...but with a jumper on, its hard to see!! So far everything is going well.

The house is coming along at a slow but steady pace....now the kitchen and bathroom to paint and some pictures and things to hang up!

This past week I've been busy outside again.. We've started making the lab and store rooms in the Carport and the Shed... as with the house, we're recycling walls and timber from the old shed that was left stacked up outside by the previous owners.
and after 3days of excavator work, a week of burning off some rubbishy timber that can't be used or cut up for firewood and all weekend unscrewing sheeting and pulling apart timber walls, the area where there was a massive pile of old shedding etc now looks like this!! The excavator also sorted out the rubbishy piles of wood and so I now have another 6 piles of timber to cut up for firewood.
... and this afternoon, Annette planted out the apple and pear trees which will be espaliered on the wire trellis.... but I don't think shoveling a cubic metre (about 1 tonne) of compost and soil would get mum's approval!
Rhys and Nina have been back from the UK and visited us last weekend... they are now leaving again to cycle across the Andes in South America for 2 months followed by a 1 month trip to Antartica!!! bye for now!

Animals

I dropped into Gordon this week to deliver Gina's (dog) medication. Thought I'd put this up because in the background of this gorgeous Anatatolian Karabash (the dog) is mum's backyard and one of my early DIYprojects. The dog kennel housed two 50kg dogs, and it looks as good as the day I built it 12 years ago! (the MDF floor and walls are struggling but thats due to poor material selection.. I used what was available at a recylcers yard on the way back home from Wagga years ago). It's Gina's winter house... in summer she prefers the cool bushes, but she uses its shelter more in the cold weather. This little snake is a black bellied swamp snake. It was only 20cm long and I uncoverd it whilst making the chook house. Its not very dangerous.... rather cuteactually.

End of the Financial Year

Hi Everyone,

I'm forever appologising for the lack of updates! Here's a few photos from the past month... but they're not nearly as exciting as Bjorn's web album! I hired this one man auger for a day so that I could dig a few post holes in a hurry because I wanted to build the espaliared fruit tree trelis using left over concrete from the carport slab. In the background is my finished chicken house complete with gutterguard, gutters, and rain water tank... I'm now putting up a fence around the orchard and chook house...
The bed for the trees aren't done yet obviously... I need to clear the old shed stockpiles (I've spent about 7 hours on it so far and I'm only 1/10th of the way through it!!!) so that the bobcat guys can come in and excavate some dish drains along the boundary fence so that we can divert some of the rain water run off from our neighbours and also fix up the driveway.... then we can plant the fruit trees and train the branches onto the wires between these posts. The finished stable shed from behind... I haven't started inside yet... outside, I'll build a raised garden bed all along the shed.
June 15th was a special day, with Graham's 60th birthday and the birth of a new nephew.... Bjorn Enzo Nordling in Stockholm!
The carport slab which Bernie and I laid... my next job here is to enclose this using walls salvaged from the old shed stockpile... hopefully the wood is not too rotten! This space will be my garden shed... ie. storage for firewood, building materials, tools etc.

I've also finished installing the gutterguards on the new shed, but the real challenge will be fitting them to the carport because the roof pitch is so steep.

My new toy this week is a small MIG welder... I've read up on all the scary safety aspects of welding... I don't feel like dying with heavy metal toxicity, so I'll be careful! My first welding attempt today was a hinged jockey wheel on the trailer. It wasn't neat (and its probably not v strong either!) but it worked and it held up to a fair amount of weight today! I'm practicing welding so that I can make my horse yards adjacent to the stables.

Inside, Annette is still plugging away with the paint brush.. don't worry Tomo, the Low VOC (low volatile organic compound) is OK for her. I'm sure she probably contacts far more dangerous chemical and compounds at work.

ANNOUNCEMENT: We WERE planning on a house warming on the 26th July, BUT, with the latest rains, we've been set back again, so we are going to have to postpone :-(

We'll keep you all posted on a new date!

quick update

The rain is back! We did manage to get a few things done during the last few weeks. After much dramas, the builders have just about finished with the shed.... now for the fun of doin it up inside! Gerry has also just about finished painting the outside of the house. So now only some doors and bits and pieces, the kitchen and bathroom to paint.... hmmm never ending job for Nettie. Annette is coping well with her pregnancy. The nausea is going but her blood pressure is a bit low so she's light headed. The last week I've been working on the chooks' mansion which should be finished this week. Then next week I'll work on installing the 70m of gutter guards on the shed and carport. Will put up a few photos soon.

Mothers Day Announcement

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic.... whats new?!?!?! Outside, the rain has let up so that the slab for the shed is now done... just waiting on the builders now.
Inside, we now have the hemp curtains, which just leaves a few more little bits and pieces of painting left to do. We've also started hanging up pictures so the house is looking more like a home. The curtains are heavy and look great and we've made them to minimise heat loss through convection currents past the windows. The house is now fealing much more cozy at night. I've also finished the wire balustrade which looks great (and it was quite simple to put up)and Jerry who is a retired handyman is now painting the exterior of the house for us.
We've had afew guests. Annette's dad Harley and Pam stayed with us for one night last week and all week we had Janet Perry (a vet friend from uni who was locuming on the central coast) staying which was really nice.

Mum's birthday was last week, so Mary, Irwin, Chloe, Dylan , Elise, Mum and Graham came over for a brunch (except that due to a missunderstanding I didn't prepare anything!!! Annette made a quick dash to the shops) to celebrate Mothers Day as well. Dylan tested out how kid-safe our house was... the first thing he did was fall off the chair and hit his head on the bamboo floor... it seems that as well as being fire and water resistant and termite proof, it is impact resistant... good to see the floor didn't get marked! (JUST KIDDING!!!) Dylan sported a nice little bump on his forehead but recoverd enough to lead the Lim Dancing Troupe.... thats an Elvis move!
AND....
Mum is looking very happy 'cos we just told her that Annette is 11 weeks pregnant!

Canberra weekend and Josh's visit

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Canberra. After having a nice dinner with Annette's dad Harley and Pam, we stayed at Rydges on Friday night. The next day, we went to Clare (Nettie's school friend) and Vy's wedding celebrations which was great. Katie (far right) had a healthy baby 2 days later!
When we came home on Sunday, we fired up the combustion heater for the first time (It was installed on Friday). You can also see my entertainment centre! The living room is now finished (just the curtains to hang up).

And on Tuesday, my mate Josh (ex-flat mate from St George) came to stay. He's on a holiday for a few more days and is going back to Florida where he is doing a PhD.
Nettie made a very nice lamb shank pasta dish. The lamb was slow cooked on top of the heater and it was quite yummy!
Meanwhile, the rain refuses to go!! We've had 140mm in 3 days and its still going! So the concrete hasn't been poured yet and the shed construction is going to be hold for a while which is very very frustrating.
cya!

April

Just a quick update guys:

- above is a couple of little frogs that grew up in our water garden
- I got myself a birthday present (care of loyalty points from my drug wholesaler) - a home cinema set up
- we found the antique pantry we've been looking for at the local tender centre (silent auction house with second hand stuff - its like going to 20 garage sales in one go).
- the flyscreens and security screens are in place finally so we can leave the windows open!
- the bush fire sprinkler system all the way around the property is now complete.
- the balustrading is done
- last weekend I installed the automatic drip irrigation system for the veggie gardens.
- the fruit trees are in the ground
- the curtain tracks are up and the Hemp curtains are being made.
- the concretors have started on the slab for the shed, which should be constructed in early May.

So, we are just about ready to have the final inspection for the occupation certificate so that we can start getting services like the rubbish collection. But we're still a fair way off finishing everything before we can sit back and relax... and have a house warming on the 26th July!

Our main goal though, is to have the property presentable for this year's national Sustainable House Day. Last year there were only 2 houses on the Central Coast, so we are keen to contribute... but a bit a apprehensive exhibiting our house to lots of strangers... oh well.

The fireplace will go in next week and I have to get busy on clearing the stockpile of deadwood for some fuel for the winter.... just in time as its started to get a little nippy.

cya

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter !

Hope no-one got ill from eating too much chocolate!
We had a busy, productive and fun weekend...

Good Friday was spent with our god daughter Chloe (Sooj's niece) and Mary at the Easter Show. The Barbie show was fun, then a hands on shearing and milking followed by the usual main arena shows. We went back to Mary and Irwin's when it started raining and played with all the kids (and the Wii) until after dinner!

On Saturday and Sunday, we worked inside and outside to try and tidy up for Annette's mum Anne and her hubby Peter's arrival on Sunday afternoon. We didn't quite get ready before they arrived, but in the end the house was orderly and looking habitable for the very first time! Our next job is getting the termite treatments sorted out after hearing lots of white ant nightmare bed time stories from Peter, who is a professional pest controller and he gave us lots of invaluable advise. We were able to provide our guests with a proper guest room and bathroom minus the wardrobe doors and curtains (oh well... we're getting there) and a proper sit down meal.

Easter Monday. After a leisurley breakfast, Anne and Peter left to go back to Wagga, I went working and Annette planted out the herb garden.

Sail to Brisbane

Hi all,

This past weekend, I was working again, but we managed to get the North and East house garden beds planted. The northern side is planted with blueberries and the eastern side is planted out with lilly pillies.

The previous weekend, I sailed a boat called Wot Yot on a delivery trip from Newcastle to Brisbane.

Herb and Water Beds

Hey All,

Had another busy weekend. I'd hoped to get a lot more done but I had to do calls (work) most of the weekend and Annette went away on Sunday to the Blue Mountains with Sarah to visit their ill auntie. I did however manage to finish off a couple more beds in the garden. I made a frame for the old cast iron tub to have as a water vegetable garden which just has chinese water chestnuts, a lilly and some tadpoles at the moment. The other bed is a sizeable raised herb garden which is close to the back steps and will run along side our outdoor kitchen (wood fire oven - which I'll build and a BBQ). Will have this weekend off, so hopefully we'll get more done. During the week this week our aim is to properly move into the house and empty out the shipping container.
cya


Doing the finishing touches on Monday night.

The finished herb bed... the hard part is filling it up now. Its 3.3m long x 1.3m wide x 75cm high and all made from recycled materials (except the screws).
The old cast iron tub which I got for free from someone doing a building site clean up last year. The spikey plant is the chestnuts.

Vegie Beds

I thought I'd better fill you in on what I've been up to in my new vegie beds (thanks Sooj, they're wonderful!). We had some pretty nice soil to fill the beds with - a mixture of a pile of soil that had been cleared off the future shed site and a pile of horse manure/saw dust that's been settling for months - but I wanted to add some extra organic matter to build it up. Since the beds were made over existing grasses/weeds (recently whipper-snippered) I covered the bottoms w/ cardboard using flattened boxes that I salvaged from work. Then I placed a layer of compost, a layer of lucerne hay then the soil/horse manure mix. I also mixed in some gypsum and sheep poo in the top layer of the soil mix. The gypsum helps to break up clay soil...the soil mix we had wasn't heavy clay (like most of the soil on our property!) but it had a small clay component so the gypsum should help with this.

I planted out 5 beds last weekend (I now have 3 more to do), though there is still room for more plants in each of the beds. I'm waiting on an order for more seeds from the Digger's Club (where I get most of my plants and seeds as they have lots of organically produced plants/seeds and heirloom varieties) so I'll have more to plant, hopefully next week. The first bed has 3 different carrot varieties (including 3 colour purple, which, when you transect it has 3 rings of colour including purple!); next has tomatoes (these are already fruiting as I've had them growing in pots since late spring...it's a bit late to plant tomatoes from seed here now), next bed has daikon raddish, pak choy and rocket; next has 2 different climbing bean varieties (including a purple one again) and sugar snap peas; and finally, sweet corn. (Thankyou Mary...I've planted Chloe, Dylan and Elise's rocket, beans and carrots so they will have to come and sample them when they're ready.) I also have cabbage, cauliflower, mini broccoli and lettuce planted in punnets, to be planted in the beds as seedlings. The nice thing about many of the heirloom vegie varieties is that most of them are unusual-looking (you don't see many in the shops) and they taste better and yield more than the more commercial varieties we're used to buying in supermarkets/greengrocers. You can get carrots that come in reds, purples, oranges, yellows and whites and tomatoes that are green, yellow, purple and striped! Anyway, sorry for rambling on about the vegies, but it's exciting seeing them all sprouting and developing into seedlings so fast. So far everything has sprouted through the soil except for the lettuce I've planted in punnets. I water twice a day and each time I notice new seedlings have come up and that all the seedlings that have sprouted have grown a bit more!

Today we also bought 9 blueberry plants...we've decided just to plant them on the western side of the house...will have to think of something else for the other sides. We will also plant some grapevines on this side. Both should help provide some shade in summer...we also plan to have espalier fruit trees (apple, pear etc) along the western fence to provide summer shade (but since they're deciduous will let the sun through in winter). In addition to the blueberries we bought some other fruit trees...a chocolate pudding fruit tree (can't wait to sample that one!), 2 rosella plants (Kristy should be excited about these...they produce little flowers that are delicious in champagne!), an avocado, a jaboticaba (a tree that produces yummy berry-like fruit), water chestnut (to go in an old bath Sooj is making into a water-plants pond) and a water lily.

We have lots of work cut out for ourselves in the garden but it's lots of fun. I enjoy it so much more than painting!

Nettie

OUTSIDE

Yay!!! I have a weekend completely off!

I've been playing outside whilst Annette's still going with the painting inside.... somehow I don't think she'll ever undertake a full house painting ever again...

The generator had to be connected to the battery system, but I wanted to have it above the one in hundred flood level, so this was my handywork last Sunday night (took 2 hours) after I came home from emergency calls at 8:30pm.... I used some off-cut steel from the mezannine floor.

Today, I finished building the vegetable garden beds. There are 7 of them, each 1.5 x 2.4 metres insize. I did the first five beds a couple of week ago and last week we hired a Dingo, to fill up all the beds with dirt (I'll let Annette explain what went in... if she ever has time to write on this blog...). So finally we've got some veggies on the way! The beds are old railway sleepers that are set out so they are level and they are screwed together with BIG coach screws.

Today I also got Danny the Bobcat driver to come out for the day and he's backfilled all the trenches. I also finished off the retaining wall around the house and Danny shifted all the dirt and mulch so now we have a garden bed all the way around the house. Once the soil and mulch settle after some rain, we'll plant the beds out with .... blueberry... thats the plan or now at least. The high garden beds around the house was designed so that we don't have to completely enclose the verandah all the way around the house... we will make sure its safe for the kids at least. This garden will be watered with a grey water system (once we can afford it!). Anyway, better get to bed early for another big day tomorrow.

see ya!

There's light at the end of the tunnel on the EI front.

Another month's gone by pretty quickly and I've been a bit slack on the blog front, but with the rush on EI vaccinations finally coming to an end plus a break from the rain has seen us make a bit of progress outside in the last few weeks!

This past month: we've managed to tick a few things off our 'to-do-list' black board in the kitchen.

We've set out all the built in wardrobes, but haven't unpacked all our clothes yet. We also have been getting quotes for the wardrobe door.

When we originally moved, I broke the glass insert in our dining table, so we ate on teh couch for a month, but I bought a router and modified the table and inserted the left over bamboo floor boards instead of the glass insert so now we are eating in a civil manner..

The ensuite and laundry is almost finished, but there's still a few fixtures to go. I made the laundry bench out of a silky oak slab, got the splash back from Ikea, and the post is a very old fence post which was lying around outside.

Annette made two loaves of organic bread today... whilst I was slaving away outside.... very nice fresh with nutella!

Started the moving-in process!

We had a busy and productive weekend. On Saturday, I spent all morning filling in the power trenches. The rest will be done by an excavator, but now I can organise sprinkler systems etc etc. Then after a tip run, we went down to Sydney for our friends' Leah and Gareth's wedding at Taronga Zoo. It was a good night out at a great venue! Today (Sunday), we came back early so I could go and vaccinate more horses whilst Annette finished cleaning the kitchen and started unpacking. After I came home, I started bringing in some of the furniture from the shipping container and most of the kitchen stuff, so the house is starting to look like a home! Better go now... will put up photos soon.

Quick Update

A couple of things happened this week
1. told the Totally Green Plumbing guys to not come back... :-)
2. floor finished
3. moved into our master bedroom
4. Bernie the builder hurt his hand (not at our place) so he's out of action for a while... I'll have to start doing stuff outside.

Tomo and Vik on our teak day bed... its a really nice piece, but we bought it when we weren't really aware that it was most probably produced from rainforest timber and is quite an unsustainable bit of furniture! After earning their lodgings and breakfast with a morning of cleaning floor boads, we took them out to The Entrance for a bit of pelican-ing.... what kind of 'birds' were you taking photos of Viktor??? All the pelicans are behind you....

ciao

New Main Page Photo

I've put on a new photo up the top. It takes a bit of time to download because of its size and resolution. Viktor my brother in law from Sweden took lots of great photos on their recent trip back here for Christmas and this is one of them. Thanks Viku!

Here are some more recent photos:

Nettie finishing off the bedrooms' old floor boards.Bernie starting the first piece of the new bamboo floor boards...

Mum, Viktor and Tomo's first visit last week.Zane and Sarah dropped in for a visit on the way through... we chased the cats and dogs with his radio controlled car... funMichael and Kristy came for our first din-din with Tomo and Viktor..