Happenings lately in our sunny strawbales:

Completely home-grown roast dinner:

Ours – potato, sweet potato, beetroot, pumpkin, spinach, chook.  Others (shared with us) – zucchini.

YUM! 

Chook wasn’t tough at all. 

Which is good, because another 2 will be processed to the freezer soon.

Harvest happenings:

That big-un is over 30cm across and weighed a good amount too.

Sweet potato soup was on the menu J!

Last week, we had a delivery of the good stuff:

4 m³ of Mumby Magic – and it will work its magic in our orchard as soon as we spread it out. 

Poor orchard got all put in without us mulching properly so it is well time for us to give the fruit trees some love before winter sets in.  Plus we will be establishing a food forest as the understory in there so we grow more greens and grains so we can free-range the chickens a bit more.  I can’t wait!

Now, lookie what my Honey has been doing!  J

Now if you know your paving, you will see that he has been cementing in the edges – and that can only mean one thing!!  The paving around the house is finished!!!  Yay!!!  Cue the party whistles, balloons and confetti canons J. 

The photo is actually Michael digging up the edges of the lawn so he can extend the retic right to the paving now (and further) because we can safely let it grow to the edges now. 

Pepper, of course, immortalised herself with wee footprints in the wet concrete edge:

And yesterday, I got serious with getting some winter crops started J.

Planted seedlings of broccolini, spinach, bok choy and cauliflower, plus seeds of similar greens:

We fenced up the garden beds to keep the voracious chooks out!  And did similar inside their run as I put down seeds to start their food forest in there:

Seems voracious birds are a feature at the moment.  Lookie at our sunflowers:

The parrots didn’t even wait until they were finished growing, these were all still green!  We will get no seeds from these few plants – lucky we have plenty others saved!

This week in Sunny Strawbales:

Paving – of course – getting there….the going is slow with so much cutting around the plinths – and it is very noisy and oh, so dusty work – so it is good to just take it steady!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gardening – lots happening which is lovely – we set up three new raised beds.  Valerie painted the waterproofing on them and I (mostly) filled them with our usual lasagne of rocky sand/rocks; then cardboard and paper; then straw; then mumby magic; then sifted sand and mumby mix; and finally more straw for mulch. 

I’ve decided our tractor sure could do with power steering – I was feeling my muscles the next days!  But we do love our Bob (that is our tractor’s name).

 

 

 

 

 

The hard work is worth it – we have got this to show for our efforts:  asparagus and tomatoes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And three rows of potatoes – we will plant more next time it is below-ground planting days:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This here is our current, most exciting waiting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our boy loves his corn and these ones he planted are looking delicious!!

So, it’s been some time (again…).  It’s been some busy times, relaxing times, happy times, normal times.

We’ve had end of school events (lovely celebrations) and our first Christmas in our new home (just the six of us).  We waited until the big girl got home from her school trip to get a Real Christmas tree and then it got all decorated – isn’t it beautiful?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Santas got sat out in the entry hall:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a wee little display on our drawers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Christmas was our relaxing time – it’s been the usual busy otherwise – and mostly with (you’ll never guess!) paving of course!!  Michael went the extra mile this time – in fact extra 200 miles – to pick up 12 tonne of pavers from a property in Mandurah and relocate them to our verandah – and that is the literal pick them up off the ground too! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tell ya, this house sure has been a paving adventure – and still not quite finished yet – but getting oh so close…

We have also updated the garden beds – we have been harvesting so many tomatoes and silverbeet and just the last week, giant zucchini:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, they are on the menu today to be cooked up into passata, spinach quiches and zucchini relish – yum!

And because I was inspired to take an ‘artistic’ photo of the sunflowers in honour of Vincent van Gogh – here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I don’t say I know much about van Gogh, but the Dr Who episode is very touching – so touching that I added a “For Amy” to the famous sunflower print (it will hang in our library, after going to college with the eldest I think, she’s the Whovian) and it led us to buy a beautiful book, ‘Sunflowers for Van Gogh’, by David Douglas Duncan at a garage sale, which has in turn inspired the photo.  More photos to come I think…really would love to get the wild, unkempt look of the paintings…

Busy times - as always…

Family came to visit :-).

Paving has progressed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Special thanks to my nephew, Braidyn, for his contribution here.)

Gardens got some love:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Attended a great native garden seminar day with Josh Byrne – Gardening Australia fame – learnt some great tips –  e.g. plant a banksia and leave it alone!).

Been dog-sitting for the neighbours – so plenty of walkies have happened :-).

Started – and finished – a triathlon (first in my life ever!)

And some lovely trips to Perth for the graduation of our eldest :-).

Closer to now – Michael has been on the bobcat a couple more times so our yard and driveways are looking great – most impressive is the flat area for our future chook run and orchard :-).

Hey there, howyagoing?

Yep, it’s been a while (again!) – life, sicknesses, work and family do that to a blog!

But I still have plenty to say about our building adventure so don’t give up on us just yet J.

So – progress – that would be slowly…

We (Michael) are still paving (and no end in sight just yet) – but the front is all but finished, so that leaves just the sides.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes a while this paving lark – they are still heavy!  - and he is doing all the prep work by hand (of course, that's my Honey) – and the ground is hard (well it was compacted, being our house pad an’ all) and the odd stone makes for sifting involved too (so the screeding goes well) so these square metres are certainly full of blood, sweat and love.

We are making sure we sneek in a bit of other work too – for a break!  That’s owner building for you – you switch jobs for a break!!  Argh! 

Anyhoo – we got the kids’ garden beds up and running – we were close to being out of time for spring plantings so it had to happen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was only last weekend and we found the first lovely sprouts this this morning J.  Between them, they have planted sunflowers, peas (just in case they might do ok), corn, strawberries, cauliflower, butter beans, lettuce and chives.  And I snuck the cucubits in the compost heaps.  Yum, I hope we get some good foods J.  We sure are enjoying the lettuce, cabbage, silverbeet, spinach and carrots we are currently harvesting.

My lovely husband has also been brush cutting, and on the tractor, to start our block mowing.  This is a bigger job this year – more things to dodge (a house!) and more things to clean up in being bush-fire ready.   That is our mission this weekend, sort all the wood piles so we get them in a safer spot, and we will need to go around and pick up the small branches that fall from the trees (kindling).

Our neighbourhood bushfire-ready meeting was last weekend too – and it is a great reminder to do the prep work and get your survival plans updated.  We’ll be having this year’s first bushfire drill with the kids this weekend.  We aim to do the drill about once a fortnight.  I have a healthy fear of bushfires so it is much better feeling we have preparations in place.

We actually designed this house for bushfire resilience – that is why it is a plain rectangle (no innie corners for leaves to collect) and the most simple roof line (no leaves, and embers can just fall off) and a colourbond leaf free gutter system.  All outside building materials meet the BAL (bushfire attack level) of course, and we have non-combustible, closed in eaves (remember our pretty colourbond verandah ceiling – not just good looks J). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also thought about and designed in a safe refuge in the event we have to shelter from a bushfire (please God it never happens!) – the criteria were: two exits,  only a small window and be the part of your house at the side furthest from your main bushfire risk.  Our main risk is the 1km+ stretch of bush on our north (to north-west) boundary – so our back hallway on the south-east is our refuge.  Our survival kit is in the cupboards right there too.

There are other things we also designed into our home for bushfire resilience and to meet the BAL requirements – double glazing with 5mm toughened glass on the outside, steel fly screens, a valve in the pipe to the water tank so we can shut it off and fill the gutters, stainless steel downpipes so they don’t melt, vehicle access possible around all 4 sides (for getting to spot fires) - plus a minimum of 20m from the trees on our block and we carefully consider the fire risk for all the shrubs we are planting closer to the house.

Can’t be too careful!  See here for more information on bushfire prepare, act, survive.

PS – BOO!

Ya know, if it wasn’t for the date on this computer I wouldn’t know what day it is.

Yes we have been that busy, that exhausted and now, sickly – ah the price you pay for burning the candle at both ends…

So, we are still sleeping in the house J - I knew there would be no getting Michael back into the caravan – and no complaints from me or the kids either.

But still there is not much more furniture in here – just a couple of (empty) sets of drawers and the dining table.  Just too tired to move more in – and most of it needs painting to bring it into this ‘new home’ colour scheme – so that is another factor – we will get there…

But we are on a mission to be prepared to move much more ‘stuff’ in this coming weekend – the outlaws are on their way over to help us again J – so rain or shine – we will at least have cooking supplies, foodstuffs and clothes in I reckon – and crafty goodness J - and a head start on some furniture too probably.  Can’t wait!

There is still the bug factor too as to why we haven’t rushed to move in – I have been vacuuming every second/third day – the whole house! – and it is so much easier to vacuum empty floors than know the lil’ critters are hiding behind our lovely furniture!  This is Plan C – intimidation!  I figure if we move in, us (being about a gazillion times bigger than them) will scare them out!!  Ha, take that booklice/barklice – be ye gone!!!

We were so close to nuking them – bought the flea bombs and everything – but with the worldwide evidence always coming back to chemicals are never guaranteed, usually only work ‘so-so’ and getting the humidity down is a 100% - well, we decided to wait it out a bit longer – and do the scare tactic too.  Hey, maybe if we dress up for Halloween, that will really scare them out…worth a shot anyway – and will at least be fun to try J.

Anyway, here is why we are so tired:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paving has started!!  And take note of this lovely selection of colours (yes, all from the salvage yard) – it will help explain the ‘character’ of paving patterns ;-).

My honey emailed me a photo at work last Tuesday lunchtime:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And by Friday afternoon he had got to here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, so good!!

My contribution has been carrying plenty of pavers across before and after work.  And the kids have carried quite a few too.  Man, they are HEAVY!!!  I can carry a max. of 5 – so I figured they must weigh at least a couple of kilos each (concrete pavers they are) – but I decided to weigh one on my kitchen scales – a quarter piece weighed approx. 1.3kg!!!!  That makes a full paver about 5kg – five point zero kilograms EACH.  Darn, darn, darn heavy in any language!!! 

Hey, just for fun, let’s do the math.  There are 25 pavers per square meter – that’s 125kg lifted, carried and placed per square meter, right?  We have 210m² to do the verandah – so (work with me here) 125 x 210 = too bloody much = we are loco, crazy, MAD!!!