My last post was way back in mid summer, and it's now mid winter... I know I've been slack with updates on our adventures, but it's not as if I've been sitting around doing nothing! Living on a lifestyle block there is always something to do, so I will briefly recap the last few months.
Well as I mentioned it is winter, and it's been a very wet winter, the ground is very water logged, you just can't go anywhere without gumboots on. So far we have only had 2 frosts, and daylight is currently gaining by about 1 minute each day... I can just feel spring is around the corner. Even the chickens have started laying eggs again, after about a 6 week break during June. Also a wild duck was walking her chickens through the paddock the other day. Bring it on! Spring & Summer, I Can't Wait!
Poplar Trees:
Our boundary line runs along the neighbours drive, and we own about 100m of very tall poplars, I would say 25 metres plus tall, they've been there for a very long time. I think they are a beautiful asset adding to the rural view and outlook of the property, also the stock love their leaves, and they provide shelter and soak up a lot of the excess water from the paddock.
Well, one of our neighbours, Barbara thinks differently, and she very verbally abusive on one particular day, and complained to me about the trees, as they overhang their driveway. I got my back up a little about that, I mean the trees are well over 20 years old, and we didn't plant them, and we only just moved here, and from what I understand she has lived here for 10 plus years. I told her she is welcome to prune the trees on her side, I have no issues with that. I had to bite my tongue a few times, to keep the peace.
I'm a little bit of a greenie at times, and believe we need more trees in the world, so I'm not in the mind of removing them, but I will prune them as required, but in my own time, not because Barbara demands it, "I must remember, bite my tongue, bite it!
Well mother nature jumped the gun, and during autumn we had an awful storm, even the house was vibrating with howling winds, it was the biggest storm to date that I have experienced. It was a little scary in the middle of the night, I got out of bed a few times to make sure the garage and chicken house were still standing. Not that I could have done anything in the middle of the night if all hell had been let lose, but I grabbed Max our cat, and locked ourselves in the bedroom.
Come morning, I could see the damage from my window, the storm tore off many branches, and pretty much covered the entire neighbours 100m drive. So at 7am with chainsaw in hand, I started the clean up with help from the other neighbours. The next weekend I hired a cherry picker, which could stretch to 11 metres high, and we pruned about half the trees along the drive, so they were not overhanging as much as they were. I don't like these sort of heights, I get the shakes in my legs, which doesn't help when you are on a wobbling cherry picker 10 meters up with a chainsaw in hand... the entire thing just shakes that much more. But I told myself, just put on my "big boy pants" and get on with it. Thankfully some of the neighbours helped. About 4 properties share that boundary line, so I appreciated the help from Steve & Bob, thanks guys!
One of the branches snapped in the middle.
Fences:
Essentially when we purchased the property, it was all just one big paddock. There were two internal fences at some point of time in history, but now there is not much remaining other than a few posts, nothing to keep anything in our out.
So the last few months we have been working on the fences, we just keep chugging away at it a little bit at a time. The first task was to make the house/garden area sheep proof, which we have now completed. Then we will work on splitting up the remaining paddocks.
First take down old fence and cut back grass (above),
Then below the new fence... there are now two bottom wires
and a electric wire on the other side of the fence.
Max showing off on the new fence.
We need to put in a couple water trough's so I purchased one to start with, and I didn't go too big as I had to man handle the thing on my own. So I was having to get a little creative to get the darn thing off the trailer, and into it's final location.
The final resting place was midway down the hill, from the top of the drive, so at the top of the hill I unhitched the trailer from the car, and basically slid down the hill as I stood on the trailer tow bar, before jumping off and throwing a chunk of wood under the wheels when I needed to stop. Then tilting the trailer, I could slide the water trough off the trailer, and using that old technique of round roller posts under the trough to move it along the ground.
Connecting it up wasn't too difficult, but the entire setup cost around $200, trough and fittings.
We put some gravel under/around it, but we need a whole heap more, we've recently had some little ponies from my neighbour grazing the paddock and drinking from the trough, but it's still getting a little messy around the trough.
Max... Living The Dream:
We've come to the realisation that the only one in our household who is truly living the rural lifestyle dream is Max. Gary lives in the city during the working week, dealing with a rather stressful job, and I commute 130kms a day to my job, which too has become very stressful of late, and just seems to be taking up more and more of my time outside of work.
But here is Max, just owning the place... while Gary and I, are a slave to the
I'm actually jealous of Max, as he gets to spend his entire day here in Paradise, spending his days sleeping, eating and wandering around the property just enjoying himself. It's about time he went and got a job and started contributing to the household!
Up & Coming:
In addition to lawnmowing, gardening, we've also added some steps to the deck, so we truly have indoor & outdoor flow now from the deck to the lawn. We just need to stain it, once the weather sort's itself out, and then I will add some additional photos.
Again, subject to the weather, this weekend hopefully, I will be building my little glass house box to raise my seedlings in. I will start sowing seeds at the start of August. Our vegetable garden will be awesome this year! I'm going to be much more organised this time round.
Also soon, hopefully, we will be purchasing some Arapawa sheep/lambs. If I have any money left!
But that's all for now, a rather long update this time, but I will try to be more regular with shorter updates :)
