Out For A Duck!

If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck!

We have ducks... well ducklings, this weekend our family has grown by two Muscovy Ducklings!

Very cute... if I do say so myself...

The two girls are rather small, and there is a real chance of a Hawk snatching them, so we've built a small pen to house them in for a couple of weeks until they are a little bigger. But the plan is for the girls to keep the vege garden in order and to wander free about the property. Already we have noticed they are excellent fly catchers and love eating grass and bathing. They seem to really like to keep themselves clean which is great, but I do feel they are going to absorb a lot of my time, as the are so cute and I quite enjoy just hanging out with them!

Our Harthouse Cabin Arrives...

Earlier this year, mid winter 2017, Gary mentioned that his family might be coming out to visit in 2018, and a quick conversation about sleeping arrangements, the size of our house, we came to the conclusion that putting family in a tent on the lawn wouldn't do. So we needed to do something about guest accommodation for family, friends and visitors.

We started researching about adding an extension onto the house, and to add another bedroom, ensuite, around 30sqm, we were getting quotes of around $100,000. Which was crazy for an extension which is much more straightforward than a new build! We built our entire house, 90sqm for less than $200,000.  I think part of the NZ housing/building crisis is how expensive materials and labour has become with the housing boom.

So we had to rethink our plan.  

Back in January 2017, while at the Mangawhai Domain Summer Gala Day, a local market day with stall holders selling their wares, we came across the Harthouse Cabins display.  So I got in touch with Cliff, the creator of the Harthouse Cabins. You can find him on facebook: Harthouse Cabins  

Cliff has been excellent to deal with, and is quite the craftsman.

When building a dwelling/sleepout/cabin to avoid building consents etc, the interior floor space must be less than 10sqm. Now what I love about the Harthouse is that the interior floor space is maximised to the 10sqm, and as the walls curve outwards, and the widest part being about eye level, this design feature creates an amazingly spacious feeling in such a small space. The Harthouse does not feel like a small tiny box at all, but it did tick all our boxes ☺.

Front View

Rear View

Geoff & I Installing Foundation Posts

Cliff Delivering Cabin

Interior View From Front Door

With our cabin, in time, we are planning to connect services for an ensuite, so we have a small room at the back of the cabin for the ensuite, which will require consents etc. However for now its a storage space, but we're still within our 10sqm internal floorplan. Amazing!

Interior View Curve Of Wall

Max Inspecting Workmanship... It Passed!

View Inside-Out

So we still have a few things to do:

> Install steps up to the cabin,

> We plan to decorate the exterior white walls with mural style paintings,

> Furnish the cabin,

> Connect solar power,

> A lot of planting around the cabin,

> Then finally work on the ensuite... down the track.

So still a work in progress, but we're in no rush, as Gary's family decided they will now not be coming in 2018.

Tonight It's A Full Moon

Living in a rural environment on a cloudless night we're very fortunate to enjoy stunning views of the night sky. On occasions I enjoy sitting out on the deck at night just looking up at the stars. On one occasion, earlier this year, I had woken up at 4am to watch shooting stars. However tonight it's a full moon. I'm not very good with the camera, but this is how the moon rises Down Wattle Lane:

You Cant Lead A Horse To Water...

... well ain't I glad that I don't have horses, however I just need to lead my sheep to water and to do that, you just need to rattle a bucket of sheep nuts and they will follow you anywhere.

I've setup another water trough in the lower paddock, although the water trough is located at the top of the paddock. Kind of a reward when the sheep get to the top of the hill, there is a watering hole waiting to quench their thirst whilst enjoying the view.

I don't have any accessible piped water to this part of the paddock, so the water trough is small as I need to cart the water down from the house. It's not to far, and a nice walk. 

Wool...1 Bag Full

After shearing the sheep, we now need to decide what we are going to do with the wool.

If I have this correct, there are 3 steps to take raw wool and turn it into a useable fibre.  First thing is to clean the wool. 

Step 1 - Separate Good From The Bad.

On the back of the trailer, I spread out each fleece, and pulled out the mud, poo, grass. Basically anything that wasn't wool, had to be removed.

From the black trolley to the trailer, pick out the nasty's, then the good wool goes into the wool sack. At a guess we have ended up with 30-40KG of wool.

Step 2 - Washing The Wool

We need to wash the wool to remove the remaining nasty's, grease, and some of the lanolin in the wool. Now my plan has changed a little. Originally I was going to take the wool to a commercial wool cleaner, but at a cost of around $10 per kg plus GST, it is not economical to do that.

I've been reading online people cleaning their own raw wool, using hot water and detergent. Being a DIY Master, if I do say so myself, and I do have an old spare washing machine in working condition. So I'm going to give this a go myself.

Step 3 - Carding

This is working the wool into a useable fibre. Again I was going to have this done by a commercial wool processor, the same people that wash and clean the wool, but again the cost, you can pay up to $15 per kg plus GST to card the wool.  So again crazy expensive.

I could have been paying up to $30KG per KG to turn the wool into a useable fibre... and then it still needs to be spun. It's just not economical.

So this is an incomplete post, sorry about that, but I will post and update with more details on the process and how we got on with the washing of the wool and then carding of the wool.

Wool Clip 2017

One of the advantages of having Arapawa Sheep is that they only need to be shorn once a year.. which saves time and money, but 2018 is our biggest shearing day so far... 26 sheep. It's feeling like a farm more and more every day.

In preparation for the big day, we built another small pen with a deck, creating a flat, smooth surface which the shearers could work from. The idea was to make it an easier job for the shearer, and then it would hopefully be easier on the sheep with less cuts & nics. Plus with the way the land falls, we can now back the trailer up to the pen to load and unload the sheep when moving them.

I was up at 6am, rounding up the sheep... (I'm even sounding like a farmer), getting the sheep into the pen, which not an easy job. Overtime the sheep have learned that going into the pen generally means it isn't going to be a fun experience for them, so they tend to avoid the pen at all cost with some even jumping the fence when I do get them in. I've tried to create some positive experiences for the sheep & the pen by also feeding them the sheep nuts in the pen, I'm not sure if it works, they love the nuts, but it still took me half an hour to get them in the pen today.

Sheep Ready To Be Shorn:

Our Shearer... Doing The Hard Work:

Something I learned today... 

I paid the shearer $10 per sheep for the full cut. I had heard the rate is normally $7-$10 per sheep. To me this is a bargain, given how hard, physical and dangerous the work is. I learned today that farmers only pay $0.60 cents per sheep when crutching them, (shearing around the butt) but the shearer prefers $0.80 cents per sheep. So my hat goes off to all the people working in this business... Bloody Hard Work For Such Small Rewards.

My job was to catch, more like wrestle with the sheep, and then to handover the sheep to the shearer... but I couldn't help myself by stealing a hug with a lamb.

All Done... Sheep Back In Paddock.

And then it was time for me to have an afternoon nap... I'm buggered!

Lifestyle Block Realities...

If you ask anyone who has had a lifestyle block, they will tell you it is a lot of hard work. I think we have made it more difficult for ourselves as we purchased a blank canvas, essentially just a paddock.  If you ask me what my advice would be to anyone considering to buy a lifestyle block: 

Buy something established!

For the last 3 or so years, every weekend, every holiday, we've been building the house, building the garden shed, building the garage, making gardens, making paths, digging drains, planting trees, rebuilding boundary and internal fences, mowing lawns, weeding the gardens, mowing more lawns, chopping up felled trees, planting more trees, mowing more lawns, weeding more gardens.

It's a lot of work, and when everything is new, you're "investing" truck loads of time and money into your lifestyle block.

Over the next two weeks, my tasks are:

• Pickup Mower From Workshop & Mow Lawns
• Weed & Feed Around All Fruit Trees
• Cut Grass In Chicken Pen
• Clean Out Chicken Cage
• Continue Chopping Up Felled Trees & Mulch Smaller Branches
• Finish Planting The Remaining 25 Manuka Trees
• Shear Sheep
• Drench Sheep
• Take Recycling To Recycling Place & Then Tidy Garage
• Clean Deck
• Restain Deck
• Create New Garden Bed Under Deck
• Top Up Driveway Gravel
• Put Gravel Around Paddock Gate That Gets Muddy
• New Water Trough In Lower Paddock
• Trailer Need WOF Soon So Fix Loose Wiring
• Plant Something/Anything in Vege Garden... I've been short on time.
• Once All That Is Done... Mow Some More Lawns!

Now you might think this post sounds like a big ole whinge... full of regrets...

Well far from it...

I LOVE IT! 

BRING IT ON!

This is why I love living on a lifestyle block, I'm outside, getting exercise, breathing fresh air, soaking up the sun, and it is a DIY type persons dream, trying new things and giving anything a go. 

But the best thing, at the end of the day, after a hard day's work, it is so bloody rewarding to sit out on your deck, seeing what you have done and how far you have come.

PS... Thank you to my helping hands Geoff & Gary, I don't do this all on my own, I really appreciate the extra help when I can get it and it surely helps progress things along too.

Honey... Bee's Please!

We Have Honey Bee's!

It's been a dream on the back burner for some time now, well before we even purchased our lifestyle block, but I've always wanted to set up our own bee hive... and finally we have done it!

Our Hive Setup

The goal was to have our own hive onsite to help ensure we have a local healthy bee workforce pollinating the flowers so we have a bumper fruit and vegetable harvest every year.  Also so we wanted to have our own plentiful source of honey.

Not Much To See - Our Young Bee's Are Inside

Setting up the hive hasn't been the cheapest thing to do, about $700, but given the price of honey, after a couple of years we should be producing 20-30 kg of honey per hive every year. We only 1 hive for now, but I would like to have 2 in time, once I know what I am doing.

So how did we do it:

1). Join A Local Bee Club!

I've joined the Warkworth Beekeepers Society, a fantastic group of friendly locals, willing to share their experience of beekeeping. They have a meeting once a month talking about what you should be doing at that time of year, and then they have field days where you can go and see and learn. I couldn't have joined a better group of people, very welcoming. Thank You!

https://www.facebook.com/wwBeekeepers/

2). Buy The Beekeepers Bible!

This book "Practical Beekeeping" is fantastic, very informative and easy to read for a beginner with no bee experience or knowledge.

3). Just Jump In!

I prefer to learn as I go, so after my first hive visit, I put in an order for a Nuc (new Queen & Bees) and all the gear that very same day.

This weekend I will update this post with a picture of inside the hive. I'm just letting the girls settle in first after their journey to Kaiwaka.

Update... inside the hive:

The girls had been busy, there were only a couple of trays they hadn't been working on... so nearly a full box. I've now added the feeder box, basically has sugar water, to help them along. Exciting Stuff!

Replanting The Land

Part of our plan is to replant native trees & plants on areas of our block that we can't use.  IE the ground is to boggy & wet, or the ground is too steep or along the property boundary where we want to create some privacy between us and our neighbours. 

Replanting in natives to me feels like we are doing the right thing for the land.  The native plants are more suited to the land, they help feed the local bird life, and hopefully fix the soil in places, especially where it gets very wet. They also provide shelter for our sheep, produce the air we breathe and not to forget, some of our native trees are absolutely beautiful.

Last weekend with Geoff's help (thank you again Geoff) on a steep corner of our property we planted 8 trees. We had to put up a little fence, weedeat the area, and then plant... was a good effort:

Once the trees are well established, and the sheep can do no harm to them, we will take down the temporary fence.

Wood... Who Wants Some Firewood?

Earlier this year I posted about some tree's we had to cut down to keep our neighbours happy:  

http://lifedownwattlelane.blogspot.co.nz/2017/06/trees-are-love-trees-are-life-it-breaks.html

Well we've started chopping it up so it can dry and then we will sell it or trade it for more native trees this summer.

Before...

During...

It's all being done by hand, no fancy log splitters here... a chainsaw and hand tools is all we have, so it is a good workout that is for sure.

But seriously if anyone is looking for firewood, get in touch, we are preparing it now to sell in summer for use in winter 2018.

Last year we sold a few trailer loads for $80 per trailer load delivered within Kaiwaka area. 

But this year we will sell the cut/split poplar at:

> $60 per cubic meter if you pick up from home here in Kaiwaka

> $70 delivered within Kaiwaka area

> $80 delivered out to Mangawhai or Wellsford

The poplar burns fine, you just need to keep it dry.

It will also be a generous 1m3 as we stack it in, rather than use the more common "thrown" measures. So you get more bang for your buck!

Or we will consider trading for the same value in good healthy native trees... all trees considered, so do get in touch.

All funds are being used to develop and replant more natives trees around the property.