Painting.. Mowing...I'm A Bit Sore After This Weekends Efforts

Just a quick update... we spent this weekend painting more of the exterior and then spending another 3 hours mowing the lawn. Also there has been some further progress on the inside as the gib has gone up along with most of the internal doors.

The area we are converting from paddock into lawn keeps increasing in size.  Our neighbors have kindly cut the long grass, so it is much easier to get the initial mow done.  Also by setting the mower on a highest height setting and by using a bungy cord to hold the rear mower flap up so the grass is thrown clear of the mower, the mower doesn't clog up all the time and stall.

But in the near future we will need to invest, I'm not sure if that is the right word but splurg for a ride-on lawnmower... it is just taking two long by push mower. I don't want to spend all my time mowing the grass. So a ride-on lawnmower goes to the top of the Birthday wish list..."honey I hope you are reading this".

Pasta/Tomato Sauce With Brandywine Tomatoes

With so many tomatoes to spare, I decided to experiment a little with dinner tonight... and I was very pleasantly surprised at my first attempt and I was more so surprised at how amazing fresh Tomato Sauce tastes!  

So I have to write this down now, so I don't forget.

    About 10 Brandywine Tomatoes from the garden

    NZ Extra Virgin Olive Oil

    3 Cloves NZ Garlic Crushed

    3 NZ Shallots Sliced

    A few Basil Leaves

    Free Range Pork Sausages, cooked, skinned & sliced.

    Fresh Pasta

In the olive oil, lightly cook the garlic, shallots in a pan, add in the tomatoes and let reduce. I did this over a med-high heat and once it started to look like a sauce, I added in the basil leaves and sausages and let reduce further on a low heat, stirring occasionally, then cooked the fresh pasta.

Once the pasta was cooked, pour the sauce over and eat. Easy! I found it to be sweet and just yummy!

This was very simple & easy to put together.

I guess you could use any type of tomato and I started by peeling the tomatoes, but I found that fiddly and I thought what a waste of tomato.  I'm sure there is some good stuff in the tomato skins too. 

I was cooking for 2 and the above was just enough... but I could have made more, as I really loved the sauce. 

Next time I might add some fresh Chilli or Pepper.

 

Another Beautiful Weekend At The Block

We've just had two really beautiful days up at the block, the weather has been just amazing in Kaiwaka & Mangawhai. Perfect for a little painting.

All the doors and windows have gone in, the insulation is in, all the exterior cladding is up and they've started work on the deck. So it's now time for us to paint the exterior.

I must say, I find it hard to get excited about painting, it is very boring, and a time consuming task.  It is not until the job is done, that I get a sense of satisfaction.

We decided not to paint the side with the deck, as we need the builders to finish that first.  So we focused on the other 3 sides. We managed to get 1 coat of undercoat on, along with 1 top coat, and half of the 2nd top coat done.  Not to mention we did all the prep stuff, filling holes/gaps/cleaning, masking up the windows etc.

But despite our best calculations on the paint quantity, we have run short. I think we will need at least another 8 litres.

With the paint, I've always liked Dulux, I've used it on past renovations, and I find it really good for an amateur painter like myself. But what I like the most it's very quick to dry, so you are not sitting around waiting for paint to dry. Also it is easy to clean up, and the finished paint job looks good.

For the exterior we have used:

* DULUX 1 Step Acrylic Primer Sealer Undercoat

* DULUX Weathershield X10 Low Sheen Acrylic

For the exterior colour we have gone with "Kauri Cliff's Double". Very nice, kinda of a natural/neutral/earthy colour. We had to be a little mindful of the "Light Value Ratio" as not to void the warranty on the cladding. Had to have a LVR of 40+ and the Kauri Cliffs Double was 53.

Oh just with buying paint, we worked out what we needed months before we needed the paint. We had a trade quote supplied to us from the building company, which was really good compared to the standard retail price. Paint in NZ is just crazy expensive! But we waited patiently for a sale, and Guthrie Bowron had a 25% discount sale on Dulux paint. So we brought all our paint at once. We saved another $200 on the trade price quoted to us. The timing was very good too, the sale was 2 weeks before we needed to start painting.

But hopefully the deck will done by next weekend, so we can finish the painting. Perhaps enjoy our first drink on the deck!

 Snug As A Bug... Weather Tight & Insulated

Above Picture, Finished Painting 

& Below Deck & The Walls Still To Be Painted

Below, Painted & Nearly Finished

Also We Have So Many Tomatoes!

Tomatoes include: Brandywine,

Orange Cherry, Black Cherry, Gold Nugget, Standard Money Maker, White Cherry, Honeybee, plus there are 3 White Apple Cucumbers!

I'm going to make some sauce... so I need to hunt out a good recipe.

We Have A Roof!

Another quick update.  We now have a roof. The build is progressing very fast, also some of the cladding has gone up too.  So I spent today painting the Fascia, as the guttering will go up next week, and that surely must mean the water tank will be connected soon. Very Exciting!

I'm not sure what I have done but the photos are really bad...so I will only attach a couple, and I will take some better photos next week.

Chop Chop!

Another great day at the block, today I put on my Lumberjack Hat and attacked the poplar tree that fell down the other day with the chainsaw.   

Such Fun!

So I also chopped down another 4 small pine trees, well small but really tall.  I think too many had been planted to close together, so a few of the pines are really lanky and some growing at crazy angles, just waiting to be blown over in the next storm.  I did a count and there about 30 of these trees, so I will go through and cut them down overtime, thinning out the pine trees.

So we will have plenty of firewood! For now I've just cut them at manageable lengths, and made 2 stacks under the other trees to dry. Then I just need to work out a good way to get them up the hill to the house.

I'm Lovin Summer!

Just a quick update with some photos.

I just spent a wonderful day at the block... what a beautiful summer day, beautiful blue sky and a gentle summer breeze, just perfect!  I can't really  describe the sense of satisfaction within me. It was just amazing!

A perfect day for mowing the lawns, tidying up the vegetable garden, but the trip today was really to just have a little sneak peak to see how the house if coming along, and coming along it is!

In the above photo, you can see the farmer making hay... while the sun shines.

 

The vege garden is doing well, although we are a bit tired of cucumbers, they grow very well here.  I've only had 2 tomatoes so far. But plenty more to come, they just need to ripen.

 

Don't you just want to roll down the hill in the grass? It was alive with bees and crickets.

If you do want to roll down the hill.. you do need to be mindful of the sheep poo!

 

Above is the cut grass drying, and below the farmers have just started bailing the hay, just as I was heading home for the day.

The bad weather we had last week blew a tree down. It's fallen over the boundary fence, although I don't think the tree is mine.  But being the tidy kiwi I am, on my next visit, I will get the chainsaw out and chop it up for firewood. The only issue I have is how do I carry the wood up that big hill? I guess even the early settlers that came to New Zealand perhaps had Clydesdale Horses or something along those lines to pull the logs. I'm thinking if I chop it into manageable sizes I can carry it up. Maybe one day soon I will look like a Clydesdale too!

Well that is the end of today's updated. I can't wait to go back!

UP UP & AWAY... As The Framing Goes Up!

We had a very nice surprise this weekend at the block. 

We were greeted to the bare bones of the house! YAY!

In one week the flooring and framing has gone up! Awesome! We can now get a real feel as to the floor plan/layout room size etc. It really doesn't feel as small as we had initially thought.

It looks great! We're both very happy with how it looks so far!

The above picture, is looking down hallway to kitchen/lounge.

The above is the Lounge/Living Room/Kitchen

The above is looking down the Hallway to the Bathroom.

The above picture is one of the bedrooms, each will look out to the valley.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - GARDEN UPDATE

Happy New Year To All! 

I hope you all have been enjoying the summer holidays!

We've spent the summer holidays developing the garden area, enjoying the warm sun and fresh air, finishing the day with a swim at Mangawhai beach before heading back to the city. Just beautiful. We can't wait until the house is built so we can enjoy this all a little more.

Below is some of what we have been working on. 

This is just above the vegetable garden, next to the driveway.  We have shaped one of the excess dirt mounds that was left over from the driveway excavation, put down weed mat, bark and planted it with Manuka Leptospermum Burgundy Queen and Grass Carex Buchananii Red. 

I also want to add in a small flax... I do like the Phormium Evening Glow, but I'm finding it difficult to purchase this flax at a reasonable price. So I will keep looking and add later.

I'm hoping that the 3 plants will all grow quiet nicely together, below was my kinda of idea I had with the colours.  

I'm hoping that it will become a little bushy, and provide a little protection for the garden with the westerly winds that seem to be reasonably frequent during spring.

We have also been enjoying some of rewards from our garden. At the moment, just cucumber and peas, but lots of both! Below are the short green cucumber and the apple cucumber, very yummy!

 

Quick Garden Update

The Vege Garden is coming along rather well, but it needs a little more love and time spent with it. Which is a bit of a challenge as we are not living on site. So it tends to do it's own thing, and I tend to the garden only once every 2 weeks. Not ideal, especially for the kinda of plants that bugs like to eat.

Watering the garden is an issue, I've brought a seeping garden hose and attached that to a water timer onto the Garden shed water tank. I kinda don't think this is working too well.  It worked really well to start with, and dripped water really well, but it doesn't seem to drip as much as it started too, so I might need to take another approach to the watering side of things.

We Have Piles! Lots of Them! YAY!

We have piles!! Well in the building sense that is. Whoever thought that getting piles could be so much fun!

A nice surprise this weekend to see the piles, the foundations of our home have gone in. 

You can now get a sense as to the size of the house. I'm kinda hoping the house will be big enough.

 

Below is the view that we will have from the deck.