Daffodil Days

I've posted before about our secret little daffodil patch here.

Well, now it's even better as I am actually here at the farm to see them first hand and I have a beautiful bunch sitting in a vase on my kitchen bench.

There's literally thousands of bulbs down there of this heritage variety. They have such pretty double blooms.

I think the bottom of the hill can spare a few hundred. I'll lift them in Autumn and move them to the top of the hill so I can admire their beauty without the epic trek to the bottom of our block.

It's a snow day! (Well, it was. A few weeks ago...)

I'm so naughty. 

We had some really great snowy weather a few weeks ago and I forgot to post some photos.

So, this is not now. Right now it is very Springy weather and I'll post about all that shortly. This was back in July. July was cold. It snowed in July. Then the weather was so cold the snow stuck around on the shady parts of our block for nearly a week. We had a ball making snowmen and keeping snowballs in the freezer.  

Now we're really farming...

Check this out!

Our first ever chooky egg.

We've had our three very lovely, fluffy and until this morning, freeloading Silkie x Pekin bantams for about a month. Molly has taken to them and named them Penny, Speckles and Duckie.

I find them a little odd. They're a bit skittish and easily spook each other. I let them out to free range every afternoon and they find there way home no matter where they venture.

Geoff made them a sweet little coop from leftover building materials.

Molly ate it for dinner. The egg. Not the coop.

I wonder if we'll get one tomorrow?

Hellooo Possums!

I give up.

I've hardly even put up a fight. But I know when I'm beat.

Last night I was terrorised during my evening solitude. There's a noise at the front door forcing me to launch myself across the room to check it's locked lest the scratching be made by some B-grade horror movie type intruder.

No. It's not Leatherface coming to get me. It's just a bloody possum. Trying to climb up our hardwood cladding. A possum who has eaten it's way through all attempts of mine to start a garden.

I hope my pak choy was delicious.

I know how I want to spend my time here. Gardening, cooking and looking after some farmy pets (...and my family of course). I don't want to wake up every morning swearing for an hour because a possum has eaten all of yesterday's vegie seedlings.

The only solution is a fence. A big ugly floppy possum proof fence.

I swore blind I wouldn't need it. That I would find a new way that much more experienced gardeners than me hadn't thought of yet. I would invent a system of animal proofing that allowed for a beautiful garden free of wire fences and ugly nets draped over polypipe. This system would make me a millionaire.

Ah...nuh. I need the same hideous looking rampart as everybody else. Sigh.

So I'm meeting a fencer tomorrow to get a quote. We'll actually fence the whole house, orchard and vegie garden. It will provide a bit of safety for the chickies as well as contain the future Daffodil Hill canine companion.

So here's to knowing when you're beat before you even enter the ring.

How I imagine the possum eating my vegetables.

We're Gonna Need a Montage...

Well haven't I been channelling Underworld and "dancing underneath the radar"?

So much for this blog chronicling the ins and outs of building a house on a country block in southern Tas.

Update! Breaking! Newsflash! Our house is built and we are in!

Now for the movie montage where we condense 4 months of trials, tribulations and finally victory into a super short blog post.

We moved to the valley in April and stayed in accommodation until the end of May. This is when we couldn't afford to keep paying for somewhere to sleep so we moved into the house. There was no bathroom. There was no hot and cold water in the house (hot water came straight from the tank, cold from the garden tap). There were no lights. There was electricity in one bedroom. We were basically camping in the back part of the house. The first night was freezing. Literally freezing. There was frost the next day. Molly had our only heater. She was nice and warm in her new bedroom.
We set up a kitchen in the back tv room. BBQ on the back porch. We ran a long extension lead to the front of the house to hook up the NBN. The NBN. Bliss. I had spent close to $300 extra on phone calls and data on my mobile.

Anyway. The house took longer to complete than anyone expected. I stayed calm and patient during the whole process. I am a saint. The run around I got from various trades was enough to send anyone to the asylum. Seriously. I should be crowned. Queen of Patience.

Slowly things started to be completed. We got our bathroom. Then we got the undertile heating hooked up. Boy was that a celebration. Then we got the front of the house tiled. The plastering was finished which meant a little less dust. Then we got electricity and lights pretty much throughout the house. Then paint, kitchen, laundry etc. etc. etc. The weeks were marked by small victories.

Technically, in August, the house is still not completed. I have the flue guy here today to finish the range hood installation and the cleaner is coming to clean the floor tiles of all the paint, building adhesive, grout and other crap. The electrician has one light and one power point to finish.
It's. So. Close.

But today the sun is shining and the grass is starting to poke back through the quagmire of mud that has surrounded the house since the rain came in April. We have three gorgeous little chickens and I'm starting to see how we will plan our little farm.

And our little farm has a name. Daffodil Hill.
Finally after 5 years we got there. Here.
Time to get to work!

Turn up the sound and enjoy the montage. I'll post finished house photos soon :-)

Some more photos from the builder.
Next week I make my first visit to our place since work started. So the next photos posted will be mine!
The garage is just about finished. Ready for me to move our stuff in on Tuesday.

Squeeeee!!!!!

I can't believe how fast this house is being built.

The roof goes on this week then cladding then windows by the end of next week which means.....

Lockup!!

My builder Dennis is so enthusiastic about our house. I love getting my phone calls from him as he gushes about how good it all looks. He said that all his 'guys' are loving the project as well. They think it's a great design and love the idea of the funky red gable ends.
I can't help but think that all the good vibes will be embedded in the house.

Moving Day #1

Ohmagod. Check it out.

Our lovely neighbour Hannah sent us this view of the house today. I can't believe how nicely it sits on the hill.
I'm so so glad we didn't go with the double height building. This one looks much more at home.

In other exciting news! The majority of our stuff went with the removalist today out of storage here in Wagga. It was a big moment and I may have shed a tear as the truck pulled out to head south.

For the next two months we'll be visitors on the mainland :-)

Redo

I'm so happy with how these chairs turned out. Not the neatest reupholstery job ever but pretty good given the superfast turnaround time (2 days).
The colour is a little more orange than the photos suggest. Also, they're not the original frames I found at Vinnies. These are actually a matching pair that I got for $10 each from a secondhand furniture dealer here in Wagga. They're in perfect condition.
As for the old frames, I tossed one (way too much work to do on the frame - what was I thinking!) and am keeping the other as a future project.
I think these will fit very nicely with my teal couch from Freedom.

Progress

Dennis sent these photos through last week. I'm waiting for some new ones as by now the wall frames for the house are up and the roof trusses are being put on! It's all go go go and I can't wait to see it in March. I'm heading down on the 8th to be there when all our crap stuff arrives. The removalist is picking it all up tomorrow morning. Then more of us will be in Tassie than on the mainland! We'll be visitors here until we make the one-way journey in April. They building has been going very smoothly. There's been no delays - everything is arriving when it should and the weather has been perfect. I've had the odd phone call from Dennis checking on a few things but nothing major. We're also going to see our finished kitchen benches this afternoon. Another thing we had to wait longer than we expected for. The deadline for them is tomorrow morning when the removalist arrives...

More slab action

My blessed builder sent me some more pics from today's epic slab pour.
Nearly 50 cubic metres pumped onto our site.
Garage will be done tomorrow.

It's a beautiful thing :-)