Rosie joins the family, and progress report

First up, meet Rosie! She is a wee yellow labrador who has joined us - she's quite lovely, but quite naughty as well! Grace loves her dearly, and they have a lot of fun out on the farm, playing chase and exploring. A couple of afternoons ago, I took the two of them down to the stream - we spent an hour paddling and climbing, then back to the house for baths for everyone! Good fun!

The most exciting thing right now is that we have a fully functioning kitchen! Rupert has worked so hard on it, and there are still finishing touches to be done so I will let  him post a photo later, but oh the difference it makes! The dining room seems huge now without our temporary kitchen set up at one end. Just such a huge job, and so lovely to have it all laid out and usable.

Other than that, we have double rotary hoed what will be the vegetable garden, and cut down two huge willow trees that were hanging over it - lots of sawing and splitting and loading the wood in the trailer to the shed, but another day or two and that will be done. We have moved the pigs to the paddock where the main crops will be planted later, so they can start preparing the soil before we plough/rotary hoe. I am still working on the spare room but get lured outside by the fine weather, so that tends to wait for rainy days.

We have two wee chickens that hatched from our eggs - not a great success rate, but it was fun to watch and see them come out. They are getting quite big now, so one of the next jobs will be to clean out the chicken shed and make it safe for them, as well as add a few more chooks so we get a good lot of eggs. You can see the chicken shed in the background of the photo below - very sturdy, just needs a good tidy up!

Grace is doing great - bar the usual 4 year old stuff, and while she is enjoying kindy she hasn't made any close friends yet. After the school holidays I hope to take her to the local playgroup on a Wednesday morning - so I can meet some Mums and she can meet some local kids. She had her first night time disco at Kindy - dress up, which she loved, and they also had a day trip to Napier to see a show. She loves to go for a walk each afternoon on the farm with Rosie and one of us, and you never know quite where you will end up - the stream, picking daffodils, or playing on the old trees.

She also got to bring home "sparkly bear" from Kindy for a sleep over - only kids who have done something quite special get to bring him home, so of course he had to come feed the pigs with us!

It's such a different life down here - we were really excited to have dinner with another neighbour the other night, and another couple from further down the road, so we are starting to make friends and get to know where folks are and what they do. But each day is different, and it feels good to see a little bit of progress each day.

Brrr...Winter

Time seems to be flying by - we have had the first day of winter, which was a very frosty day indeed! A few warm summery days between showery and rainy days, so what we do is quite dependent on what the weather is doing!

I spent a very long Sunday planting 42 fruit trees in the orchard - that was a hard slog, and I couldn't quite do the whole 45! There are 8 more trees on back order and that will hopefully be later this week. I've planted in groves, as we have so many different types - so a citrus grove with mandarins, lemons, oranges and grapefruit, then the pipfruit area - apples, pears and quinces. Up the top is the "nuttery" with almonds and avocados, plus a macadamia. Then I have a corner with three cherry trees, another with three plum trees, and an area for stonefruit - nectarines, peaches and apricots. A huge job but was good to get them in the ground and so far the frost has not touched the orchard.

Rupert has been slogging away on the kitchen - cabinets are all in, most of the floor is down, and he has done the plumbing. All the appliances are here, so it's just a matter now of waiting for the benchtop and the gas hob installer and we are cooking! Literally! It will be SO good to do dishes in a kitchen rather than a basin on the dining room table filled in the bathroom!

Our first experimental batch of chicks hatched - just two Aracaunas - I knew the hatch rate would be low, so thrilled to have two. They are growing well, and very noisy! Dream (the cat) thinks they are just there for her personal enjoyment and spends a lot of time watching them. In other news, we moved the pigs from what will be the vegetable garden down to their sty - easy job, with a bucket of food, they followed me happily with Rupert bringing up the rear.

Rupert scored himself a bit of a bargain with this very cool 1960's tractor! This will be used for the heavier jobs - ploughing, dragging out logs. Liza and Mark came to visit from Taupo for a day - so good to see them, and Liza had a wee tootle around on Big Blue. We do miss our friends and family but with the internet and Facebook it's really easy to stay in touch - and we are not THAT far away!

The adjustment continues - I've just had my first job interview which was a little nerve wracking! Grace seems to be settling in well to Kindy though she still talks about her Auckland friends. We had to explain to her the other day that fairies aren't real, after she made a wish (on her knees by the window!) and then cried the next morning when there was no pony waiting for her in the lounge! Big excitement coming up though with her first night time disco next friday at Kindy - it's going to be a long week of counting down.

So, that's us! Add in to all that the normal jobs and living, and it's quite busy. We did have a morning out at Otane Market (not worth it) and Otane Tree Guys (very cool), so we are seeing a bit of the country. Very shortly, Rupert will be home from town with a rotary hoe for me to break up the vege garden, so I'd better get my gumboots on!

Paula (and Rupert)