So much to catch up on...

But I absolutely must show you this.



Ignore the green stripes, they are just masking tape. Also I had only done one coat of each colour in the bits I took pics of (of course!).

Is that the most lurid bog in the world or what? I couldn't decide on purple or orange, both Resene paints colours, and given the sample pots were only enough for half the walls, well.... The oddest thing is our very white toilet now looks decidedly orange. Not purple.



8-D

New windows

So today was the big day that the windows were to arrive. We are redoing the old windows cos they are rotting out after 50 years of service.

I rang the place FIVE times before the right person answered the phone. She had not been "at her desk." From the way she chatted, I guessed there was a not very good reason why she was not "at her desk."

Anyway, she said the windows would be delivered "later this afternoon" with the emphasis on later.

So I confirmed a doctor's appointment at 11:30 am and trotted down there. I had to see the doc because my sad shoulder (not the BC one) was unhappy due to the amount of shovelling and wheelbarrowing and moving stuff I had done to get the way ready for the windows to be put in the garage.

I got back at 12:10pm. I had been away 40 minutes.

Guess what was lying in the front yard on blocks of wood?

AUGH!

(I need a Charlie Brown wail)

I got on the phone to them and wailed. It's been pouring on and off here, so unDecember-like. The receptionist said no I shouldn't move them by myself, she would find some guys to come and move them for me.

Then I cried. Our windows, our $3200 of beautiful, western red cedar double glazed windows lying in the front yard. (I shudder to think how much the windows for the rest of the house will be cos one of them is practically as big as four of the ones we just bought.)

Anyway, all was well in the end. Two sales blokes came around and moved them for me. So glad that they did because we've had another half an inch of rain this evening....

Muchos gracias, Canterbury Windows.

%$&#$&% Rain!

Never thought I would say that there's any such thing as too much rain.

It is 1:30am, I've been woken up at 1:10am by the rain pounding on the roof and garden. And the sound of water pouring. There was a weird ba-doing noise that I hoped wasn't the fence falling over (the fence is in a parlous state).

No, the ba-doing noise was the metal strap that holds the gutter extension in place, the extension that directs the jet of water from the down pipe into the water tank. It now directs the water down the SIDE of the tank.

Sigh.

OK the tank is full but at least the overflow directs the water into the storm water drain rather than under the house.

I know I should do something about it but it is 9C out, DARK and pouring rain. And I doubt I can reach it and I don't have a torch to light the way to it anyway.

Heh. If I can't sleep, I'll get some pics of home improvements up....

On chooks

One of the things I find very amusing about chickens is the way their heads bob when they walk. When they run?

Bobobobobbobobobobobobbobobobobobobbob!

As Boldie demonstrates below. Her head and neck are all blurred. OK, so is one foot.



I also find their eyes quite freaky - I reckon if you want to know what dinosaur eyes looked like, look no further! After all, chickens are a recently evolved dinosaur really - like pretty much all birds.


Isoldie was also running away from me - these chooks are mighty difficult to get pics of, but had slowed down some and was in focus and not motion-blurred. I have to say I don't find their heads particularly pretty. I think Isoldie shows her English Game Bird heritage quite well - I would not be surprised if she is a pure bred. Boldie clearly is not, with her big floppy comb. Goldie, who declined to join in the photo shoot, is somewhere in between in comb style.

BTW, if you have free ranging chooks and like nice neat paths and garden beds?

HA! You have no hope unless your favourite thing is sweeping paths and you have LOTS of time on your hands....

Flushed with success

Hooray! At last a new post on our Modest Manor page.

We are rearranging our kitchen, laundry and loo. The old pink porcelain throne has been, well, dethroned, and hooray I say to that! That old dunny had had its day some years ago.

So lookie at our new loo:



Isn't it shiny and noice and clean and new? It is low water use (3/6L I think or less than a gallon and somewhat less than two gallons). And noone has peed all over it! Yay!

Pity about the fact you can see from one side of the house to the other through the new loo's space. We haven't got a door for it yet, hmmm....

OMG May 15

G'day all!

May the 15th be with you. Doesn't have the same ring as May the fourth be with you. Anyway, if this all comes together, that is a tentative start date for Nathan at HP in Fort Collins.

Crikey! We haven't even been to the place yet!

Flap! Woo hoo!

anon!

Bathroom frolics

G'day all!

Long time no post.

We've been doing up the bathroom. We decided that the hole rotting in the of one of the walls had to be fixed.

So Nathan pulled the walls off. Rotting wood in the wall. Dang.

No showers. Double dang.

Then he smashed up the base and took the taps off.

No hope of a shower now!

Double dang with cherries on top.

Then he pulled up the floor and pulled out the vanity basin.

Triple dang - we have to brush our teeth in either the laundry trough or outside. Same for washing hands after a trip to the bog.

But good news arriveth!

Bathroom taps are sorted and sitting awaiting installation. Hooray!

Once the taps are in, then we can cement sheet the walls, then put the rubbery paint waterproofing membrane in, then hang the fake tile system on the walls. Once the drain is hooked up to the shower base, we have a shower! Hooray!

The new vanity has arrived but even though it will fit in the back of my baby car, there is no way I could get it out of the car by myself, so we haven't got that yet.

Next we need to get some flooring. Vinyl. I want lino but they won't supply lino for bathrooms. It has to be vinyl. I don't know how much vinyl costs in other places, but the chap I was talking to said that if we wanted it installed, we were looking at about $700-800 for our teensy bathroom - like it 1.2 X 2.4m (say 1.5 X 3 yards). The installers won't come out for less than $400. So we will do it ourselves. Once we cough up the bikkies for a decent vinyl.

Pictures will follow, but as I said in my other blog, it is too stinking hot to download and edit them currently.

anon!

Hoo-ston, we have a problem

G'day all!

Long time no blog. Not that there has not been interesting house stuff to blog, just it hasn't been done.

At the moment we are trying to set up our grey water scheme. Grey water is the stuff from the shower, bath and laundry that normally goes down the sewer or septic. In Victoria (Australia, not Canada and not anywhere else either and certain not good old Queen Vic herself) it is legal to divert greywater onto the garden. So we are. It will mean that we can set up our little apple orchard and never have to worry about it having too little water again.

The plan was to dig an increasingly deep trench in the back yard - there is a wee slope towards the front yard so to get the water to flow "uphill" we would need to dig the trench deeper and deeper (so it actually flowed down).

So I set up a line to dig along. Nathan loosened the soil up some with the mattock and I started digging a trench.

Along the way I discovered this:

That is a root of the camphor laurel that appears to be bigger around than my thigh. I dug down about 20cm around it and never found the bottom of the root. It is slap bang in the path of the trench.

Of course trenches can go around roots but I also noticed that the camphor laurel is shooting again, so we have to pour more woody weed killer into it. This means there is very little point planting an apple orchard near it.

So I made an executive decision to point the grey water out the front. The front is downhill. I still have to make a trench but it is easier to deal with and does not need to be so deep. The apples will live quite happily in the front yard. They are only bubby apples on dwarfing rootstock.

The trench went in fine and the water even runs through it:


Then I started digging the holes for the apple trees. a) clay. b) see below:


A copper pipe. Right under where I want to plant the trees. Hoo-ston, we have a problem!

anon!

PS - a hint of some action inside the house....