Super Productive Weekend

After a week of not knowing what we were going to do (for those not in the loop, Steph and I were considering selling up and moving on to bigger/better things), we have decided to stay here for a few more years, and really make our mark on this place. We're in a good position on all fronts and if anything happens which causes us to lose an income, our lifestyle isn't threatened, any of the options we were looking at, would have meant moving on again (with a loss probably!). So here we are....
This weekend I bought a nice new trailer, we've had a small one for quite a while (Steph's brother bought it as a Christmas present after we moved here, but it's had a lot of use, and it's had too many encounters with fence posts (my driving on the bike!) and will no longer pass it's warrant of fitness. Since we are intending staying, and there are heaps of jobs around here that require a trailer, I drove to a town about an hour away and bought one, measuring 7ft by 4ft. I also bought a stock crate as we occasionally move stock around (from the sales and then to the slaughter yards!).
With the trailer, we decided to have a crazy cleaning weekend, we took lots of old fencing to the tip (it's been sitting around for about 18 months!), and brought back 72m of flower bed edging and another trailer load of misc timber (I like to have a mini timber yard in the workshop so when I'm doing "things" I'm not left waiting (it's quite a trip to town just for one piece of timber). Whilst we had the edging, we decided to stop in a local garden centre to look at a few shrubs, and as typical we got carried away and came home with 26 different plants. We managed to rip out half the beds around the house, and re-edge and replanted them (they look really good now). That was a pretty full on day!
Today (Sunday), we started by chainsawing up the timber frame of a shed that had been left to rot since we moved in! After loading it into the trailer (stockcrate was a real bonus as it increased the capacity of the trailer about 6 fold), we trundled (slowly) off to the tip, once more intending to get a few more shrubs (we need two more grasses for the front bed), we came home with 51 plants! We have now planted flax all down two sides of the arena, a cabbage tree on either side of the entrance to the arena. We have some grasses for the bank leading to the arena (waiting till next weekend to plant those, as we only just weed-sprayed the bank). The arena area is going to turn into an extension of the garden as we're going to build a picnic table out there, it should look really nice when its finished.
After planting the flaxes Steph tried another saddle with Markissa, unfortunately it didn't fit, and I planted out another bed. Once I had finished that I took the tractor over to a neighbors paddock (where our sheep our) and mowed about 3 acres, only took it to about 20cm, but it did deal with a lot of weeds.
Once I got back, we stopped for a tea, I spoke to Mum and Dad for a while, whilst Steph was ripping up what was to be my herb bed (but never did). Instead I'm now going to plant a lime tree there as it will be along side the lemon and grapefruit tree. That bed was edged with bricks which I used to build a hard standing for our new bin (which should arrive soon).
We've made a massive pile of dying plant matter, two trailer loads.

Oh, today Strider got another hen (the chick we hatched a while ago)...I wish we could stop him, this morning he got a "severe" telling off because for the first time we actually caught him at it!

Anyway, time for a shower then tea..

Till later.

Field Days and impulsion

Well,what a stressfull weekend, what was supposed to be a stressfree weekend, turned out to be the complete opposite. Whilst walking around the Field Days we were caught by a real estate agent, and they showed us a small farm in Hawkes Bay that was apparently quite profitiable. It wasn't until we were driving to Mum and Dads place we thought about the viability of using a farm to replace Steph's income, and me working from home full time. So a few stressfull evenings working things out, speaking to people etc trying to get as much information collected as possible, and initially it all seemed like it could be achieved. On Monday though I spoke with my boss about working from home (not opposed to the idea), and a rural bank manager. The bank manager knew the property and was very dubious of the figures I quoted, so they were not willing to come along to the party. Oh well, back to the drawing board...We've got other options thankfully....
Apart from that, the field day was good, and Steph got off to Horse Of The Year for two days.

The decorating has started.

Well, it was a semi productive weekend, on Friday afternoon I picked up several sheets of custom wood for finishing the tank stand, and then did some work on the iQuarium project, it's coming along quite nicely. On Saturday morning we went into town and picked up a new roller and a paint tray and upon our return, painted the wall in the dining room, it looks really nice, basically that was Saturday! Sunday wasn't too different, a coat of paint in the morning, and building the sides of the tank stand around lunch time, and in the afternoon I made some more Quince Jelly, unfortunatly this one didn't set quite as well as previous attempts. The afternoon was also spent on the iQuarium, I've now got the new LCD display working, so back to writing the software (after I add a 8 bit shift register to avoid using so many IO pins when talking to the LCD display).

Anyway, this evening I think we're trimming the goat's feet, and then I'll be working again on the tank stand.

Vege bed coming along

  

The rabbit condo

  

Hollywood, Snowwhite and Rubun-ny (front to back)

  

This weekend we were suppose to have a BBQ, but the weather was appalling...oh well. Saturday morning I finished the rabbit condo, a bit extragavant for just two rabbits, but oh well. Today I cleaned the workshop up after builind the hutch ready for the fishtank stand next, and then this afternoon I made a hat out of DevilSpawn. Steph and I have been carding the fleece for the last few days, so that is the first piece of clothing from our farm. We're slowly getting there. What with my hat, my 54 year old tractor and a piece of stray in my mouth, I really look the part! And no I'm not taking photos..
As you can see from the photos the vege garden is back in full swing with leeks, celery, silverbeet, beetroot, lettuce,spinach and herbs.
Also this weekend I picked a large number of quinces, not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I've got them stored in a cool place, so I have a awhile..

Anyway, tea calls.

The first 'Devil Spawn' Hat..

  

Bunnies

Since we're almost self sufficient on the meat stakes (we only need to buy chicken and fish), I thought I would replace the chicken with something else, we could breed the chickens here, but plucking is a major problem, so I've decided to breed New Zealand Whites for meat. I'm currently trying to find a breeder to get us started, hopefully I'll remember to ring her this evening, but last night Jag came trotting through the cat flap, with a young rabbit (by it's scruff). He carried on down to one of the spare rooms (where he normally kills things, as astested to by the carcases when we get home!), and let it go. So I quickly caught it, and now it's in a rabbit hutch for a month or so...hmm, rabbit pie.