more produce!

hulking huge cabbages! oodles of snowpeas!

vege patch august 09 panorama

fresh produce

zucchinis have been quite prolific - but it's our first batch of green beans and snow peas!

vege patch closeups

vege patch - 3 weeks on...

We've already picked some of the cos and rocket lettuce for a salad! Last weekend we extended the vege patch to the full length of that front strip, but I'll wait for some more growth... otherwise you're just looking at a bunch of mulch!

new bird!

Some new friends to add to the feathered menagerie - butcher birds. Threw down some mince and now they've been back three times. Obviously the ol' Hills Hoist is the perfect roost :)

Bird watching...

We're getting a regular collection of rainbow lorikeets (two different feeding spots), but we've also got a new ring-in (some kind of rose-ringed or ringneck lorikeet?) and another one I believe is the scaly-breasted lorikeet. Of course, the crested doves continue to clean up after the messy (and noisy) lorikeets!

Farmers Jane & Joe!

A big weekend in the garden (and the house) - we started our vege patch! There's the existing cherry tomatoes, pineapple heads, chilli plants that were transplanted. We also put in zucchini, spring onions, red onions, brown onions, cos lettuce, frilly lettuce, capsicum, broccoli, silverbeet and roma tomatoes (I think that's it?). Boston tried to help us out where he could of course. And we test-drove dad's electric chainsaw as a makeshift hedger!

Welcome to Hotel Allandale

Now that we have a toilet door, and a dining room table, we figure we can now open the front door to guests. Our first dinner guests – and indeed, our first guests – were mum and dad which was quite befitting their involvement with helping us purchase the house and afford the renovations. Thanks mum and dad! xxx

Maybe next time there'll be some more friendly cats for you dad :)

Oh joy!

Just when you think things are back on track... derailment.

It appears all the underground pipework for the former bathroom / laundry (now bathroom / laundry / toilet) was well, not so very underground. And nothing is as per the plans that I paid for from the BCC (albeit handrawn and mostly illegible). Pipes that should be 600mm underground, are barely 150mm here. Thus when we got the excavator in, he's cracked a pipe further up, causing problems (but perhaps alerting us to the issue, inadvertently). But the pipes are also cracked further down. And one pipe just stops. Goes nowhere. Nada. Hmm...

So more plumbers, more money, more headaches, more fun! Oh the joy of renovating!!

Hole no more!

... but still not quite finished, but at least it's closer! I spent HOURS scraping tile glue from the Villaboard (sometimes using my knuckles it seems) - Drew put in the cleats and fixed the square into place (now that the diverter is in the correct place, effin plumbers), and sealed it up with silicone. Now to waterproof - then to tile and then to grout. A little closer!

The bathroom door was also mostly fixed. Don't ask. *sigh*

Big brother is watching...

We are now live and alarming. Be alarmed! The world needs more larms... sorry.

Lorikeet Love

The lorikeets are lovin' the seed bell (thanks Warrick!) - we've had up to eight in total at one time. Not too noisy which is good - and no pooping on the clothesline! Nice chainwire fences huh? That'll change in time :)

Watertank in place!

Well the watertank was finally positioned... but due to (another!) plumber debacle, we couldn't get it plumbed in to get a rebate from the BCC. *sigh* But our roof area is also too small to receive the rebate and we'd have to have pipes coming from everywhere - unfeasible not to mention dang ugly. But at least we'll have plenty of water for our garden!

Digger digger dooooo!

The inside is a bit too messy to show at the moment, and I don't think it's the right time for 'Before & Afters', so here's the messy outside! Drew organised a great guy, Jason, and his excavator to start on some external work – namely sculpting out the area for the water tank pad down the side of the house – and digging down to the right level for the back fence line. This was additionally important to do as the back sewer access panel* needed to be exposed and available. Ol' grandad Hilary covered it up with about three feet of dirt (and other miscellaneous pieces of crap)... that's a Council no-no!

* (located at the far corner of the block, sewer point fed by back line of houses down the street)

our first bread!

The bread machine works! YUM!