Kiwi kidults return!

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We’ve had the kidults that were in New Zealand for most of the last year, back home for the last two weeks. (aka the KWL team)
They stayed at the house in town, and have been doing some wonderful work for us while they visited.

There has been a lot that they have achieved over the last fortnight – that we just couldn’t have possibly done by ourselves.

From moving the big double-door stainless fridge-freezer, to gurneying the dizzy heights of the house in town, to chopping down and disposing of an old termite-ridden tree – and a wholllllle lotta other stuff in between!!

We’d been hoping to publish a guestpost from at least one of them by now – but it seems we just might have been keeping them a bit tooooo busy for them to have managed to get around to it as yet. lol

Around the Farm, we’ve been making more headway with loads of things – especially so with the invaluable help from the KWL team.

We’ve moved a small raised garden bed that was in the house yard, down to the orchard area, and it now houses an avocado tree given to us by our youngest daughter and son-in-law.
The bed had always been in the wrong spot, and was also in the way of where we will eventually be running a drainage trench, along the western fenceline – but each time we thought about moving it – the capsicum plant that was the only plant left in there, would burst forth with another round of fruit and flowers, and we figured that seeing as the poor bugger was trying sooo hard, we should leave him in peace to do his thing.
But finally, it got a little bit ridiculous – so we just popped him in a pot for the time being, and moved the damn bed!

As well as the avocado, we’ve put in some lavender, daisies and comfrey into the bed – to encourage the bees to be down around there doing their thangggg…

The soil that had been in there, was moved over and tacked onto the wanna-be food forest, and some fresh plants and grasses that we had in our ‘nursery’ were put in there, and once it had been mulched over – an arty installation of ‘rusty stuff & pottery’ was placed with careful well-thought-out arty-farty type delicacy – that is wonderful aesthetically pleasing (well WE like it anyways!!), and draws the eye – begging one to go for a wander and have for a closer look… 😀

We’ve done a few more ninja liquid-nails attacks on fence posts and the like, and put out a few more random ornaments that we have kept because we like them.
We’re not great ones for dusting, so having a load of tchotchke around the inside of home, really isn’t our idea of a great use of space – but when its out there in the garden, and you visually come across them in odd places – welllll – it just makes us smile!

We’ve also filled another of the big garden beds, and have finally got all the cream coloured raised beds out along the driveway fence line, between the bottle-brush we planted out there a few months ago.

They have a wide array of plants in them.
Blueberry, rosellas, raspberries, and lots of lovely and different bright flowers, including some edibles.

The worm farms have also been setup behind ‘Palais-de-Poochi’ by one of the kids.
Theres only 3 worms in there at the moment – so we might have to get them some more friends soon! 🙂

We’ve now got the huge great double-door stainless fridge out here – so that means there is going to be yet another reinvention of how the kitchen is going to be laid out.

At the moment it is sitting right inside the door – so its not particularly practical – so we need to get a move-on with deciding where its going to go – as we currently have both fridges running, and its a ridiculous waste of power.
Just because we can easily fill two fridges, certainly doesn’t mean we need to!
And besides – that other fridge can bring some much needed $$s as soon as its empty.

Maybe we’ll buy worms with the proceeds! lol 😀

The washer and dryer are also out here now, and have found a home just inside the door of the shed (aka the shipping-container).
Its just wonderful to finally have them here – and its great to not have to go into town to do the laundry.

We can’t wait ’til we actually have a clothesline as well.
Unfortunately there are no handy trees that we can string a line between, so it will have to be a ‘dig holes and erect posts’ kind of job – but we’ll get around to it!
Strigidae Farm gets a wonderful breeze blowing most days from east to west – so on clear days drying clothes will take no time at allllll – and there is just something quite soothing about the sound of clean laundry flapping in the wind.

We’ve also planted out our orange honeysuckle, up against the western fenceline, so that it will afford a privacy screen once it gets up and running.

The house that the neighbours on the western side are having built has been coming along in fits and spurts…
It finally got the roof on the week before last, and then last week the rendering of the brickwork was completed.

Oddly enough – now that the rendering has been done, it feels slightly more ‘imposing’, but we’re fortunate in that its the back of the house that faces our way, so we won’t be visually intrusive to them – or them to us, once they move in properly.
At the moment they are living onsite in their caravan, having moved in the week that the roofing went on.

There is also a lovely stand of mature trees between our properties – so that gives each of us some buffer as well.

They have done a massive amount of tree and shrub planting over the previous months – having put in hundreds of natives to encourage the birds and wildlife, and they have another 50 or so trees waiting to go in, but unfortunately P hurt his hand rather badly a few days ago, and is having to go to hospital daily for IV antibiotics and dressings – as it was rather a nasty gash, right down to the bone – so he’s pretty much out of action for the moment – which is putting a bit of a dampner on their gardening plans for now…

We haven’t got around to finishing installing the bath yet.
With the kidults here – there were other things that needed doing instead, as a priority.

Plus of course there was the actual socialising and evening family meals to be had – which also took on more importance – as we’d thought that they would be here for a bit of a longer time – but they needed to get back and get sorted and settled, with what is to be the next chapter in their lives.

We’ve been back in to the house in town for a proper ‘next stage’ planning visit yesterday – to see what needs doing still, and in what order.

It was a bit overwhelming initially – in that all the stuff out of the bedroom cupboards is piled up in the lounge room now, and we’d managed to get that mostly emptied before the kidults arrived, and here it is full – all over again – but at least it means the bedrooms are empty(!!) apart from the big pieces of furniture – which will remain for the time being, as ‘staging’, for when the house goes on the market.

The back yard is also full of ‘stuff’ – but the shed is empty, so thats a bonus.
We’re at the point where we think that a lot of it will just have to be donated, or go to the recycle mart at the tip, as we just aren’t going to be able to get it sold or moved in a sensible timeframe.

We didn’t reorder another skip-bin when we had the last one emptied, but think that we’re definitely going to have to get at least one more, before we done with the clean-up. (we ended up reordering one today lol)

So thats probably about it for now!
Its definitely not alllllllll thats been going on, but its all that we’re telling you about for now – as we don’t want to ruin anything for our Guest Bloggers 😀
If we write toooo much – they’ll have nothing left to talk about!!

Hoping this finds you all well – and welcoming in Spring for those of us in the southern hemisphere….
For us – we will definitely miss the Winter weather – we like the cold a whollllllle lot more than the heat – any day of the week!

Drop a comment below and let us know if you’re still enjoying the read each couple of weeks, and feel free to ‘share’ it – for those of you on social media 😀

Big Hugs!