May 1st!

So last time I wrote Luca was heading into the holidays, tomorrow he is back to school for the second term. The autumn has been an amazing one, love it, so pretty and calm as nature tucks itself in for the winter.

Here the leaves beginning to turn..

Last weekend we christened the fire pit and cooked our dinner up there, sausages and smore’s 🙂 The kids had a blast, they slept in the tree house for the night. They emerged bleary eyed at 9am, the heater up there keeping them cozy and sleepy .

The evening was perfect and the view as the sun went down lovely…

Just before the holidays Luca was using this area to do homework while I was in the garden next door.

Here he is designing an “Annable Flag”

Rich said to me the other day, when he started designing and building this area, he initially thought it would just be a flat area for a chair or two and it has evolved into so much more! So pleased it did as a lot of time is spent there!

The vege garden has slowed down production wise ,but still keeping us fed, I have just put in the winter garden, will see how that goes.

With the last of the apples I made some mini pies and turnovers. The kids devoured them so fast, I did not even get a photo of the turnovers, the pies did not last much longer 🙂

As well as planting outside I am slowly getting into hydroponics again. I used to do this in Canada in a more complex system using fish. I would like to do this again once we have a bit more space indoors, but for now this works. These are microgreens, super nutritious and tasty, so easy for salads and sandwiches etc. They grow fast, the time between sowing and sprouting less than a week, another week and they will be ready to harvest. If you have 2 or 3 on the go you can have a ready supply all the time..

My worm farm is doing well, I get weekly “worm tea” which the plants love and the worm castings are building nicely, will be a good lot in there for the Spring.

Rich had begun to slowly ,(emphasis on the slowly), teaching Luca how to drive. Despite Rich’s face, Luca is so far naturally cautious, long may that last! Fun times!

The deck project has begun, Rich as usual doing an amazing job! It is deliberately huge, I have big plans for the area, along the lines of what we had in Manitoba . Rich build a similar sized deck for us there and we used it so much. Luca has helped out over the holidays, learning about the process and staining up a storm. It is back breaking work but it is coming together beautifully! Here is the areas before it started.

We have changed the entrance to the house to the ranch slider for the building period .

The works begins….

The evenings are cooling down and fire season has begun, much to Pica and Vida’s delight!

Always nice to sit in front of after a hard day of labour for a quick card game before supper 🙂

Being the last day of the holidays, it will being very relaxing one, but we will fit in our usual walk later today. Here is Luca and I on it yesterday…

So now we wait for winter. Luca really hoping we get some snow this year, he misses it, it was such a big part of his life for so long and I forgot how much he loved it.

Happy May everyone xx