Frosty….

It has not been a very cold winter overall. We have only had 2 frosts on the property so far and they only came this month, no snow at our place at all. I like a good couple of frosts, cleanses the ground in preparation for the spring and looks so pretty.

Last year my vege garden was sorely neglected as we finished the build and fencing etc. This year I was determined to rectify that. All beds are prepped and seeds are in the ground. I have lettuce, spinach, onions, strawberries and brassica’s poking their heads through already. The hardy herbs oregano, parsley, borage, sage, mint, thyme, and rosemary have just kept on through winter. My rhubarb I cut right back in the autumn and new leaves are coming through nicely now. My lemon tree too incredibly kept producing, and my lime tree starting to bud up now. Potatoes, cucumber, tomato, beans and asparagus will not show their heads for a couple of months. Blackberry, raspberry and blueberry the same, but I can see the new shoots just starting to show on the stems.

Roll on Spring 🙂

The animal roam throughout the property keeping things under control. This will mean far less mowing for Rich in the coming months. The ponies are great in the orchard, not interested in the fruit trees only the grass. The trees are all just staring to bud up now.

Wilbur and Kevin have a space beside the vege garden that they go into during the day, they love all the things I through over the fence for them and come running. Big boys now!!!

The sheep are doing a great job pushing back the all the overgrowth to the boundary fence. They much prefer all the scrub to fresh grass which works well, as the ponies and pigs prefer the grass.

The girls always manage to find a patch of sun to hang out in. I am waiting for one of them to go broody, wanting some more chicks this year.

Occasionally I will look out the kitchen window and one of the ponies will be wandering by 🙂

This last week or so has been wonderful weather wise again with amazing sunrises. I just cannot stay in bed even if it is the weekend, as love to see the day breaking over the ocean. My photos never capture it well enough.

We fit in multiple walks every week, Luca not always with us, he has this whole other life going on, but last weekend he came with us. Rich and I treasure this even more these days, being not as common as it once was 🙂

Port full of containers and logs ready to go when the ships come in.

Port Chalmers ( Koputai) village, I love this view no matter how many times I see it

Rich has been working away on the wash house and doing a great job as usual. It is almost done, it will be good to get the front entrance clear. It has looked like this for the past few weeks a little tricky to work around…

Inside he has insulated everything with wool battens and it has made it so cozy in there, you cannot hear the rain on the tin roof now.

The flooring goes down this coming week, next post will be photos of it completed!

With the weather being so nice I found time to get into the front flower garden and tidy it all up too> Things grow so fast in there, the whole area has really matured, with the trees and flax so much bigger than when we first arrived. The ponies are really good at keeping off it and don’t seem interested in any of the flowers etc. It is so nice to have green all winter to look at…

I came across this old photo recently (it was taken about a 100 years ago). It was when this property was first cut out and entirely stripped of all the trees. See the green outline, (our boundary), it shows about 1/2 our land , next to the graveyard (which is surrounded by the trees). Our place looks so much better now with the trees and foliage grown back I think 🙂

In between doing all the construction work Rich still finds time to bake. I came home to this array the other day. He said he could not decide what to bake, so made everything 🙂

I can tell it is warming up, the bees are out and about so busy preparing the stores….

and Luca is off with his friends “jetty jumping”, the water will be freezing and he will come home with hypothermia looming but they will be having fun 🙂

Happy August everyone!