Ahaura

Shelves and Tomatoes

March 4, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are enjoying Saturdays even more than usual right now. Because Gayle is still working at the job he has had for the past 7+ years, he is living on the other side of the island during the week and we only get to see him on the weekends. So, Saturday is a special day with Daddy! Yesterday, he helped the boys get started building shelves for me to store my jars on. Mr. Diligence had finished closing in one end of the garage a few days ago; there was a stud wall there already from someone else’s project. Yesterday, they added the framework for shelving, and last evening the boys got started putting down the bottom shelf. So far, all we’ve bought for the project was four sheets of cheap plywood for the walls; the rest of the timber is recycled, stuff we’ve salvaged here and there.

Here is Mr. Intellectual cutting boards for the shelves.

Mr. Diligence working on the supports.

This is the stack of boxes to unload onto the new shelves.

Meanwhile, Esther and I were working on tomatoes. Gayle brought me four big boxes of overripe tomatoes that had been rotting in someone’s garden over there. We got all this plus a couple of pots of juice from them! I’m planning to save seed from them; they are a heritage variety from South Australia, and this woman has been saving seed from them for many years. The seeds haven’t been sold on the market for over 50 years. Her father used to sell the tomatoes all over the island; he would ship them on the train from Cheviot. While we were working, I threw a bunch of rotten tomatoes into a jar, and then poured them into a bucket when the jar got full. Later, I said something about the tomatoes I had put in a bucket to save seed from. The boy who is in charge of taken garbage out to the chickens got a funny look and admitted that he had taken that bucket out, not knowing what I was doing with them. We immediately went out with a flashlight and found the pile of rotten tomatoes; I was able to salvage about half the seeds. Whew! There will be plenty, unless the bucket gets dumped again. I appreciate diligence—but I need to make sure everyone knows what is going on!

Settling In

February 10, 2018 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

We have spent the week settling into our new home. It’s starting to feel like our own house, now that we have our things in it and have it in order. My goal for this week was to get the house tidy and everything ready for school to start next week, and we have met that goal.

For our first few days, we sat around the living room to eat.

On Monday, we unloaded the container—what a mess as we shoved things into the house to organize later! See the cats? They were thrilled to have their cushions back again!

Wednesday evening I started unpacking and sorting the books. Here I am, surrounded by about 1800 books!

Now the living room is tidy!

The kitchen is small, but well-organized.

The wide hallway is doubling as our library and Mr. Intelligence’s schoolroom.

The girls’ room.

The boys’ room.

Our room. That small room just off it will be the sewing room. It’s just big enough for a small table.

My garden.

The chicken coop that Simon and Mr. Diligence converted into a sleepout. They got it in place yesterday, and plan to start sleeping in it soon. I’m quite dubious about how they and all their stuff will fit in, but we’ll see. They are convinced it will work.

Our New House

January 20, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are buying a house. After eight years of renting, we have finally been able to save enough for a deposit on a house of our own—and that feels good! As I mentioned in a few previous posts, we found a house about six weeks ago that we liked and could afford, and we have finally reached the stage where it’s almost certain that we’ll be getting it. We paid the deposit on it yesterday, and in the next week we’ll sign the final papers. We plan to move in two weeks.

This house is in Ahaura, in the West Coast region. We’ll be about half an hour’s drive inland, so won’t get the torrential rains that the towns right along the coast do. Most of the time, though, there is a lot more rain than here in Canterbury! This year is the exception; they are having a bad drought over there. It’s about 3 hours and 45 minutes from here, so that makes moving rather challenging. We’re thankful for friends who are willing to help us out! I’m planning to make a trip in a few days with the rest of our garden and whatever else we can fit on the load. In a week, we’ll load our shipping container, and two weeks from today we plan to finish the move. So, whatever you see coming through on the blog has already been scheduled—I won’t likely be spending any time here for a little while!

Here are pictures I took of the house when we looked at it in early December. Some of the children stayed home and took care of things while the rest of us went over that time, so I took pictures to let them get a glimpse of it while we were deciding whether to buy it.

This is the door into the laundry and then the kitchen. That’s a lemon tree in the corner, although there isn’t any fruit on it.

The master bedroom. This has an alcove to the right, for a nursery or office.

The closet in the master bedroom.

The view out the door of this bedroom.

There is a big closet/cupboard at each end of the hallway! The hallway is wide enough we can put our bookshelves in there, and do you see the clotheslines? A place to hang laundry on wet days!

Little Miss walked into this room and immediately announced that it was for her and Esther! We do plan to redo the walls soon. Not only are they painted garish shades of pink and purple, the wall covering is an old type that is a fire hazard.

I asked Little Miss which corner the bed should go in. She considered carefully, then announced, “Right here!”

The boys’ room. This needs a coat of paint, too.

The boys love the garage. Gayle stepped it off; he says it is 18 meters long—that’s nearly 60 feet! This carport goes about halfway along it.

The back yard.

Inside the garage.

We need to do some work on the outside of the house, but it’s not bad at all, considering it was built in the 1930s. One thing that was attractive to us was the quarter-acre paddock on the other side of the garage from the house. We’ll put our three sheep in it at first, and a couple of turkeys and a few chickens; next spring we’re hoping to turn part of it into a garden. We’ll be living in town on a half acre, which will be quite different for us country people. We’re hoping to pay off this place in a few years, and then buy something with more land. In the meantime, it will be a comfortable house.