Month: March 2017

The tractor needs a proper baseline service, and it happens that Gary’s son Sam fixes up and services old tractors as a hobby. So he and Gary kindly came out on Sunday morning and began that task. The first stage was to take the hood off and clean it all with an air compressor and pressure hose. Amazing what was underneath!–all sorts of numbers for parts and so on, and a welded double air and oil-bath filter–very cool! The second stage will be to change the filters (which Sam is sourcing online–also the manual), drain oil and fluids and get it all back up–it should fly now! I’ve been telling Sam he has a business here–plenty of old tractors need knowledgeable care. .

 

 

A propos of nothing at all, here are a few photos of life in the new house.

Here is Joey hard at work alongside me as I was writing on the couch during the day–he’s happy just to be around:

 

Here is a a sea-fog moving across Roland and Angie’s hill–these are the summer fogs, which come towards the end of summer when a high pressure system sits over us and keeps the morning cool and damp:

 

 

And here is a full moon rising behind Roland and Angie’s hill:

 

This evening a swamp wallaby turned up grazing the slashed grass along the drive–he was gone before I could get a photo but this is a copied image of what they look like:

 

See, I said it was a propos of nothing much–just the new kind of living out here.

Well, it got done!  Here we are in the new house, and very relieved and happy to be here. The entry day was thoroughly chaotic and down to the wire, and a hot day as well, but it all went well in the end.  Since then we’ve been sorting through the pile of stuff and throwing a lot of it out, which is always liberating, I find.

There are various house functions still being bedded down–inevitable with a construction out in the country, where everything has to be put in place–water, power, etc. The week before we moved two pumps broke down, bees moved into the chimney box and were removed, and so on. I thought I knew all about pumps, but now I know more!  On the other hand we had good luck with some important bigger things, so we came out in front. And we’ve had more luck since we’ve been in–including resolving an intractable matter with the phone company which had been going on for a year–achieved with one call.

Here are a few pics to give you the flavour of it.

This is moving day: it was interesting bringing the furniture in through the east gate up the hill and maneuvering it through the door! I can see we are going to get very fit. Nanks distinguished himself by throwing the sofas on his back one at a time and marching up there, before I could intervene. That trailer might be the best piece of equipment we own, however–rides beautifully, very useful.

And here is the first lunch after the entry–Lesley happy–and all the stuff piled up in the background.

This is the first evening: the lovely lights on in the main room, with Lesley waving. . .

. . .and a new moon and evening star in the west.

Lesley is only wanting pictures of the inside of the house to go up when she feels things are ready to be shown. Here is an authorised picture of her kitchen, from the front door. The painting is by Loise, done at school, representing all the members of the family.

So all is going well. The next main project is to landscape around the house. We are hoping to use lakestone, which is a unique local stone that turns up on the floor of wetlands. The next door neighbour seems to have some, so we’re hoping we can get it there. That will go out a couple of metres from the house, and then the idea is to plant native, water-wise shrubs and ground cover–there are some lovely aromatic native plants with beautiful flowers that we have our eye on.

Thank you all for your support! I’m sure your attention held the project together, through its many ups and downs, and finally ups!  More pics to come soon. . .