What has been happening quietly on the scenes whenever we have had days off to get up there - is painting and cleaning up. We now have the newly built laundry/utility room painted with two large cupboards erected and painted; the kitchen dining room has been all painted (except for some window joinery); the kitchen is all installed and electric oven and gas hob working fine; the hall (12 foot stud!) has been painted, along with ceiling (ghastly job - enamel paint); the living room was completed painting this weekend (today, in fact). That's with all the skirting boards and architraves primed and x2 enamel coats, as well.
We've been busy scurrying round and about picking up bathmats, towel rails, toilet roll holders and the like. We have had and still have although tailing off, a minor cluster flies epidemic along with nearly everyone we know in the Wairarapa.
We hired the largest possible skip and made a slight dent in the three demolition piles behind the house. We made a gate and hung it and painted it one coat (1 to go).
Feijoa plants/hedge are doing just fine. Ditto the silver birches we have planted at the entrance. Vege garden is going crazy with all the mushroom compost we have virtually at our doorstep from Parkvale Mushrooms. (1 ute load for $30).
Tomorrow is moving day. The movers are coming around 8am. At Fossils Retreat, we have worn and used and paint splattered although clean, wood floorboards throughout, stuck sash windows, and peeling lino to take up in the kitchen. Over three days, the corpses of thousands of cluster flies have been discovered and disposed off. We know truly know the real truth of that old saying 'dropping like flies'. Three huge piles of wood to sort through into usable (and denail) / firewood / brazier burnoffs. But a woodshed needs to be built first ... and quotes for a fireplace and heat transfer units to be done.
FRIENDS - We apparently are going to have to get a new service and email address etc. but it won't happen for 2-3 weeks. Have faith ... the blog will continue with heaps more progress note and photos.
And we'll leave you for a few days with the most recent autumn morning photo from Fossils Retreat ...
Looking east from our dining room about 09.30 one morning. This is our only view of the Tararuas from the house. Expect lots of snowy caps in winter. We had 50 heifers from the over the road dairy farmer come and chew down our grass over a few weeks. Where the hot wire stopped you can see in the foreground and get an idea of how much long grass we had. That old deady brown tree on the middle left is the macrocarpa we had taken down last November that we haven't had time to go out and deal to.
