Things start moving fast

2.12.2009
Yesterday was humongous! The council gave us a planning permit after only having the house plans for 24 hours! Edd rang Woodsie who did the excavations for our old house and he agreed to come up and look at the new job. This means we are now committed into the big adventure of building an earth covered home that runs on low energy. Our electrician also rang to say he was he was coming to do the work on the sheds next day. Everything is moving frighteningly fast.

The best bit for me was that David (from the Welsh choir) helped me move all the broken bricks that were left over from path building and take them away from the garden area. I did the last bit on the ring path round the grass area too. Now I only have to move the rubble, put down topsoil and plant out some grass. I never dreamt that we could get so far in one day, but David even managed to burn the branches from the tree that blew over as well.

Today three electricians, builders Steve Johno and Edd and a team from Telstra are all madly at work. There are new ditches everywhere and it all looks pretty confusing. I am worn out after yesterday so I have opted for a laundry day rather than physical labour. The great bit is that with the dairy going up I may soon be able to buy a washing machine to put in there and cut out all the driving to the Laundromat and back.

Dave P has achieved miracles in the vegetable garden. All the broad beans blew over in the storm but I have the beans blanched and stored in the freezer now. We eat every lettuce that is large enough and we have been eating zucchinis again. They are so welcome when they first come in but by the end of the season they usually get over grown because everyone gets sick of them.

We have red and green cabbages and the garlic is almost ready. The herbs are doing well. I have rescued old ones and lovely permaculture friends have donated new ones. Our loquat trees are producing delicious large fruit and we even have some raspberries. There have been other heartening surprises too. The orange rose has regrown and flowered and the wisteria that Bo gave Edd has shooted from the roots. My red cordeline has done the same but it looks pretty weak and delicate. Little bright blue lobelia flowers have self seeded everywhere and two brave paper daisies our flowering from beds of rubble. They can obviously handle lime!

30.11.09
Scandal in the goat shed! Imogen has given birth to a couple of sons who must have a brother for a father! I did not think that any of the goats were given the chance to get pregnant this season but some how she managed it. She gave birth earlier this year so I intended to let her have a year of resting and recovering but looks like that will have to happen next year now. They are a lovely couple of boys, beautiful colours, healthy and rearing well. Some people do this deliberately for line breeding.

Our local council have really come up trumps. Last week they sent over seas volunteers out with an experienced foreman to put up the rest of our boundary fences. What a relief. With so much building and planning we were not getting round to it ourselves. They all worked very hard despite the hot weather and even cleared dead trees all along the front where the fence had to go. I felt guilty asking for anything, but I really wanted to use the old gateposts for our new entrance. The fencers did extra work so hat we could do this. I am really pleased about this because to me it looks a lot better than skinny new treated pine gateposts.