Compact year.......

Right looks like we are officially trendy and there is a word for us ! and a whole group of Americans did the same thing so it must be cool. I think they called it 'the compact year'. The basic idea being that you go a year without buying anything new, aside from food and toiletries.

I made my decision that I don't need to buy anything new for a year at my second consecutive weekend attending school galas. So much stuff that is still perfectly fine that people don't need/want any more. I filled two bags of kitchen bits and two bags of books for $4.00 , there were also a couple of rooms full of clothing and being a pretty average sized women I'm pretty sure I would have easily been able to fill a couple of bags in there too.

It's not going to be a true family year compacting because I'm guessing Nev is still going to buy his clothes new, but he's very tall and there tend not to be so many second hand clothes for men as there are for women. Men are more likely to avoid shopping at all costs and wear favorites until they die. Women however see shopping for new clothes as a hobbies so it's pretty easy to pick up near new items for me. I think the kids pretty much already live on hand me downs anyway, they are already so cool and living the compact life.

Speaking of Nev he has made the decision to sell his kayak , and spend the cash on wood for planter boxes, and a telly. Sad day for the kayak but as he pointed out he doesn't have time to use it anymore and it will just sit around and get sun damage anyway so might as well sell it while it's still worth a little bit. It will be really nice to get the planter boxes built around the deck as that will be the last of the clay gone before winter , hooray ! I'm also pretty excited about a telly too as apparently you can buy a little box for fairly cheap so that you can plug your external hard drive straight into your telly. So I can sit in the lounge and watch the telly all evening and Nev can sit in his office and play on his computer undisturbed all evening, ahhh married life.  

Nev and Charlie have just come out the other side of a cold and are both doing much better. I'm just starting to feel a bit run down so hope I can avoid it and Fins seems to be a bit whingey but one can never be sure if he's actually any worse than normal because he's sick or if I'm just less tolerant of his three year old whingeyness than usual as I'm feeling less than 100% .

Charlie wanting to help Fin and Soph's in the kitchen baking biscuits, I should have taken a photo from behind the bench too, he is standing on this little hippo footstool awww.

May I please be excused I am going for a poo

No that isn't why i've missed a week of blogging just Fins coolest saying at the moment that I wanted to share.
We missed last week because I was slack at the start of the week and than Nev took the computer away to a party with him over the weekend. 


Still busy applying for jobs no luck yet but will keep trying, rejection is stink. I don't think I have ever really had this much trouble looking for work before but that was before I moved to the middle of nowhere and had two dependent children. I'm probably not as attractive a perspective employee as I used to be. Will keep pursuing homebased child care and also look into taking on a lodger . These options are still limited by locality but I feel I might have some luck eventually . Currently doing a bit of a sell on trademe, It's great to know we are not having any more kids so as soon as Charlie grows out of anything I can get rid of it I guess selling things isn't the greatest answer to raising cash because eventually I might run out of stuff..... I will think about that when it happens.


The house is going well Chickens and goats are all behaving and staying where they should be. Nev took Fin to milk a neighbours goat the other night and they bought home 1 ltr of Goat milk both the boys drank it happily so that was good to know they do like it before we go and kid Jean and turn her into a milking goat. Chickens are still lovely .. no eggs yet ... I suspect we may not get eggs until spring or summer because they are just about to reach the age of lay about 5mnths but the days are also getting colder and darker and I think they need 16hrs of daylight to lay. The little black bantam is the tamest of all and apparently she flew onto Nev's shoulder the other night.

I am part way though my garden under the window I just need my lovely husbands help to move up the big logs from the log pile to use as frames and than I can plant some lovely little plants I picked up at the local kindergarten gala on the weekend. Small town gala's and fairs are fantastic, I had the lovely nanny with me and the lovely young Soph. Everyone had a great time purchasing toys and clothes for around 10c a piece and the highlight of the day was the fire Engine ride for $1 !!  Great economic way to take small children out for the day.

I also made my first batch of Laurie bread the other day yum ! Butter instead of oil is certainly the way foward. Made a couple of batches of fejoia Jam too, not sure if I'm a big fan or not but I don't love fejoia's either , will just carry on making Jam's out of whatever fruits happen to be in season and being given away or sold ridiculously cheap.

work ??

Neville is just completing his fourth chicken house building ! Goodness me he will be able to start his own business soon. We have just put the teenage chickens in with the first lot of chickens and it is going really well. Mum the old Bantam is beating anyone who comes anywhere near any of her babies so they should all be fine. We wont be purchasing any more fertilised Eggs from the Internet now just breeding our own. Although in saying that I'm not sure how old a rooster needs to be before he can fertilise an egg .. maybe I will double check that before I make any commitments. The first bunch of chicks we will try and hatch will be bantams because they are such good little mums and go broody every five minutes, some for us and some for the folk further north.
Even though none of our chooks are laying at the moment I am really enjoying having chickens. Even if I ever have to move back to the burbs I will make sure to have a couple of chickens in the back yard they make lovely pets and are the best little waste disposal units for kitchen scraps.

I'm currently on the search for part time work and did some CV dropping last week just shop work a couple of nights a week and a day of the weekend. I hope I hear back from somebody . I'm really looking forward to having somewhere to be a few days a week and bringing in a little bit of cash of my own even if it's only a little it will be nice to be bringing home some bacon of my own. I am really enjoying spending the little bacon I do on locally grown produce at the moment at a honesty box type arrangement up the road. My silver beet is on the table most nights and pumpkin is making a fairly regular appearance on the menu too.

Finley is well, the brother bashing has all but ended and the whinging is on the decrease. The new sneaky trick is to squash the brother or hold onto an arm or a leg so we will need to get tough on these too.

Charlie has reached an age of trying to be fussy. I'm doing my best to ignore this in the hope that he gets over it when he figures out he is still hungry and he's not going to get anything else just because he is silly enough to spit the food offered back out. Fin is the opposite at the moment eating a ridiculous amount of food , he started his day with four weetbix this morning just to give you an idea of the portions this small man is consuming.

I've also got to say I'm really enjoying not having a dog at the moment. Dogs are kind of messy , and they require quite a bit of time .....  but ....... wasn't she lovely

Gardens gardens gardens

As the title suggests it's gardening time. My beautiful triangle is beautiful but I have decided I want a nice little garden under the front window and to start shelter belting. My under window garden progress so far has involved digging up some rocks (metal) what ever you want to call it. I now need to get Nev to help me move up some logs from the wood pile to use as framing and then start filling it in from the ready compost that has accumulated in the same pile (that must be why we haven't done anything about that pile of logs for the last three years). My shelter belt preparation so far has involved instructing Nev to leave his grass clipping piles next to the fence line. Granddad will be bringing the plum tree cuttings some time in the autumn perfect time to plant. I will then need to source some bark to scatter underneath to avoid needing to weed or needing to keep bother Nev about where to put his grass clippings. I also really really need to start killing the grass on the wrong side of my triangle garden as this really should be driveway and looks very scruffy.

Big money projects coming up in order are sheep, planter boxes. The sheep will arrive next month wowee 10 sheep. Four to fatten and 6 to start a heard from. Luckily we have a good neighbour who is pointing us in the right direction along the lines of what our acerage can support etc etc.

Planter boxes will be a biggie in smartening the place up as the will cover up the final clay spaces !! and we will trellis the back of the one on the side of the house to block out the veiw  of our working area, septic system, water tanks, chicken housing, compost bin, incenerator. All the ugly stuff that you need. Will photograph ugly area's for you next week but I assure you the whole lot just looks a bit scruffy.

On the note of spending all this money, I am still searching for part time work here is my advertisement on a local website . I also need to get my bottom down to this puhoi playgroup I keep blabbing on about and put up a little add there too. I am still looking through trademe and seek from time to time but there really doesn't seem to be much that interests me. I'm looking to either start doing more home based childcare or maybe a part time job say one evening and one weekend day. I guess I'm being quite fussy but I really have no interest in paying someone else my intire wage to look after my children so that I can go and work in a dead end job.

Quick family update. Fin is good our current big battle is the whinge , we have decided to adopt a no tolerance policy either stop that noise or go to your room because nobody wants to hear it. Hopefully it works better than the previous approach which was todays pc parenting advice of ignore the negative behaivour, (translation ignore it for as long as you possibly can before your head finally explodes due to listening to someone whinge and whine and generally make much unpleasant noise for 99.9% of their waking hours and then you shout at them and have a little tantrum all of your own to add to the atmosphere of the household.)

Charlie is still mainly crawling with the occasional few steps when he's certain he has an audience. He also applauds himself and says wow over and over every time he does this.

Nev is well a little stressed about money or rather lack of money.

missing marble

We're back. After the madness that was Fins big day we decided it might be nice to escape for the rest of the week. We ventured even further north . To visit family and friends. At the start of ninety mile beach is a fantastic spot we might as well have been in Rarotonga the humid air the banana trees and the quiet quiet streets, yes we were lucky enough to miss all the Christmas new year holiday crowds. Finley had his first driving lesson. Yes with dad not me steering an ATV on the sand. Not something I would even think to show Fin to do but he understood what was going on and did a great job, ah the joys of boys. Charlie was his usual self at the beach and crawled as fast as he could in which ever direction took his fancy not one to be deterred by a little something called a surf beach.

opse looks like I didn't get a shot of Fin driving exciting that he fell asleep he found it so exciting that he fell asleep


Then our surprise visit to the family farm where progress has been great the gardens put my garden to shame and make me want to get digging and planting,  when I see the vast nirvana's that have been created in such a short time by my industrious relatives. My fathers orchids which could feed the local school over summer, the happy chickens the bonny pigs. Ahhh the good life in the real north our queen street farmer eyes were green with envy. Upon questioning on our return Fin revealed his favourite part of his holiday was 'grandma glens house' upon further questioning 'what did you do there' the response was 'eating coco puffs' hmmmmmm I'm sure that wasn't really his highlight of the holiday but there you are apparently it was memorable . He was most impressed by young Dash a dog whom actually returns the ball when you throw it, he was also very interested feeding the fish in the pond oh boy I think we need a pond. Young Charlie decided to show us all his first steps on the last evening of the visit. Charlie also snuck home a little souvenir from grandads house revealed on our first evening home a blue marble in the nappy.

Project for this week include weeding my garden and putting down a band of something around the inside of fence in preparation for shelter belt planting probably just some cardboard and tarpaulin just to kill all the grass and weeds it will have to be a rather wide band as I don't want to plant to close to the fence as otherwise sheep or cows or horses or whoever happens to be munching the grass in the paddocks might help themselves to a little of what ever I plant.

Nevs projects are still fly screen construction and chicken house building. How ever the lack of funds will mean he will have to be very creative and use what ever we have around the home, more fun that way I say.

My brain is a little tired this morning after the late night arrival home on Saturday and the preformance that was Fin's sleep last night. I think he quite enjoyed sharing a bed with dad on holiday as last night he woke from 2 till 4 just lying on the floor whinging I'm not one to do night service to children unless it's life or death so needless to say I was not happy . Only to wake this morning and find all the coffee drank. Luckily for me I like to take home all the coffee teas and soaps from hotels. I had one packet of instant coffee left and have since had three decafs. I love my sleep and I love my coffee so feeling hopeful about an afternoon nap today and my dariling husband bringing home some more coffee for me.

Hare ra Izzy

OK so not sure about my Maori spelling but there you have it she's gone !! We phoned her old family to let them know we were thinking about getting rid of her and her old father phoned back to say how happy he was and that he will have her back. He is no longer working away and has joined the fire service so has plenty of time to devote to her. The reunion was great Izzy jumped into his arms and licked his face. Going by email dates we had had her since October so we gave it a good shot. He also told us he'd been up all night because he had been so excited to see her again.

Also must note the last straw with Izzy was the two chickens she ate on Friday ! luckily for her they were both roosters that needed to go. I have found another method for ridding ourselves of excess roosters, a partner of a play centre mum works at reptile park and they will happily take roosters of your hands for you. I think in the future we might have to only breed chickens that are easy to sex because roosters really are just a waste of chick food.  Current chicken statistics just for interest 2 old bantams, 14 teenage chickens (born in December so should start laying soon then we will really know who to get rid of) 9 chicks(born midfeb) 12 eggs in the oven (due 15th march). Will have to start getting into breeding and selling I think as chickens are quite fun and you can get a little bit for a pure breed chicken.

Teenage chickens in their run they do free range completely during the day and just run around the yard. 

Young Fin really enjoyed his party on Saturday. I'm very impressed by just how much fun he had and how cool and confident he was with all his little mates at his house. All presents were opened virtually on arrival so he's defiantly got the idea on that one. He giggled madly while everyone sung him happy birthday which is fantastic because I think even a few months ago he would have more inclined to hide behind me and cry at the prospect of singing and being the centre of attention. All of the kids just played really well together with no tears or tantrums. I didn't organise any games but all the kids seemed pretty happy checking out chickens, feeding goats, bouncing on the trampoline and off course eating. BBQ food was great as all the salads were prepared earlier and the men took care of the meat. Fin also especially enjoyed the fire twirling and pyrotechnics. No he didn't have a turn :) and all the other children had gone home to bed by that time but Fin stayed up late to watch Thanks uncle Grant. I don't think I know of any other 3year old parties that included pyrotechnics and fire twirling, I'm sure there is a much cooler word than fire twirling.

Beautiful Wenderholm where I am thinking about having Fins party next year.

Lastly my final life goal for the moment is to fly proof my home ! that was the only downside to the party was the decision to just leave the doors open so that all of our guests didn't roast. The flies decided to join the party too. I purchased a little glade plug in that did nothing, it kills a few when all the doors are closed but I'd say our living area is too large for it to have much effect. Yesterday we popped out to mitre ten and purchase some insect screen and wood and Neville is currently building some screens for me. He also purchased me a little zapper which I am having fun electrocuting flies with today. Much better than an old fashioned swat which leaves a horrible mess. Off course the ultimate goal is to stop them getting in at all. Ahh the joys of country living.  

Good luck monday

I have just found a patch of four and five leaf clovers next to the driveway out the front door. Lucky me ! It started at Christmas time when one of my mothers home stays gifted everybody with little laminated bookmark four leaf clovers she had found. She told me once you spot one you will keep seeing them and if you spot one always look around it as they are usually a patch of mutant clovers . Over Christmas I found my first five leaf clover but it happened to be in the same paddock as a pushy pig so I didn't get a chance to have a proper look for more and this morning I spotted this patch. They are drying in the back of a cookbook at the moment I'd like to copy this young lady and get some pretty backing paper and laminate mine so I can gift them to people for good luck. I will take a photo when they are dry, hmm i wonder how long that will take ??

All is well around the house spent Sunday home doing some tidying up around the outside in preparation for Fins birthday BBQ next week. Defiantly not going to be doing it this long after his birthday if we do it again next year because he has probably forgotten it was even his birthday, 3 weeks is a long time especially for a 3 year old. Will just be doing a BBQ and a cake maybe some lollies and chippies but nothing to fancy.

The second lot of Eggs hatched on wed last week, We purchased 12 fertilised eggs from them two didn't start to develop at all and one didn't make it out of it's egg under mother hen. So we now have nine new baby chicks, and they are all being looked after by their mummy bantam. Half of the eggs were Barnavelder and half were Brown Leg horns. Not sure how many off each we have but good stuff more chicks, and even better stuff I'm not having to do anything. We left 6 in the incubator to hatch and put the other four under mum. Here are some of our little friends in the oven we haven't seen much of any of them since we put them all under mum.

Bread making is super and I now am the proud owner of 40kgs of flour for $40 doesn't get much better than that. I think the whole family eats less bread now that we have to go to the physical effort of taking out a chopping board and a knife and slicing our bread so that's another bonus. I think we will have to start growing our own potatoes I can't seem to bring myself to  buy them at the shops at the moment as they are just so dear compared to what they used to be.

Charlie is well walking around the house on his knee's quite happily funny boy. He has a bit of a reputation at play centre as he likes to give all the other mothers cuddles, little cutie.

Fin is well although we have decided to put monsters the DVD away for a few years. He really enjoys watching the movie how ever ...... he now prefers to sleep in the hallway .

 Worlds most utilised shipping container now the home to our mummy and chicks


Pumpkins have produced plenty this year however the vine now has white stuff on it so might just pull it out and start again next year. Silver beet is still awesome as are garlic chives they are flowering now. Planted the mint between the water tanks.

Still having trouble with the dog she came home covered in horse poo Friday night after harassing the neighbours horses. Decided I wanted to get rid of her and have had a couple of people say they might be interested. Off course since then she has been fantastic and I have been having second thoughts. I think I just need to put in more time if I do want to keep her. We played a little fetch this morning and she was returning the Frisbee as I was using treats. Otherwise she just plays haha look at me I've got the ball after one throw which is pretty frustrating. Kindergarten should have a place for Fin by next term which would mean I could definitely take her for a couple of walks a week then ............ decisions decisions