Been such a busy couple of weeks but each day is one step
closer to being home. It’s been a whirlwind of DIY, upcycling, cleaning,
gardening, errands, new projects, creative urges and complete brain fade. Often I get distracted half way through a job
by another job and then later I look at a open cupboard or something and I find
myself thinking “Now what was I doing in there?” and then I remember what I had
been doing in the first place before I did those other three jobs.
Then there is the “You have to make mess in order to clean
mess” thing. This has left me with two weed piles waiting to be put in the wool
flage, two-thirds of a colossal ivy bush still annoyingly intact, an old
in-ground bathtub that needs lifting out, two boxes of boxes to go to recycling
and numerous other little things I have started and been distracted from. Ah
well, the wheel doth turn...
Lipstick made a jail break last week and spent the night
under the house in the warren she dug last time she made a bid for freedom. The
next day was a mad dash to get her hutch upcycled and ready for when I could
nab her. New wire on one side and the top, a new plywood roof and veranda and
then some reinforcing around the rest of it...Much lighter and easier to move
around now! Once the rain clears I will give the ply a few coats of paint so it
will stand to the coastal winter we have coming. I also brought a bale of hay
so her bed area will be nice and snuggly and she can also have a nibble when
she wants. A couple of layers of thick card under the hay provides good
insulation and is easy to change and compost when needed. I think I can safely
say she was suitably impressed by the renovations made.
The vegetable garden is doing well, seedlings need thinning
out but everything looks healthy (including the weeds). I put one piece of
trellis at the back to make a little wind break and hung some tinfoil strips on
the strings across the garden to deter cheeky birds from scratching around
looking for my big, plump earthworms. It seems to be working. My Asparagus
seedlings are about 30cm tall now...long, delicate green fronds that look so
pretty! The Lemon tree has about a half dozen small lemons on it, considering
how young it is I’m quite proud. White Sage is doing well and soon will get the
chop so I can finally make some smudge sticks. At the moment it sits by the
front door which I thought was an appropriate place for such a cleansing and
spiritual herb.
One of my latest projects has been a bead curtain that I
started a few years back (ok, so maybe a few more than a few). I have been re-threading all the beads onto thick fishing line so I can attach to a wooden
dowel and hang in my bedroom doorway. The beads I brought in packs of about 50,
they were plain wooden beads so I divided them up, threaded them onto wire and
dyed one lot a beautiful chocolate brown while varnishing the others. Suspended
from the washing line they dried quickly and didn’t stick together. I have all
the beads threaded now and battery charged to drill the holes in the dowel,
only thing left to do is measure the lengths out and measure the spacing in the
dowel. I was thinking a nice piece of weathered driftwood would look rather
cool but it might take awhile to find that bit that looks “just right” and then
I will never finish it!
What I am really looking forward to is having a few chooks.
At the moment I am slowly getting things prepared so that when I get them they
will settle in happily. There is a large lean to with two sides closed in, I am
going to put netting and a gate on the other two sides and turn it into a little
hen heaven. The hen house will sit about two feet off the ground and I will put
a ramp for them to walk up. I would like to have between 4-6 hens if I can but
it all depends on the size of the house I can make. There is a couple of big
bits of driftwood I thought would be good arranged for them to perch on in their
yard and hopefully I will be able to acquire a grandpa feeder or chooketeria
for their feed. Apparently they cut down feed costs by preventing birds and
mice from getting in to it and eating it but they are expensive...though it
probably wouldn’t take long to pay for itself when you have lots of bird life
around like here.
