Hello :)
Sorry, I’ve been so slack to catch up. I never stop talking about gardening. And preserving the fruits of what I grow. But house renovations to do and gardening and cooking were put aside. New guttering and leaf guard all round, new floors, tiles down in all wet areas, large dark grey herringbone pattern and we love it! New guttering, my stars, you wouldn’t believe how much work we had to do just for that job to go ahead. Had to get other trades ppl in to do most of it. Remove twenty solar panels on the lowest rung and replace after new gutter was done, and remove roofing on the carport and the pergola. Old colourbond carport and pergola polycarbonate wasn’t going back on so ordered new stuff. The budget blew out- this meant a new ensuite bathroom rip out and refit, and hardwood floors to lounge and bedrooms will have to wait until next year. The main bathroom was done and it looks fabulous. We took the fernery frame off ourselves and got my apiarist friend to take the beehive offsite for the duration. New porch enclosure with two added windows, looks great and it stopped the severe wind and weather, and at the moment we’re repainting the eves.
To do all the tiling meant taking all the cupboards and furniture out and once it was outside we decided it wasn’t coming back in. We’d lived with second hand things from day dot so it was time to get new stuff just, for us. I’ve spent weeks listing three quarters of the house contents on free sites and it all got picked up. Only one trailer load went to the tip. I’ve had fun redecorating! We had a lot of things stored for giant son that were no longer needed, heaps of boxes of kitchen items and various bits furniture for when we changed over broken for unbroken, all went out. There’s so much space now, we think we’d forgotten just how big the house is.
Giant son is now permanently and forever housed in a secure unit for the severely mentally ill. He is fine and well looked after. We don’t see him because he no longer recognizes us, but we get weekly reports on how he is going. The grief is terrible and confusing, like you’ve lost a child except the child is still alive. We’re grateful for the help he is getting, and for the fun videos we have of the good times. We have to be careful we don’t hole ourselves up and wallow, gotta get out there and continue life and keep going.
Garden- fruit trees are blessing us with loads of lovely produce. I didn’t grow any winter veg though, no time. Chooks forever following me, beautiful eggs galore. Old Lin Lin the matriarch silkie is now 12 yo. She wont let anyone else take over while she’s still walking. She doesn’t lay now and even stopped going broody.
The grandbabies are growing, birthdays and family events getting bigger with more members :)
Ta ta for now. I promise I’ll try to pop in more often! And see if I can get photobucket to play nicely again. Gotta pick up the eldest daughter from tulla airport at 6 am, so it’s an early night for me :)
