Barn buildin'

Two really good things have happened in the last week. The first is that we finished building the exterior of our barn, and the second is that we bought a fridge freezer. That stores ice-cream! If someone had told me before I got here that the highlight of my first 3 months in New Zealand would be eating ice-cream in my tent infront of some trashy TV I may have been a little dismayed. Luckily I got this far and I think its great! It helps that New Zealand produces some really good ice-cream, and that my expectations have been beaten down by hammering THREE THOUSAND nails into unyeilding, reflective tin in the last week. Okay, when I say 'I' I really mean 'Steven' but I have also been hammering nails until my arm has cramped up, just at a much, much slower pace. In a mini heatwave! We've had some amazing weather, but it has meant working in the hot sun with temperatures in the mid 30s.

This week we are going to convert the right hand bay into a little flat to live in whilst we build the house.

Here is the finished product - isn't it a thing of beauty??



My nails, look how straight they are!



The process: poles, roof perlings(sp?), and tin.







Casting a shadow on the land..



Steven drove next door's tractor to finally fill in the trench that has been left open for about 8 weeks when the phone man came to bring us a landline, the internet and civilisation!





Steven on the phone, in a field!



I tend to take more photographs on sunny days just because I'm hanging outside a bit more, but this particular day a couple of weeks ago I wanted to document our water tanks arriving. The man bringing them on a huge trailer got stuck turning into a bridge just half a kilometre down our road. So Steven drove the tractor to collect them and it only took about 2 hours(!!) altogether to dislodge the trailer, deliver the tanks and position them on the land. In the mist... It looks a bit grim doesn't it?



Tank tipping!



I'll finish off with some nice, happy animal photos. Here is Hussein looking sinister:



Spending some man-time roaming about the recently cut hay field without his two ladies:



And this is Brandy the horse from next door having a gallop, woohoo!



Upcoming blog posts will include my first hay-bale collecting (which I've only ever witnessed on TV before!!) and 2 new additions to the farm (very exciting). I'm calling it a farm now because we have 3 chickens. Oh, and Mavis MAY be sitting on 6 eggs! She comes down from the nest now and again to fuss about with the other two so I'm not sure if they'll get cold or not.