In the past year, we have just been finalising the fit out. Recently it’s been visiting in most cases just to relax! It’s been fantastic! But now it is time to get back to work. Spring has sprung and we really need to get cracking in getting the outside in some semblance of order.
The most exciting thing about the house has to be the Nectre Bakers Oven. I had identified the oven even before the house was built. I’ll put another post up at some stage with just the progress of putting in the Bakers Oven as we built the hearth ourselves from 5 pavers purchased from Amber and some coloured grout. It has made a huge difference to the house as it can get very cold there. The fire warms the house and allows cooking and warming of food both on top and in the oven part. If we really wanted to be sustainable we could have also put in a wetback and heated our water with it.
Our ex-neighbours (before they moved out) were throwing out a BBQ so we souvenired it for Howes Valley and Will spent some time putting it together to ready ourselves for the Summer season:
Once we buy the gas bottle we should be ready to sizzle!
The dam is looking good too with some of the lotus / lillies popping up and I’m now ready to invest in some silver perch so we can grow out some fish.
The weeds are going a bit beserk but a good ‘mowing’ of the weeds seems to make the place look a lot better even if it’s not quite a lawn. The plan is to grow some native lawn which hopefully will improve the appearance.
I’ve been continue to work on the ‘paving’ using rocks from the land. Whilst I started small on the southern side, on the northern side of the house I was feeling ambitious so now I’ve started something I need to finish but it’s slow going. I think Sprocket is a bit tired of watching me pave although he has been very good in following me to the dirt pile, watching me shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow and then pushing it back to the paving area and then spending time to Tetris the rocks into place.
