We have chickens!

We are now the proud owners of 16 one week old chickens or chooks as they are called here.  We had a minor disagreement on the kind of chickens we should keep.  Matt took a purely practical view that they should be utility birds, good layers and good to eat, but I also wanted them to be interesting and nice to look at!     Unable to decide which breed to go for, I found a local breeder and went to see her for advice.  Fionna is a mine of information on breeding and keeping chooks, she showed us all her adult birds and pointed out all the characteristics of each breed.. In the end I chose a mixed clutch of Plymouth Rocks, Light Sussex, Buff Sussex and Rhode Island Reds.  If you would like to see what they will look like when they are grown up, Fionna's website http://www.chooks.co.nz/  has lots of photos and is full of interesting chicken stuff.     Now we have to wait four weeks to find out how many layers we have in our flock and how many are roosters.  The boys will end up on the table, except for one lucky rooster who will stay to look after our girls and hopefully create next years brood.  

Matt spent the last day of his leave getting the hen house ready for the chooks, it had been converted into a childrens playhouse so he restored perches, nesting boxes and ramps and gave it a good clean out to get rid of all the spiders and bugs that had taken up residence.  There is a good sized enclosure for the birds, but it isn't chicken proof,  our intention was always for them to be free range.   Next week we have to raise the fence around the vegetable garden, I don't want the chickens making a meal of all my hard work!

I was a little bit worried about how Poppy (the puppy) might react to the chickens, we thought it was wise to get them while she is still young enough to accept them.  Actually she is scared to death of them!  She took cover when I tried to introduce her to them and hid out on the porch.

We are planning to get pigs next, the pig sty is big enough for at least a couple of weaners and there is about a quarter of an acre of woodland behind which we will fence for them to forage in,  they should be very happy little piggies.  

Mowing the very overgrown lawn was a priority this week, we left our mower in England, because of the strict rules about importing garden equipment into New Zealand.  With nearly two acres to keep neat and tidy hand shears just weren't an option!  The previous owner had a ride on mower, but we weren't convinced that we needed something that big so we hired a push along for the day to see how long it would take, answer - five hours continuous mowing!  This could get annoying when the grass really starts to grow in the spring, perhaps we should get some sheep.

The vegetable garden is coming on, I have cleared most of it now by covering it with compost and tarpaulins until all the weeds die down.  I have four huge compost heaps on the go, one of the advantages of caring for a horse is the never ending supply of manure!  I have sown broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, carrots, chives, onions and parsley this week and I'm hoping to get some fruit trees in over the next few months.  We have been collecting walnuts as they fall from the tree and drying them in the sun, we should have a good supply to last through the year.  

We had a huge glut of plums last week, at least 20kg!  I have frozen half of them, we gave loads away to friends and I made jam with the rest.  I got the jam recipe off the internet and it was surprisingly easy to make.  

Plum Jam Recipe
4lb plums
4lb sugar
1 pint of water

Bring to the boil, skim off the stones as they rise to the surface, test for pectin (does it start to set when dolloped onto a cold plate?)  then decant into sterilised jars, seal, cool and label.   Easy!   It made eight full jars.   I'm going to make the remaining plums into chutney, even my sweet toothed family can't eat that much jam!  

The weather is starting to turn distinctly cooler in the early mornings now. It's still really warm in the afternoons but the evenings are drawing in and autumn is definitely on the way.  We have bought in all our fire wood and Matt has draught proofed every door and window, so hopefully we are prepared for winter.  I'm still a bit worried about the lack of double glazing and central heating though!   We are going to need a good supply of sweaters.  

the living room - all cosy now! 

Christchurch earthquake

We are all very sad and shocked to hear about the devastating earthquake that has destroyed Christchurch this afternoon.  Our thoughts are with the people of Christchurch, the families and friends waiting for news and the heroic members of the New Zealand emergency services who are working so hard to find and rescue the injured. 

Our own home at last!

We have been in our new house for six days!    Amazingly, all our furniture fits perfectly so we won't be having the anticipated garage sale.  It feels fantastic to be in our own home again.  The garden hasn't been touched for many years, there are some beautiful mature trees and shrubs but it is very overgrown and needs a good clear out to get rid of all the saplings, bamboo and flax that have sprung up everywhere. We are finding new parts of the garden and hidden treasures every day, so far we have discovered:  two cartwheels and a plough, a stags head, five antique radiators, a large sturdy dog kennel and run, an aviary and a loom.  The kennel is already in use.  Poppy is a ten week old huntaway puppy, she is very cute and friendly, her parents look as healthy as butchers dogs and she was free!  We don't spend anything unless we have to anymore, part of our plan to change our lives was to become debt free.   No more credit cards, store cards or overdrafts!   If we can't afford it, we don't buy it, and if we can make do, mend or buy second hand instead of new, then we do.  Although we have gone from two salaries to one, we actually seem to have more money left in the bank at the end of the month than we ever did before.  We are spending more time together as a family and more time doing fun things outdoors that don't cost anything.   I live my life in shorts and tee shirts now, so I don't have to buy smart clothes and shoes.  I have a wardrobe full of clothes that I can't imagine ever wearing again!   I dig the garden and take the kids to the beach instead of answering emails and writing reports. 
 Growing our own food is an important part of our new "back to basics", spend less lifestyle.  I couldn't wait to get started on our vegetable garden. I am experimenting with permaculture or "no dig", organic gardening.  This basically involves making loads of compost and getting chickens and worms to help you with weeding and feeding the garden.  I have made a start on the first two beds and a plan for the rest of the garden is slowly forming in my brain!   We already have a chook house and a very sturdy former dairy which could be used for pigs or lambs.  There are also a few fruit trees, vines and a giant walnut tree but I want to add some citrus trees, apples, pears, figs and some peach trees.  Chickens will be our next purchase, we are hoping to try hatching our own, rather than buying point of lay pullets.  We will have to wait longer for our eggs, but the initial outlay will be much smaller and the kids will get more out of the experience. 
 This has been such a good week,  so many of our new friends have come to visit, given us practical help with moving and fixing the computer and brought us gifts - eggs, cream, potatoes, wine and a rice cooker -, in return we have sent them all home with boxes of plums and walnuts!  We are rediscovering what we knew in our hearts already, the best things in life really are free!

The chook house

 The start of the vegetable garden

...and the work still to come!

 Fish pond (needs some work!) and hills behind the house

 Puppy pen

 Part of the verandah and driveway

 The dairy (pig pen is just behind)

 Masses of bamboo and flax growing along the creek

Poppy and Patrick

 

  

We have had a really exciting week.  Mum arrived from France to stay with us for the next seven weeks,  Lara is on her way back home from the UK after six weeks visiting friends and family,  we aquired a puppy and we have only three more days to wait until we can move into our new home - yippee!
  Despite having travelled for four days to get here and being 70 years old, mum hasn't seemed the least little bit jet-lagged!  In fact she couldn't wait to get out and about.  It's been great fun playing tour guide and showing her all the gorgeous places we have discovered so far.   On Sunday we went to Abel Tasman national park and walked about 5k through the bush to a stunning golden beach.   The scenery was breathtaking and the water was clear and warm, it was a really magical day.
Holly and Patrick are now back at schoool after their long summer holiday (they have had two this year, we moved out here just after the UK summer holidays!).   Holly has now moved up to the senior school and is in year 9 at Waimea College.  Patrick is in his final year at Waimea Intermediate School.  Both are very happy, they have settled in brilliantly and made lots of new friends.  Our main fear in emigrating was that the children might find it difficult to fit in or might struggle with the new curriculum.  We needn't have worried, they have amazed us with the way they have adapted so easily to the enormous changes in their lives.   Admittedly Holly was appalled when she first saw the school uniform, but she now wears her long plaid skirt with pride!   Schooling is not totally free here, families are required to make a donation  to school funds and pay for books and stationary.  The amount you pay depends on the decile rating of the school.  The higher the rating the more the parents have to contribute.  The decile rating is set according to the average income of families attending the school.  
Matt and I have been getting out and about on our bikes as much as we can, but we are going to have to swap our road tyres for something a bit more rugged, almost all the roads here eventually turn into dirt tracks (even the highways!) and our rides can get quite exciting,  I almost came to grief this week on a logging track beside a steep gorge. I would really like an off road tandem if there is such a thing, so I can keep up with Matt!

Wakefield New Zealand

Our new home town  is slightly smaller than Nafferton (East Yorkshire) where we lived in the UK.  According to Wikpedia,  Wakefield has a population of 1663 but it  is only a fifteen minute drive from the busy little town of Richmond  (population 11,000) where you can buy almost anything you need. We will be living on the edge of the village but within a short walk of the centre.  We went to have another look around the house yesterday, just to see if our furniture will all fit in, and find out where all the switches and stopcocks are in case of emergency.   It has been a while since we agreed to buy it, so it was  good to go back and remind ourselves of what we are getting into!   The garden is great, it's already divided up into smaller areas, there are lawns, vegetable gardens, a chicken run and hen house, a water garden and a small creek running through the centre.  There is even a dairy with stalls for milking two cows!   We have peach, plum and walnut trees already in fruit  and the fencing is secure enough for us to be able to get a puppy and chickens quite soon .
  The house is quite badly in need of a lick of paint inside and there are loads of jobs that need doing to make it our  own and get it into a good state of repair.  This will be the fourth house that we have renovated, so although we had vowed never to do it again, at least we know what we are getting into!
 In general the standard of housing here is not as high as it is in the UK.  It's quite usual for houses not to have double glazing or insulation and because it is an earthquake zone, the majority are not made of permanent materials (brick or stone) so they can feel quite flimsy.    Having said that, there has been a lot of new development in recent years and all new houses are built to a similar specification as they would be in England.    The older villa type houses like ours are made of native hardwoods such as Rimu and feel very solid, they sit on wooden piles rather than concrete foundations and are usually roofed with corrugated steel  (very  noisy in the rain!).  Our heating will come from a woodburning stove with a solar panel on the roof to help heat our water. 

 Here is a quick photo tour of Wakefield, including one of our house taken from a nearby hillside.

Wildlife

 We had our first encounter with a whitetail spider.  I'm told that these are the only really nasty biting arachnids in New Zealand. Their bite is not fatal but can cause severe pain and in my books that makes them a most unwelcome house guest.  The good news is, they are easy to recognise, slow moving and not aggressive so we caught it in a glass and released it outside.  I can't bring myself to kill spiders, even whitetails!   The other pest here (which is far more annoying) is the sand fly.  Tiny little midge like flies that you barely notice until they bite your ankles and then you can't think about anything else for the next two days except the intense urge to scratch your own skin off!   Fortunately our neighbours, who are country Kiwi folk, gave us a top tip and we now make our own insect repellant, one part Dettol to three parts baby oil.  It works a treat and costs very little.  
Our garden is teeming with birds of all shapes and sizes, we have a family of ducks, exotically plumaged  pheasants, tuis and pukekos (my personal favourites), plus dozens of smaller songbirds, many of which are European immigrants like us. 
The pukekos are noisy, cheeky , rather gawky and messy; just like teenagers, they also seem to be awake and making a noise half the night!   We have a family of five at the moment who chase each other around the lawn all day squawking loudly. Our landlord keeps threatening to shoot them (I hope he's joking) - apparently the locals don't find them as endearing as I do
.Everything is in bloom at the moment and the garden is beautiful. We are in mid summer, the hills behind our house are starting to turn brown, despite a recent deluge, because rainfall is so low here in the summer months.   The valley where we live and where we have chosen to settle is very fertile and snow is virtually unknown, although the surrounding mountains are snow capped for much of the year.   I can't wait to get started on my vege patch! 
Here are my bird photos, and one of Picton harbour where I snapped the cormorant. 

Moving on

We have a date to move into our new (old actually) home, the removal company is booked for Valentines Day.  I can't think of anything more romantic than starting a new life together so that had to be the day.   The process of buying a house can be much quicker here, it's possible to see a house, put in an offer and move within a couple of weeks.   We didn't plan to buy so soon, we had a very sensible time scale of one year to look around, find the right area, check out all the schools etc. etc.  But we're not very good at sticking to plans, call us spontaneous, flexible, stupid, whatever!  Anyway, we saw this house on sale privately and thought there was no harm in looking....  So now we own a house here, or we will do in less than a month.  It feels as though we have made a real committment to stay and give it our very best shot.   We have stuck to the original dream of owning some land and hopefully that will provide us with enough food for only one of us to go out to work.   I'm reading everything I can on growing veg, self-sufficiency and home economics at the moment.  I'm also wondering what on earth possessed me to buy those five inch heels and a cocktail dress three weeks before we came out here!! Anyway, here's some pictures of the house that were posted on Trademe, the Kiwi equivalent of ebay.