Not so pretty in pink!

There was so much daunting about buying this house. One of them was the massive amount of ugly wallpaper hanging in this house. The previous owners son is a contractor and he did his best to talk me out of even trying to take the wallpaper off. His story was that it took he and a friend over 20 hours to remove the paper in one of the rooms, so I should just give up before I start. He thought I should paint over the paper, wallpaper over the paper or just leave it-none of these were acceptable options! We've going to be in this house for a very long time and this ugly crap has to go!

Streamer in hand, I got started in just about the most hideous room in the house-the room of pink bows. Please note the beautiful valance they left in the window!


Not even close to 20 hours later all the paper is down! While there is still a little glue on the walls that I have to get off and yes I have to patch up a few places (especially from where they cut the paper with a razor along the drywall instead of taking the time to measure-gee thanks), but it's all off!


It's hard not to think there's a special place in hell for people who put wallpaper up, but I guess it's a little early in the removal process to get so melodramatic. I have 2 1/2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a master bedroom left to go. Up next is the downstairs bathroom, which is pretty terrible. As my friend Jean noted, one better not have too much to drink before going in that bathroom due to the severe nausea that it induces! I will be getting started on that shortly!

What's taters?

Waaaay back in May I decided to plant some potatoes. As usual, I really didn't know what I was doing, but like that's ever stopped me! I planted about a quarter pound worth of tiny little fingerling potatoes. They are good little taters and the perfect size since I was planting them in a container so I could move it with us to the new house.

Planting taters, or I'm guessing any root veggie, is freaking nerve wracking! It's not like tomatoes where you can see exactly what's going on. Instead you just plant them, water them and hope that you have some potatoes in the end. At least a month or so later there were an actual plants growing.

Today, 5 months after planting them, I went out in the garden and the potato plants were so obviously dead. But unlike all other plants, it is a great thing when they die-it means it's time to harvest! Being incredibly optimistic, I thought we were going to get a crazy mother load of potatoes-I was thinking at least 15 pounds. Well, not so much, maybe next year! And I'm sure Fang will be as helpful next year as well!


How about 5 pounds, 5 pounds isn't bad right!? It's 5 pounds more than I ever grown before! Realistically, it will take us a while to go through that taters. I have planted more potatoes in the garden, but it seems that the gophers are throughly enjoying them, along with my rutabagas and turnips!

Two weeks later

I can't believe it's been two weeks in the new house! They have flown by and after taking these pictures it's kind of amazing how much we have gotten done! It is very nice to have Keith in my ear saying it's just been two weeks, we can't get everything done in such a short amount of time so we should absolutely make time for fun too-which we have!

Where to start? Well the chickens are very happy! While they have escaped a few times (and gotten in the garden-argh!), I think we fixed the problem and we are getting about 6 eggs a day. One of the best parts of this house-the chickens have their own space and we no longer have 8 chickens and a dog begging for dinner when we eat outside!


But now we have a dog and a cat begging for dinner. Fang 2 is not allowed inside-although that does not stop him from trying-but when we are outside he is always trying to get attention. BJ and Fang 2 still do not get along, but hopefully that will change and no more blood will be shed between them (BJ is just fine, he just needs to get a little tougher or smarter)


The garden-Fang loves to help pick raspberries in our little jungle of berries. We've gotten enough raspberries to make jam and still have a gallon in the freezer. I should probably out there picking right now, but oh well, they'll still be there tomorrow! The rest of the garden is doing well, pretty much everything has sprouted. I tried so hard to take pictures that didn't have weeds in them, but honestly that is just impossible. Weeding sucks and I know I need to do it, but I am in no hurry!




Our little greenhouse is working, well mostly working. The door won't stay on and some wasps built a nest in there this week, but besides that it's great!


We love this this view! We love it even more now that there is not a single bird house in it! And the back yard is no longer divided up into eights by random fences-the yard is getting amazing!


Shall we go inside? There are a lot of random closets in our house and we are using one of them in a way that I am sure was never intended-beer closest!


The rest of the house is coming together. Keith put our bed together a couple days ago and generally it's starting to feel more like home, but still it feels kind of barren at times.


The fun we have had has mostly been huckleberry picking. This can be very tedious, but we have had a couple beautiful days and found an amazing spot (which we will be keeping mostly secret). We've gotten enough to make jam and have some in the freezer, but I don't think they are going to last long! We've already have huckleberry pancakes twice and huckleberry waffles this morning and they are amazing!

We have the guest bed put together, so when are you coming to visit?

Movin' on up!

This is all still kind of surreal. We finally got pretty much everything moved into our new house (OUR new house!) on Thursday. Friday morning we left the chaos to go to a great wedding on the coast where we got a chance to just enjoy ourselves for a couple days. Now we're back and things are starting to take shape, but still I can't really believe it. Remember that scene from Doctor Zhivago where Yuri comes home from war and the posh mansion in Moscow where he has lived with his small family has been divided up into tenements for dozens of people? I keep expecting to walk into our house to find a stern comrade and I know exactly what she's going to say and just hope I'll be as graceful as Yuri (yes, I realize this is a crazy line of thinking).

But I digress. We're here! And BJ is so completely confused-mostly by the upstairs. He keeps getting lost and can't find his way down. I think what is really confusing is that he can see us downstairs but he can't just jump down-I hope this all will be worked out soon!


The house already looks very different from this right now and I will post updates at some point (like after we get the internet at the new house!). Right now there are mostly just piles of random stuff on the floors with no semblance of organization.



Over the week last week I just did a bunch of small trips with our pickup and on Thursday we had a ton of help from friends and I feel like I just directed and did very little of the heavy lifting-it was great! We brewed a beer for the occasion: Movin' on up. It's our best version of a pale ale yet!


Oh and I have to introduce Fang 2. He's about 16 yrs old and came with the house. So far BJ and Fang do NOT get along, but hopefully BJ just learns to stay away and things will mellow out between them. All the really matters is that he obviously loves me ;)


I am at the old double wide for the afternoon cleaning the last of our random stuff out before I have to clean it top t bottom-at least we're leaving it nicer than when we moved in-and hopefully I will never have to come back here!

Right now the one of the main things I love about the new house is that with all the windows I don't need to turn a light on anywhere until about 7:30 pm-it's just awesome!

Homeowners!

Finally, finally, finally! We own the house on Stockton Rd...but we sadly, we still don't live there. After a week of appointments and signing a massive mountain of papers, it's all official. We aren't moving in until August 11th (ish), but we can be in the yard as much as we want as of last Friday-so if you're looking for me, I'm probably there!

Sunday Keith and I went over to the house with a weed wacker, a rototiller, and every other piece of garden equipment we could think to bring. We got a beautiful day to enjoy our future view!

The garden space can only be described as a hot mess! With weeds just about as tall am me, we were in for a ton of work ahead of us. With the magic of big tools the garden was transformed in no time (or about 6 hours).

The hot mess:



Look! We can see the ground!



We got a little further than we expected and I even got to plant a few seeds and BJ was there to help.


I was there again today working and will be there again tomorrow and the next day....

And in chicken news: We are getting about 3 eggs a day now! We've only gotten one regular sized egg so far, but the tiny eggs are still edible and delicious!

So when are you coming to visit!?!?

Whiskey, witches, wine and the 100th post!

We are winding down our time here and it seems every week is a last of something. Last week was our last week in Tapanui and there's nothing like a time limit to get you moving! One thing I had to do before leaving Tapanui was get to Gore and go to the Hokonui Moonshine Museum! It was actually a really great museum with exhibits about the origins of whiskey in Southland (way to go Scots!) and the 51 years of prohibition that followed. One thing that they don't tell you until you get there is that at before you leave the museum you get a shot of Hokonui whiskey. I was (as always, it seems) the only person there and when I finished going through the museum, the two ladies working there already had the whiskey out. My first thought was, whoa ladies did you start the party without me? Nope, but they were using it to clean permanent marker off a whiteboard....and I'm supposed to drink this? A cleaning product?! Well, I had to kind of had to try it and it was disgusting! A number of glasses of water later I still felt the whiskey burning my throat, which was a perfectly legitimate excuse for a chai and biscuit!

Since we had been going to Tapanui, we've been seeing signs for the West Otago theatrical production of the Wizard of Oz and I was pretty excited to check out this piece of community theater. It seemed pretty ambitious to me to put on this play in such a small community (population 900) but after talking to old gentleman at the hardware store (which also serves as the box office) I had moderately high expectations. The theater was bigger then expected with stadium seating and it looked almost sold out! The props were minimal, but creative (think interpretive dance of a tornado) and the singing was actually pretty good. The supportive cast was the best with a over the top campy Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow had the moves down perfectly and the Wicked Witch totally embraced her character and was actually kind of hilarious.

Tapanui was a really pretty place and we had a great view from our little flat-but only from the back. In front of our flat was the ruins of the old hospital and I don't mean the cool, spooky old building kind of ruins, I mean a giant pile of bricks.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

We had really been wanting to make it to a Degustation Evening at Speargrass Inn, and finally we did! This is our kind of night! The restaurant is in an old brick building about 20 mins outside of Alex and it is fantastic, the chef used to be the the head chef of the Heathman of all places! They have a night once a month or so that they pair up with a local winery and have a seven course meal with a different wine paired with each course...heaven! We were there for a night of food paired with wines from Leaning Rock Vineyard in Alexandra. The seven courses included American scallops paired with resling, the most amazing bacon apple chowder paired with guverstraminer,  pork with greens and a mustard dressing paired with a muscat, herb crusted lamb paired with a young, light-bodied pinot noir, seared venison paired with an earthy reserve pinot noir, and an amazing creme brulee with citrus shortbread. We enjoyed the evening with Sean and Bev, another locums couple from Olympia-Sean has also been my GP when it came to dealing with my hand. It is their last week here and this dinner seemed like a great send off!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

The winemakers were there, a husband/wife team who are trained as geologists. Each wine was introduced by the winemaker, then the chef's wife explained how they decided to create a dish to compliment each wine.

From New Zealand

The unexpected highlight (lowlight?) of the evening was at almost the very end of the evening, when one of the party goers passed out. Fortunately there were 2 GP's, 1 anesthesiologist, and at least one nurse there to save the day and everyone was fine!

I can't believe this is the 100th post...are you guys bored yet? We only have about a month left here in New Zealand. We are in Ranfurly for the last time this week, then a week in Roxbourgh, and 2 weeks of a little time in Alex and a little time Otautau. We do have about a week to check out a little more of the south island and maybe do another Great Walk, then what I am imagine will be an incredibly lazy and wonderful week in Togna. 

We have also lined up a place to live when we get back! It's a house in Joseph-I have to say we hadn't really thought about living in Joseph, we also thought Enterprise, but a great opportunity presented itself and we couldn't turn it down. So, we will be going back to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a ton of acres, a green house and a view to die for! We are really excited to get back home and welcome many visitors!

From Drop Box