Free Firewood

The final idea that I gleaned from our garden visit was both picturesque and practical. The paulownia tree is fast growing and can be pollarded for firewood. The wood is also useful for construction and craft projects and it produces beautiful lilac-esque flowers in spring.

The only hitch is that the tree doesn't like clay soils so we'll have to find a well-drained spot on our land to trial one of these.

Wisteria Lane

Another idea that I took from our recent garden visit was to plant a wisteria by our new deck. I think it will soften the look a little bit and help the house to blend in with its surroundings. I think I'll plant a grape vine and a passionfruit vine too - maybe one on either side of the wisteria...

Potager Garden

A visit to a local garden gave me a few ideas about how to brighten up our raised beds when we plant them up.

How about a huge metal cabbage, for example?


And a potting shed like this one is a must...

Big Red Bin

Beginner Baking 5

And this week, it was two yellowed apples that needed using up so I made these spiced apple muffins.



The recipe was taken from Dame Alison Holst's book of muffin recipes - a Christmas present from my New Zealand penfriend about 25 years ago. (That makes me feel very old.) The recipe is reproduced online here. I think these were one of my most successful baking attempts so far - second only to the carrot cake.

Beginner Baking 4

Last week I needed to find a use for some leftover kiwi fruit so I made a banana-free banana loaf. I mixed in some walnuts and dried apricots and added a lemon frosting to give it a bit of extra zing.



I used a recipe from this classic thrift shop find but you can use any banana loaf recipe and just substitute the banana for finely chopped kiwi fruit. You could also use feijoas but I suspect that some of my readers won't be able to source those quite so easily.

Noisy Neighbours

Three geese have taken up residence next door. Good job we can't hear them from the house.

Flax: Old and New

Blossom

A silly question, perhaps - does this blossom mean that we'll get at least a few plums and peaches on our new trees this year?

Wildflowers

Here are some wildflowers that J couldn't quite reach with the lawnmower. Let's hope he doesn't find them with the strimmer...

Progress Report

This is how upstairs looked last weekend - no walls but lots of windows waiting to go in. The family bathroom is on the left, the en suite on the right. The master bedroom is straight ahead. Looking forward to it taking shape - maybe there'll have been some more progress by the time we visit again this weekend...

Race to the finish

Our builder promises us we'll be home by Christmas and next door's house isn't scheduled to be finished until February but I think it will be a close run thing after the neighbours' foundations were put down and the framework put up in just a few weeks.

(Mail)Box Clever

I've been trying to find a quirky mailbox for some time now - if the house is going to be smartened up then we want the mailbox to make a statement too. At the moment, we have a functional but uninspiring cream and green version.



We've found some excellent mailboxes on our travels - this one is a model of the house that it serves.



And these two - high up on a post, for airmail and email - amused me on our recent trip up north...



But so far I've only found boring ones for sale - maybe I'll have to put hammer to nail and build one for myself.

Colour Coding 3

And we've selected our paint for the inside and outside too.

Resene Bitter for the weatherboarding - a slight change to the previous Granite Green - and Appliance White for the other external timber. We hope that the house will blend into the surrounding landscape thanks to this neutral colour and will be selecting the more environmentally-friendly VOC free paints.



But the concrete front doorstep should stand out in the brighter Limerick green (after we decided that nothing was going to hide the chicken sh*t effectively).



We've resisted the traditional "kiwi magnolia" paint - a muddy-greeny-brown colour which dominated our house and many others.

Colour Coding 2

And here are our selections for the rest of the living areas upstairs - the same carpet for the bedrooms plus a wood-like vinyl for the bathrooms to tone with the natural oak (coloured) vanity unit and the rimu skirting boards.

We still need to decide on the flooring for the minor dwelling downstairs but we're struggling to find any carpets which make a statement and which aren't imported from France at three times the price of our other choices.

Colour Coding 1

After lengthy debate, we've finally settled on the carpet and vinyl choices for the upstairs living area.



We've chosen a New Zealand wool carpet from Cavalier Bremworth - Troika in Rostov - green in colour and character and on sale this month. And a Tarkett vinyl (subject to a reasonable quote...) that looks like concrete to complement the industrial kitchen design - plywood cupboard doors and a stainless steel worktop.

Blossom

I suspect that this blossom is on a non-fruiting cherry tree but could be wrong so feel free to correct me.

Mellow Yellow

Daisies and freesias along the drive.

Meadow Flowers

Spring and a lack of good mowing weather has brought a lovely range of flowers to our top lawn once again.



I prefer the natural look but I have a feeling that it's going to get a good trim very soon.

Nesting Instinct

Our builder spotted that one (or more) of our hens has been laying away from the nest box again -



It seems that she found a cosy, private spot underneath the scaffolding, surrounded by rubbish and old leaves. I wonder if she'll change tack now that she's been discovered.

A Bath with a View

I've always wanted a bath with a view and now I only have to wait a few more months to have one.

Here's our huge corner bath in the family bathroom...



And here's an approximation of the view that I'll be able to enjoy from the tub once it's plumbed in and the scaffolding comes down...

Beginner Baking 3

Undaunted by the lemon cake's collapse and the crumbly crunchie, I persisted with my baking adventures and tried out a "foolproof" carrot cake recipe for brunch with friends. I didn't like carrot cake before moving to NZ - bad childhood memories of soggy cakes made by people other than my mother - but have taste-tested some excellent examples here and wanted to make my own.

I found the recipe in a magazine and it doesn't seem to be available online. And it wasn't foolproof anyway as it took almost twice as long to cook as the recipe claimed and the topping quantities seemed wrong.

So click here for an alternative recipe, courtesy of a much better magazine, NZ Life and Leisure. The only significant difference in this recipe seems to be the addition of ginger, cinnamon and mixed spice which strikes me as an excellent idea. I went off piste with my topping too, decorating it with pumpkin seeds and dried apricot.


It's gardening club again on Sunday so I'll be trying out another recipe very soon - watch this space...

Beginner Baking 2

The next recipe that I tried out was my mother's crunchie - always a popular option for our lunchboxes and it needs only a few store-cupboard essentials. A supposedly simple recipe, I quickly remembered why I prefer cooking to baking - baking demands too much accuracy. It's more of a chemistry experiment than a culinary creation.

Unfortunately I used olive oil-based margarine rather than normal margarine and suspect this is why the crunchie didn't quite set. Anyway, I adapted the recipe quickly and made some pastry cases from the frozen stuff that I had in the freezer and turned the crunchie mixture into mini-treacle tarts.

Here's the original recipe for anyone who thinks they can do better than me and get it to set!

Ingredients (apologies for the imperial measures but this is my mother's recipe!)
4oz soft brown sugar
4oz margarine (I'm going to try it with butter next time)
1 tbsp golden syrup
3oz porridge oats
3oz corn flakes

(I added some currants as well)

Method
Cream sugar, margarine and sugar
Add oats and cornflakes (and currants, if you want)
Mix well
Press into lined tin (11" x 7")
Bake at 325F for 15 minutes
Cut while warm

Beginner Baking 1

Another challenge that I've set myself for my maternity leave (in addition to doing a correspondence course in small farming and raising a small child), is learning to bake. There seems to be a baking revival happening across the world but it's the great kiwi tradition of bringing a plate that has inspired me.

The local gardening club, the office morning tea, neighbourhood, mothers' groups all demand a "plate" so I thought it was about time that I expanded my repertoire from just ginger biscuits.

And there's a small matter of lots and lots of eggs to use up...


So my first foray into cake-making was my mother's trusty lemon cake, a long-time favourite in our cake tin raids.

Of course, I had to bake the cake in between nappy changes and feeds, in ten minute slots at a time. This was working well until I realised that in my haste I'd put the cake too high up in the oven and it was going to rise up to touch the grill element. So I quickly grabbed the oven rack to move it down and the cake slid down the back and dropped on to the lower tray. By some small miracle, it remained upright but it had collapsed during the fall.

And this taught me my most important lesson in baking so far - be flexible! The crack in the cake's surface was quickly covered up with some slices of kiwi fruit which went very well with the overall lemon flavour. Phew!

Here's the recipe for all the keen bakers among my readers...

Ingredients
115g margarine
175g caster sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon (I was lucky enough to use a lemon from our own tree)
175g self-raising flour
55ml milk
Juice of 1 lemon
115g granulated sugar

Method

• Pre-heat oven to 180C
• Grease and line oblong tin (17.5cm x 22.5cm x 2.5cm) (I just used the 7" round tin that I had to hand)
• Beat together margarine and caster sugar until light and fluffy
• Gradually beat in eggs
• Stir in lemon rind
• Fold in flour, alternating with milk
• Put mixture into tin and level off
• Bake for 50 minutes until risen and golden
• Prepare topping whilst cake bakes by blending together granulated sugar and lemon juice
• Spoon over cake whilst still hot
• Leave cake in tin to cool

Weatherboards

I've wanted a weatherboard house ever since I arrived in NZ in 2004. The asbestos fibrolite cladding on our house was a great excuse to re-clad using this traditional material. I'm looking forward to the scaffolding coming down and seeing the full effect. It needs to be painted yet though - probably the same colour as before, a muddy brownish-green, so that the house blends into the landscape.

Walls and Within

How many sheep has it taken to insulate our house? We appreciate their sacrifice. I just hope that the whole house doesn't end up smelling of lanolin.

Double Glazing

One of our objectives for the renovations was to make the house warmer - so that we don't have to spend next winter sat on the sofa wearing thermals and woolly hats. But we wanted to make it warmer without making it more energy-thirsty so we've plumped for insulation in the roof, walls and floors, solar hot water and a woodburner. We'd ruled out double glazing though as too expensive for the time being, particularly given that the house has so many windows.


But the council building inspector decided that we needed to change a lot of our windows so that they were glazed with safety glass. So we took the plunge and went for double glazing across the whole house. When we went to the factory to choose handles (better ones that the handle that you can see below), our dozens of windows were stacked up all over the place. We can't wait to see them all in place soon. I just hope that we don't regret going the whole hog and paying for the additional ten-year witch proof coating.