The first few weeks of 2012 are proving to be very auspicious indeed.  I’ve hired helpers to maintain the grounds at both the Hoon Hay and Wainui houses; we’ve scheduled a few strapping young woofer lads to come help us get the new woodshed and garage in order in February;   my mom’s health seems to be improving after a few months of not being so well; and I just generally feel happier.  I am a sun worshipper after all.

2012 has just got to be better than last year.  Even though 2011 had some very wonderful moments in it,  I also had one of the emotionally hardest years in my life.

One word:  earthquakes.   We’d thought we’d been through the worst in September and December 2010.  But then Christchurch got slammed in February 2011, causing much destruction and loss of life.   Then a few months of quiet and another round of good rolls came in June.  I found myself trying to put on a brave face but underlying my exterior I was anxious and wondering how much more I could take.   I wasn’t the only one – the backlog for counselor appointments was months-long.   So I started taking my ‘earthquake remedy’ formula, a type of Bach flower essence here in New Zealand.  I think it helped.     I stayed strong and things started to feel like they were getting back to ‘normal’ as we came into spring – industry was picking up, people seemed a bit happier, and then, WHAM, we got hit with another frightening round on December 23^rd which put a damper on a few people’s holidays but not mine as I was determined to enjoy Christmas and New Years!  But since then, they seem to be coming fairly frequently though less volatile.   I guess this is my new ‘normal’.

2011 was also the year for visitors by friends and family.   We had three months of house guests (Friends Darek, Andrew, Pam, and the Scanlon parents came) on top of our two months abroad and Bruce’s further two months to London and California all added up to about six months of not focusing on our Wainui and personal projects.   It was great to spend so much time with family and friends but our travels abroad were a whirlwind and I was ready and glad to get back to New Zealand in November.

In between all the visitors, we kept plodding away with our Wainui renovations.  We finished up the outbuilding early in the year having added two new bedrooms and a full bathroom/laundry room area;  we built a retaining wall and second large woodshed;  we laid a new floor and finished up my bedroom; built a tree-house; and as many of you know from my last post,  we gutted and installed a new modern kitchen.    All throughout we had our builder friend Ollie living with us.    It was the second full year of renovation work with people constantly in my space and a few times I lost it as I just couldn’t take not having much of my own ‘quiet’ time.   I am a border-line introvert and my batteries get charged from alone time which I found lacking in abundance.

Because of the never-ending-someone-is-in-my-house-all-the-time grueling schedule, we only took three wwoofers last year and it showed.   And since we are an organic permaculture property, we don’t spray herbicides or pesticides to kill weeds and invasives and instead rely heavily on human people power to work the land – pulling weeds, cutting blackberry, digging garden beds, pruning trees, etc.   And we just didn’t have the human labour resource to tackle any of these areas.

When we returned from our two-month trip abroad in November, I nearly had a heart attack when I arrived in Wainui and saw how much everything had grown.  The spring rains were plentiful which meant the spring weeds were quite bountiful.  I kicked into overdrive mowing, weeding, planting and felt like I was losing the war against the very powerful and clever mother nature.

As we rolled into December, frantically trying to get the kitchen preparations ready on top of trying to maintain the grounds for two homes, I started to feel quite demoralized.  Hence our decision to hire some help.   And now that we’ve wrapped up the main renovations at Wainui, we are beginning to claim our lives back and get onto a schedule that is more suitable to us.   I’m excited to start hosting woofers,  I’m excited to head out and enjoy summer in New Zealand,  and I’m excited to think about possible travel plans abroad for 2012.

So see ya 2011.   Bring on 2012 and all that you have to offer!

When I last left off, we were busily prepping the kitchen for installation.

In early December, we got the floors all finished with a stain that blended well with the floors in the living room and dining room.

Ross Ambler from Ambler Joinery was on-site for two days working away with Ollie to install the cabinets.   There were a few hiccups but nothing that couldn’t be overcome easily.   The cabinets and sinks were finally in!

We were all blown away by the transformation of the kitchen.  It felt huge and it felt quite modern, a far cry from the old ‘bach-style’ kitchen that once was.

But no rest for the weary.   In the following week,  Bruce and Ollie installed all the kitchen cabinet handles,   installed the sink fixtures,  did the wiring for the undercounter lights, installed the range hood and vent, and cut some plywood as a temporary countertop since the granite countertops are not coming until the end of January.

It was no small feat to get all that done before the holidays set in.  The sink faucets proved to be a challenge as we kept purchasing the wrong parts which isn’t fun when the store is one hour away.

We also picked up our stained glass windows for the alcove and Ollie finally got them installed as well.

Then it was another week over the holidays to install all the shelving and wipe out all the cabinets and finally start putting things away!   Oh, my heart sings.  We have a gorgeous kitchen now, while not 100% complete, we’re about 90% there and it is totally operational and joyful to work in!

Here’s a try at some ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots:

Another massive (and perhaps the last) project to just about tick off the list!  Just the matter of getting countertops in, making the chopping block counter for the island,  painting the walls, figuring out a back splash, and finishing up the alcove.   All in good time!

You can see from the photos that we only had six small cupboards and the rest of the kitchen design was ‘open’, ie: we had stackable wooden shelves which served to hold all our pots, pans, dishes, cups, glasses and the like.      We’ve often had four to six people working in this kitchen and we always made it work.

But it was really time to make the kitchen the proper heart of our home.

And so when Bruce returned early from his overseas trip last July, I insisted that we make the push to get the kitchen done before the end of 2011.

Bruce met with an architect friend while in Los Angeles in May and Fro drew up initial plans which we really liked.    During July,  Bruce and I met with a joiner (cabinet maker) here in Christchurch and hired him to make the cabinets.  We selected our cabinet style (shaker style, light coloured macrocarpa) and granite for our countertops.

Bruce took Fro’s initial plans and fleshed out the details to come up with an L-shaped kitchen complete with double stacked upper cabinets.   We’re also having a center island made on castors and we’re extending the kitchen flow into the living room by having cabinets made next to the wood-burning cook-stove.    All up, I think we’re going to have a combination of 55 drawers and cupboards when it’s done.   Surely that should be enough for all our needs!  Considering we have no other cabinetry/closets in the rest of the house, we decided more is better.

In August we gutted the kitchen.  Ollie worked on taking out the hot water cylinder and Shacklock coal range which we never used.

Purple wired up new electrical boxes and Pete put in all the new plumbing.

Ollie worked on putting up a new partial wall and kept on gibbing.

It was a week of chaos as six of us lived in a house with what was now a sprawled out kitchen.  The stove and fridge remained in the demolition zone,  but the pantry and excess items got moved into the 3^rd bedroom and the kitchen work area shifted into the dining room.   The bathtub became the washing area.  So in essence, the entire rest of the house turned into a giant kitchen.   Truly a mess!

And then we left on our holiday for two months.

So now we’ve been back three weeks and the boys have been busily working away.  Bruce and Ollie finished putting up the gib.

Last week Ollie made huge progress in moving the kitchen window and opening the outside wall to build an alcove.   We decided to create a little extra space by putting in an alcove which will house all our ‘science’ projects:  jars and bottles in various states of sprouting, fermenting, drying, etc.   We’re adding in a few stained glass windows which should be visually lovely while also letting in a lot more light.    I purchased two six-foot long stained glass windows a few years ago on Trade Me for super cheap.  Some of the panes had cracked and these are getting repaired this week.  The woman at the shop said these were ‘mercedes’ windows and would cost about $1500 each to make now.  Go me!

This week has been sanding week:  the walls had to be sanded and primed and the kitchen floor had to be sanded, stained and left to cure for a week.

It’s a messy job and we did our best to seal off that part of the house so as to keep the dust out (and yes, that is Bruce wearing a vintage 1976 t-shirt which he still fits into!).

Oh the joys of living in a house that’s undergoing a massive renovation!

Cabinet Installation date -  December 13^th and 14^th.   Stay tuned!

We’re home a little over two weeks from our major trip abroad.   I’m thrilled to be home but things have been a bit of a blur as we have arrived in the full force of spring.    Both houses were/are overgrown with weeds and the grass in Wainui was standing proudly at a over a foot tall.

Both houses suffered from some internal issues as well.  Our Christchurch house fridge went on the blink in our absence and we arrived home to a very smelly house as the freezer had defrosted and had not been fully emptied by our neighbor who was keeping an eye on the place.   So it was a day of emptying and washing out the fridge and freezer as well as labouring ten hours to weed the yard.  Thankfully neighbor Kareen did keep up with the mowing so the property had some semblance of tidiness.

Out in Wainui, we encountered further problems.   Rats had gotten into the house and had a field day, running amok amongst our makeshift kitchen which currently sprawls out over several rooms while we’re in the midst of the kitchen renovation.   Rat poo and walnut shells and chewed bits everywhere which equated to several days of cleaning up and washing everything.  On top of that, the second fridge, which was empty and had gotten unplugged before we left, accidentally had it’s door shut for the last two months.  That meant mould and lots of it.  So another day of scrubbing out another fridge.  Pretty gross.

The veggie gardens were all but non-existent.   All the seedlings I had planted prior to the trip had been munched by sheep.   From the amount of poo on the grounds, I suspect the rogue sheep had a very nice holiday at our place, traversing the upper, side, and lower gardens at their leisure.

Bruce got on the mower and spent a few hours getting most of the grounds under control, but two weeks later and I’m still trying to get all the hand-mowing completed.  All the finishing work around the uneven terrain where the sit upon mower can’t go is usually finished by moi.     Mowing and weeding is about all I’ve done.

I’ve weeded about half of the veggie beds and did uncover a few edibles.  We’ve got heaps of parsley, leeks, broad beans, some salad greens, a few peas, some silverbeet, fennel, rhubarb, edible flowers, and some very old celery standing about 3 feet tall which has been processed into delicious soup.     Here’s a photo of the chaos of the lower veggie garden.  I’ve weeded out a couple of beds.  In this garden is thriving rhubarb, broad beans, leeks;  a few fruit trees,  and new seedlings which I just planted out.

The garlic bed is doing well and the pear, peach, apple, and quince trees are all forming fruit.  So things aren’t so bad.    Here’s photos of the 20 three-year old asparagus crowns we have, the broad bean patch, and the garlic patch:

On the plus side,  Nina was thrilled to see us (and vice versa) and is up to her usual antics – whinging in the car and wanting to snuggle under the covers.   She lost a bit of weight (unlike us) and seems to be much better socialized (like us!).

The weather has been pretty awesome.  Here’s a shot from the front lawn with a cruise ship in the harbour.   Apparently we’re due for 90 cruise ships this summer season, almost one a day.  That’ll be great for Akaroa township.

And the kitchen… well, it’s all a go.    More in the next post….

It’s good to be home!

As I sit here in Sydney airport on my six hour layover to San Francisco, I finally have a chance to sit and breathe and contemplate the last few months of life.

When I last left off, Bruce had returned on July 1st from his journey abroad, right in time for the depths of New Zealand winter. On the whole, we had it easy this year – most days were sunny, warmish, and crisp, but the nights were cold and frosty. This gave us a good chance to test out our log burner/wetback/radiator heating system which we spent the better part of 2010 getting installed. It is a big improvement over what we had, though without wall insulation in the house, the rooms can still be quite cold. When the fire is humming and we get the water hot enough to run the radiators, the house warms up quite nicely. But the frigid mornings tempt one to stay under the covers for as long as possible. The heating system needs some improvements and we’ve been troubleshooting the best we can. One item on the list to procure from the US is a moisture meter so that we can adequately gauge the dryness of the wood in our woodshed. Wood matters! And this is a learning curve which we are on – macrocarpa, radiata pine, blue gum; large, medium, small. There’s a myriad of combinations and we are trying to figure out the optimal mix to give us optimal warmth.

The sunny dry days allowed us to continue employing Ollie to help us along with our renovation projects. The retaining wall that he and Darek worked on in May is now finished and ready for next summer’s excavation work. And Ollie built us a second wood storage shed. Bigger and badder than ever, it puts the existing one to shame. We now have a four-bay wood storage area which will allow us to cut, store, and process wood on a two year rotation. We also built the new woodshed with an upper storage area to house various bits of timber that we have lying around for future projects.

And, and, and, my bedroom has been finished! Finally, after five-plus years of living in New Zealand, we were able to unwrap and put together our beautiful Indonesian hardwood bed frame which has been in storage since we left San Francisco. We finally are living in a house with a room big enough for a king size bed and frame. I’m thrilled. There’s still a bit of decorating to do, but for all intents and purposes, my somniferous quarters are complete and ready for occupation!

Bruce’s early return prompted me to hop on the kitchen renovation bandwagon, urging us to use the winter months to design, plan, select, and prep for a new kitchen. We’ve found a joiner (woodworker) in Christchurch who came highly recommended to us and have been working with him to create our kitchen. After many hours of meetings, we’ve just this week finalized the design and while we’re away, he’ll be building the cabinetry. We are shooting for an installation date of mid-December.

Regarding design, this has been quite an arduous and time-consuming process. While Bruce was in Los Angeles last May/June, he met with an architect friend who we employed to draft up a first pass at the kitchen. We liked it and that prompted us to forge ahead. The Christchurch joiner spent four hours in Wainui in July doing the next phase of design (hand drawn), and since then, Bruce has spent countless hours doing up a 3-d design so that we can get a proper visual on the layout. Here’s what we’re shooting for (the first one is the architect rendered drawing; the others are Bruces)

The cabinetry doors will be made of macrocarpa and be of shaker design. We’re going to have two separate sink stations with stainless steel counters and then the main bench between the two sinks will be granite. We will also have an island built on castors so that we can move it around. It’s gonna be nice!

Meanwhile, to prep for our new kitchen, we had Pete, Purple, and Ollie over for a week to demolish the kitchen, but in new plumbing for the sinks, put in new electrical plugs, and gib up (sheetrock) the walls. The old Shacklock coal range and water cylinder got pulled out and hopefully we can sell those for a bit of income.

We have had time for other things besides work! Purple built us a platform in one of our big macrocarpa trees. We now have an authentic treehouse complete with sleeping platform for those who want a ‘bush’ experience. It also serves as a great place to do afternoon yoga!

Purple also worked on grooming up the macro-cuppa, our alive sitting in tree which can easily fit 3 or 4 folks and a dog!

Friend Kat stayed with us for a few weeks and she and I embarked on a daily yoga practice working through my stack of instructional yoga DVDs. Here we are in the living room practicing our wheel pose:

And I continued to work on my weaving. I’ve made heaps of scarves this winter for most of our friends.

And although the sun shined through most of the winter, we got blasted twice with an artic freeze, dumping eight-to-ten inches of snow each time and paralyzing the south island for a few days. Nina had a blast exploring snow for the first time and snowmen (and women) were showing up all over Christchurch! I enjoy the snow but am thankful it only lasts for a few days!

On the earthquake front, things have been relatively quiet for a month making me feel like life’s moved a standard deviation back towards normal. But there were a few M-4’s in the last week which dispelled my hoped-for-doneness-theory. Money seems to be finally making its way through the bureaucracy and a number of folks we know are now starting to get their homes fixed.

And now, in New Zealand, we are officially in to spring. And Bruce and I are away for most of it, heading to the northern hemisphere for weddings, friends, family, and hopefully a whole lot of fun too. We’ll be hitting Kauai, San Francisco, New York, and London over the next nine weeks

Little Nina has gone off to doggy Disneyland, aka, the boarding kennel, where I hope she’ll have lots of fun with her four-legged brethren! I’m gonna miss my little girl!

Bon voyage!

Life is good,

been living in the wood,

Just me and the dog,

and sometimes a hedgehog,

Been painting my room,

not thinking about doom,

The quakes still rattle and roll,

but can’t disturb my soul.

For life is bliss,

it’s a state of mind,

I love Wainui,

It’s quite a find.

But it’s even better,

when it’s shared with others,

and so we welcomed home today

Bruce!

A few more weeks have passed since the last blogpost and I’m happy to report that life is kinda sorta almost just about slowing down to a reasonable pace now that all houseguests, builders, and friends have gone.

Dareks’ last week-plus was a jam packed one. We managed to scoot into Christchurch to spend an afternoon horseback riding with my pals Tobi, Alex, Dennis, and Colette. The majority of us had not been on a horse for decades, but hey, it’s as easy as riding a bicycle (so they say) and we all enjoyed a beautiful autumn day out in the Canterbury Foothills. I highly recommend these folks for your horseback riding fun.

Back in Wainui, Ollie, Pete, and Kat joined us for the week. Ollie and Darek spent two days trenching and cementing in posts for a retaining wall we’ll be building in the garden area. Hard yakka to wheelbarrow gravel and cement on sloped terrain!

Darek and I harvested our first ever olive crop off of one tree! The tree produced 16 cups of olives, probably a year’s worth for us. These are tiny wee things and we won’t know for six months whether they are edible or not. To process olives, you must soak them for ten to fourteen days in water, then jar them in a salt-vinegar-water solution. I jarred them all up and hopefully we’ll be eating Birdsong olives at Christmas!

Pete worked on installing  lights in the outbuilding bathroom and now that room is about 99% complete with just a few minor things to finish.  So here’s the new utility room complete with laundry/sink, toilet, and the creme de la creme — Ollie’s most amazing mosaic shower!

Ollie and I worked on my new bedroom – staining the floor, painting the ceiling and painting the walls. Hmmm, I’m so close to being able to move into my new bedroom! (the pictures don’t do it justice — it’s hard to see the new minty green wall colour!)

And Darek and I worked on more mulching and chipping which unfortunately ended up with Darek sustaining a pretty sizeable cut on his finger when the cutting blade jammed.  While trying to unjam the chipper (the machine was off), he caught his finger on the blade.  OW!  We sped off to the Akaroa clinic where they taped his finger together – ‘she’ll be right mate!’   I was sorry to have this be Darek’s last memory of Wainui; hopefully he’ll still want to come back some day.

Back to Christchurch for his last few days, one of which encompassed celebrating friend Alex’s 67^th birthday, complete with conga line dancing and planking  (old geysers know how to have fun too!).

And last but not least, we had the pleasure of seeing the Dalai Lama when he came to offer an earthquake prayer service.   Attended by several thousand, we arrived early and had amazing seats for his two hour service and talk.   I saw the Dalai Lama about ten years ago in San Francisco and my memory of him was one displaying compassion and humour.   He’s still the same guy.   His message was for each of us to find inner strength in these difficult times and to try and rebuild Christchurch with love and compassion.   And when having a hard time, to put things in the greater global perspective.   The world is full of suffering and tragedy, and you can sink down into despair, or you can swim, and rise above it – grow, open your heart, find compassion and gratitude and move forward.   While he didn’t use those words per se, that’s my take on the message he was trying to convey.

I stayed in Christchurch at our Hoon Hay house for about a week after Darek left doing various chores and projects around the house – hanging up photos, fixing things, and just trying to make the place a bit more like a home.  We’ve been there nine months and there were still boxes to unpack and things to put away.

So now it’s time for me to go into hibernation mode with the days so short and the temperatures so cold.  Nina and I have gone on lots of great walks.   But my ‘retreat’ time has not been so relaxing as there’s been two big rounds of earthquakes in the last week, both of them sizeable and causing further widespread damage across Christchurch, especially in the eastern suburbs and the central business district (which is still cordoned off).  I wept tears of sadness for those who sustained further damage to their homes.  Much liquefaction has poured up through the earth yet again.  The Farmy Army and Student Volunteer Army have come out in droves to help people shovel silt.   Water mains have burst and roads have opened up.    It’s a mess in certain areas.

The first set of quakes measured M6.3 and M5.5 with a whole host of little ones immediately following.  Those happened on a Monday afternoon and ground the city to a halt as all commercial buildings had to be re-inspected again.   About a week later, another round hit at night, measuring M5.4 and M4.7, followed by about ten shallow aftershocks in the next twelve hours.

These things take their toll and one could feel the collective sigh and despair of the city in the days following.   People, including myself, are exhausted from the continual adrenaline spiking that happens in our bodies.   Yet our yoga teacher reminded us that most of us are actually doing okay and have developed strengths over the last nine months – strengths that we may never thought we had.   It was heartening to hear what each of us chose to say about ourselves – I chose patience and acceptance as mine.

The idea has not been lost on me that perhaps we are not meant to be here for the long term.   Several family and friends suggested we leave.   I spent a number of nights researching earthquake behavioral patterns and had a very good chat with a seismologist friend.   All which got me to the point of acceptance and strength to know I’m committed to my life here for the long haul.    Death and rebirth – it’s a fact of life and part of the human cycle.  Yes, I am afraid at times.  But you can’t run from your life.   And when I take a step back and look at the bigger picture, I know that these times will pass and that Christchurch will rise and rebuild and be a far better community and city than it already is.   It will just take some time.    Patience and acceptance.

And now I am in Wainui for my last week without Bruce.   I’m painting and gardening and weaving and resting.   Having the retreat that I so desperately need.   The rebirthing cycle has already begun as witnessed by our beautiful daffodils which are in full bloom already.   Life is still good!

Firstly, the cows are gone and have not been seen since I last saw them jump over the fence and run down the road.  YAY!

Secondly, Darek arrived and has been here for three weeks.   He’s been a super star – he fixed the horn on the 4×4 and has taken over as lead chef here at Birdsong.   We’ve enjoyed a handful of days in Christchurch going out for meals, meeting up with friends, and attending the circus, but mostly we’ve been in Wainui, working, eating, and socializing.

Friend Paulo arrived shortly after Darek to spend two weeks with us.  We met Paolo at Kiwiburn and he spent three weeks with us in March and now another two before he returns to the States.

The guys did a great job doing ‘manly’ things for me –  pruning hedges and cutting down and processing trees (as we’re preparing for a big digger project this spring).  The tree cutting produced a 6’ high x 12’ long mound of tree debris which the three of us spent a full day putting through our brand new shiny wood chipper (a Hansa C6).   We now have enough wood chips to mulch the entire property!

We also spent time landscaping the pergolas/archways that Paulo built for us in the lower paddock.   We dug up the grass, lay down cardboard and weed mat, and threw a 5” layer of chips on top;  planted spring bulbs, and Paulo & I collected several buckets of large rocks from the beach to use to line the path.

Paulo also spent some time turning the telephone pole which sits unsightly in the lower paddock into an artistic ‘totem’ pole which now blends into the landscape a bit more nicely.

Ollie came back last week and so the three of us turned to four.  Ollie’s been working on getting my new bedroom together – sanding and staining the new floor that he & Bruce installed last month and prepping the room for painting as well as finishing up other small tasks around the house.

So, it’s been me and the boys and Nina too.   With Paulo and Darek here, we’ve stepped up the culinary cuisine and they have made some of the best meals we’ve ever had at Birdsong.  We’ve collected fresh seaweed from the beach for seaweed salad;  picked up a fresh whole salmon at the pier which Darek processed and we dined on ceviche, salmon miso soup, lox, and salmon pizzas;  we’ve done roasts on the fire; and had two Mexican-themed nights with chicken enchiladas and burritos with all the fixins.    YUM!

We also held our first full moon party (just the four of us) and spent the evening sitting outside around Paolo’s tree stump candle which he made by taking an old 2’ tall tree stump and chainsawing decorative lines through it which then burned beautifully over several hours.

On the Bruce front, well, I’ve got another announcement to make:  Bruce is coming back to New Zealand!    Yes, plans have changed.    I’ve talked with Bruce many times over the last three weeks.   He had an absolutely amazing experience at Jill Purce’s workshop in the UK.  So much so, that he’s going back to do another workshop over the June solstice.     And so much so, that he’s had a change of heart regarding the temple project and feels he needs to be back here in New Zealand.   I don’t want to speak for him, so you’ll just have to ask him ‘why’ and stay tuned for his blogpost of an account of his journey.    So,  Bruce will be back home in New Zealand on July 1^st in time to hunker down with me for the New Zealand winter.  And then we will still venture to the States in September to attend a wedding and see friends and family but probably not now going to Burning Man.

Life is so interesting!

PS:  Thanks Kat for fixing the blog!

PSS:   Three more mice dead!