It's just that I haven't been feeling very self sufficientish since we moved last September!We were quite happy and settled at our old place but things invariably come along when you least expect it and suddenly your moving. A bit like our decision to come out to NZ to live. You have to take a chance every so often.
OH had a change of job in April of last year, but he kept getting calls from people he'd dealt with in his old job wanting him to still do work for them. He really enjoys it where he is now and had no intentions of going back to his old job. But these calls kept coming his way. He saw an opportunity for a new business and set one up, but he needed a workshop, we would need to build one.
I always fancied doing home/farm stays, B&B etc, but we never had the space. Another thing we would have liked if we'd had any spare cash would have been to buy an investment property and rent it out, but no money, well not enough anyway.
Anyway one day a woman I worked with said I have a couple of old baths full of bark, do you want it for the garden? ah yep said I. So off we went one Sunday morning with the trailer to pick it up. She had lost her husband 2 years previously and I knew that she had been trying to finish off a whole heap of unfinished projects in order to sell. As we pulled up at the end of the long drive we looked at each other and said "We want it!'
Here's the house
It's a two storey house but downstairs is a fully self contained 3 bedroomed flat, so there is an opportunity to do homestays!
It has a triple garage and behind that is a huge workshop, perfect for OHs new business venture.
Then to really clinch it there is a 2nd property, a 3 bed house!! Well there was the rental opportunity.
We couldn't believe all the things we wanted were altogether on one block!
So Our house was auctioned, sold and we moved. we had an 8 week delay between sales but that meant the grass could recover her before we moved animals over. Not as bad as we thought it would be, it was easier than all the 'useful items' (crap!) we had accumulated in just 3 years.
The new property is fairly well set up to be fairly self sufficient although they did pose us a few problems, oh aren't DIYers great!
Our water is collected into from the roof, one tank fills from the house, garage & workshop roofs, the other tank collects from the barn. The water is gravity fed into the house from the tank up by the barn. However taking a shower was a pain as the water just trickled out, not good when you're filthy dirty and sweating like a pig! So the OH installed a low pressure pump. But it wasn't low pressure enough when a plumbing joint popped and flooded downstairs! Bugga! We got that sorted however no real damage done. We can switch off the pump anytime and still be gravity fed so should we have a power cut we can still get water into the house.
There were no troughs in any of the paddocks so we installed some, using some new pipe in places and re-using some old! BIG mistake, those old pipes leaked and we lost a whole tank of water! So the old pipe was disconnected and new pipe dug in! It didn't help that after losing all that water that we had hardly any rainfall and had to bring water in! So much for self sufficency! lol The troughs are also gravity fed, no need for a pump.
Still on the water subject, our water is heated by a furnace and we have our own supply of firewood so it cost nothing for heating water here. We need to light it twice a week, more if we have visitors.
There is an old water wheel which needs to be installed and it used to pump water into a water tank that fed some old troughs. So we will reinstall that at some point.
We heat our house with a log burner, again with own own wood. We may change that at some time and replace with a wetback so that we can maybe run a couple of radiators off in the winter.
We still rely on electricity and phones however, but the previous own did have a wind turbine installed once and the pole is still there, so maybe we will look into that at some point as well as installing solar panels.
No veggies gardens as yet, job number 233 on the list! When we do start we shall be trying out Mel Bartholomews square foot gardening techniques. So when we buy our veg etc we support our local businesses and farmers market, and try to be as Locavorish as possible.
We still have our stock so produce our own meat and eggs etc. We do have some great fruit trees here and our apples are just ripening now and we had a heap of plums too, until the birds got them and the possums but a .22 slug gun got them!
There is heaps to do here, we realise it's likely to be a 10 year project, I've had to look at one job at a time as just a few weeks ago it all became a bit too much, the OH was working 6 days a week and the temperatures had gone into the 30degC and not a jot was being done. We got very fed up about it all.
We'll get there, some jobs we've had to get tradesmen to do such as some of the fencing & repairs and repainting the roof, but thats just how it is sometimes. Thats one job finished at least!
The house needs repainting outside and he deck is becoming unsafe. Lots of fencing still to do, some of the lawn needs to not be lawn, it takes too long to mow even with a ride on! There are borders that are overgrown, areas that need to be planted, a stream that needs clearing and banks that need planting.....the list is endless actually.
So if you know of anyone wanting a working holiday in NZ for free bed and food, just let me know!!
But when you look at this you think it'll be worth it in the end
What a place! Wish it was a bit nearer, and I'd be there in a flash!
