From bare land to a place to call home

We had a very busy weekend on the land digging holes, riding horses and bikes and dealing with a leaking pipe. Bryce and I dug a couple of very deep holes and put in a hitching rail at the wash down area, there is a very nice layer of  topsoil here which is fantastic for drainage and for digging holes, but as I found out putting in the Willow trees, when you get to the clay layer it’s really hard work!

So there has always been a very spongy spot on one section of the paddock, we thought we had a leak in a pipe somewhere, so I dug a hole and eventually located a plastic hose in the layer of clay, I suspect it was put that deep to avoid plough blades, it comes out near the trough and is connected to a pump that turns on every four hours or so.
We expanded the hole until we located the leak in the pipe and then that’s when
the fun began, where the pipe comes out of the ground it’s 25mm and we had some
25mm joiners so we went ahead and cut the pipe only to find that at that spot, it was not 25mm! Crap! So now we have a cut water pipe, no way to join it and who knows when the pump is going to turn back on.
Bryce has a mate who has a shed full of joiners and pipes so he gets in the car and races off to get some, meanwhile I am going to stay there and supervise things…then the water comes on!
What can you do but pose for pictures!
Eventually thanks to Bryce we got it joined up again, left it exposed for a couple of days and it seems to have stopped leaking so it’s now buried again.

Look before you leap, taste before you add more salt, measure before you cut,
Simple rules, must remember them……

Ben and I have been busy staining the top rail of the fences, we are using a mixture of old engine oil and diesel, it looks quite good but the main reason is to stop the horses wood chewing, apparantly they don’t like the taste of oil and the bonus is that it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than fence stain.

The shed is all done and we are really happy with it, as sheds go it’s a pretty good one, the float fits and it only took me three attempts to get it parked inside,  but I was being careful as I do not want to be the one to put the first dent in it (the shed that is).

Another thing we wanted to do is get a harrow, these range in price from between $700 to $1200 dollars, I have seen posts on forums that say you should not use them, but all the people we have talked to say they are really good for the paddocks, so anyway a friend of ours who is a bit more handy than I made one for us! it’s really just two big pieces of wood on some chicken wire and weighted down with five old tires, a chain is bolted to two of the tires at the front for towing and it works really well

There have been a few exciting developments in the world this week, James Cameron wants to mine asteroids,  Peace in Syria could be just around the corner…we just don’t want to poke our heads around that corner in case it gets blown off! and our shed is nearly finished, we are getting the roller door put on today so it will be lockable and watertight. Now to fill it up with junk that our kids will throw away when we die!

Busy day today, brought three Willow trees and a new trough, the Willows were quite large but luckily the car has a sun roof and we were able to get them where we needed to,  Yes we got some looks going through town with three Willow trees sticking out of the car but I tried to stare straight ahead and look staunch.

As you can see the skeleton of the shed is up, it was a windy day out there today so there were lots of things banging into each other in the wind, I am pretty sure everything will be tightend when it’s finished. But at the moment it’s a giant wind chime!

Got the Willows planted,  one in each planter box and one down by the pond which will be Caitlin’s “laxing” spot. Good to get them into the ground but it was hard work! the topsoil is nice and soft but at about 30cm down it’s like concrete.

The last photo shows the Mia the three legged Poodle and Marj enjoying a warm Autum day.

What do you do when you have a big expanse of freshly dried concrete? you spray paint your name on it… Well that was Ben’s idea anyway, I don’t know where he gets this delinquent streak from,  I was such a good boy..   anyway as you can see the pad has been poured for the shed, work is due to start on the actual walls etc just after Easter, we were getting all excited about having a shed party but then realised we would need to get porta loos in…not so excited now.

We are now looking at it and wondering if we will be able to back the float into it as it looks so small, this is normal apparently and our perspective will change again once the walls go up, I hope it does because it looks bloody small!

The fencing is all finished, now we are just waiting until we get the shed up so will we have a roof that we can harvest water from…our plan is to put a 25000 litre tank at the shed to feed all of the paddocks and also to supply water to a hose at the wash down area.

The shed  has now been started, the boxing is in for the foundations and the pad, you can also see the wash down area at the end of the shed by the builders box, that’s where the water tank and hose are going to be.

I am really keen to see the shed finished because then we can store a quad bike in there, having a quad bike means we can get a chain harrow…having a harrow means I don’t have to pick up sodding horse shit anymore! and that is a really nice idea!

The fencer has been really busy and has completed the diet paddock and most of the outside fence, he is also working on the middle fence line and the planter boxes.

It all looks great on paper when you plan it, and then when you walk the land to measure it it’s ok too, but then when it actually goes up,  it seems to be bigger than you thought!

We will be putting some electric fencing down the middle of the two main paddocks so effectively we will have 4 paddocks plus the diet paddock which is at the top left of the picture.

We went for half round posts two metres apart,  two wires and a 150mm board on top to create a visual line for the horses. All up around 290 metres of fences including the two planter boxes and four gates worked out to around $27.50 a metre.

So we have two tenants on the land now, but they don’t pay rent and they expect us to provide them with food, water and shelter, a bit like kids really but at least we are allowed to surround them with an electric fence to keep them contained, unlike kids.

This is Allie and Marj

This is Allie, Showname Allegretto, 12 year old pony.

Marj, Show name Leapfrog, 22 year old Irish Hunter

The trench for the power and phone

After weeks of waiting we have some activity, the electricians have been out and the power and phone cables have been laid, it’s about 250 metres from the road so it’s 3 phase power and the usual 4 strand for the phone, we have taken it to the site of the shed and we will now start the process of getting power organised.

The fencer has also started which is great news! we are getting  three paddocks done at this stage,  an 80 metre by 80 metre square will be cut in half by another fence, this internal fence will have  two tree boxes in which we will plant willows to provide some shade, apparently  they grow up to 2.5 metres per year so it won’t be too long before they start to become a feature.  The other paddock is about 20 metres by 30 and this will be the “diet” paddock, this will be the paddock most despised by the horses, because  here, the grass will be kept short…for their own good.

The fence corners

Here’s a rule for you, GET THREE QUOTES! even if someone is recommended to you as as a mate, or a brother in law, or an excellent supplier or tradesperson or whatever, get at least three quotes! The variations in price are sometimes astonishing!

We have gone and bought 10 acres of bare land, well not quite bare, it has a gravel track on it which leads to the future building site at the back of the property, it also has a trough, which is not hooked up,  because when they built the track they cut the water pipe.

How much is 10 acres? just over 4 hectares or about the size of 5 rugby fields if you can’t picture it.

This is an image of the land, the entrance is on the left hand side, it slopes down quickly to the creek bed and then goes up again  and is flat by the time it gets to the trough, this flat area is about where the house and shed will go.

Why do we want it? it’s not hard to explain really, the chance to live in the peace and quiet of the country with pigs, chickens, horses, perhaps a donkey dotting the landscape. We already have two horses and have always had them on grazing, but a couple of years ago we visited friends on a farm in the Naki and took one of our horses, getting up in the morning and seeing her over the fence was something special. So we have been keeping our eyes open for some land and now we have it, no doubt we will make some silly mistakes and spend money and time on things we don’t need to, but we are going to enjoy ourselves.