Am constantly amazed at the timing of natures clocks over here.
Everything obeys nature's alarm and either awakens to fly in...to fatten up, to fly out, plants to grow, leaves to turn golden or temperatures to suddenly change overnight.
Everything marches to the call of nature, all in unison and by the clock timing.
It is a very regimented and precisely timed operation, like an army in training.
Really amazing to witness.
I notice it daily, especially around my jogging track...and keep shaking my head in wonderment at the call of and to life embedded within the plants, seeds and wildlife.
I wonder what happened to our on-off switch to hear the call too?
Anyways, another busy week...a different 2 man team of guys turned up to complete the second stage of the Honeymoon Cottage renos.
They leveled off the tops of the walls, put in the door lintels, got the height right and set up the framework for the concrete pour at a later date. That took 3 days for 2 guys on 10 hour working days.
Then a trip to hospital on Thursday for both his kids for tonsillectomies, (I think) and he won't be back for a week or so now!
The concrete up there will act as massive beam around the building, to secure the floor for the mezzanine over half of the ground floor space and to support the roof beams when they go up.
Thankfully the weather has been lovely and you can actually work outside a few days this week.
Imre got some of the goop and mesh applied to the exterior walls around the side/front of the house and next week, he can finish both the street front and the verandah front trims, before painting it.
I'm on a half acre corner block, so I have two street frontages to make look pretty!
Had a bad accident last week too! I put up a small wall to stop bear sneaking in...( he sneaks in through the screen things they have dangling down here, acting as screen doors and sneaks out with my slippers or toilet paper, sox and so on!)
Anyhow, I went out to feed him the other evening and came back in and forgot about the foot high, rough edged board across the bottom of the doorway.
Head first, best belly flop ever, onto the floor I went, container of remaining cooked dog food splattered everywhere in the entry, with me in the middle of it all!
I received a bunch of bruised ribs, big bruise on my thumb, from where I had my thumb through the handle of the food container, a massive bruise on my under elbow, nearly took the top off my second toe on left foot and a ghastly laceration to my lower shin...same leg as the bricks all fell on a few weeks ago.
Then to top all of that off...I broke out in cold sores on my top lip!
So, with my body telling me I had not eased up enough, as I was becoming careless and run down, I thought I should look at my Louise Hayes, "Heal Yourself" book again to see what was going on.
Once I'd sat upright on the floor for about 30 mins, to recover from the shock. I was able to sort out the mess and tend my leg and assess the physical damage.
Taking advice from the warnings my body was issuing, I spent most of this week, laying on my bed, with my leg elevated, keeping an eye on the guys every now and then and watching Downton Abbey again!
The big laceration is healing well by leaving it alone and the bruising is subsiding, but my elbow is still very sore on the bone part that sticks out.
Apart from that, all is good here!
Still plenty of plums, tomatoes and the big load of peaches will be ready in a few weeks time, then the summer food splurge will be over for another amazing year.
Autumn will be here in a week, then winter close behind. So fast this year, the time has flown!
 |
| Can't wait to find snow in my yard again! This was taken over at a neighbour's house in 2015... |
 |
| It's getting better, it wasn't deep, just big and very painful, right on the shinbone...took this pic a few days after my epic belly flop into the entry! The shin bone is a tender spot at the best of times! Lucky it was on the weekend and as I take one day off to rest from jogging each week, I have been able to keep going. The injury is just above the gym boot line, so it is OK when jogging. Today, Sunday, a week later, it is healing from the edges inwards, and is half this size now...Still puffy and bruised, but gradually getting better. |
 |
| OK...now the expert fixes up the build to go to the next level up. |
 |
| Up we go...lintels in and all is good... |
 |
| Getting the form work in place to pour the cement beams around the first floor level....Hahaha, note the angle on the remaining front white wall where the old door frame was! 3 inches out from top to bottom... |
 |
| All done and ready for the big concrete pour...one day next week now, due to operations on his 2 kids this week... |
 |
| Stuff everywhere inside...like a duck gliding serenely along on the water...everything looks tidy on the outside, but...hahaha... |
 |
| Looking through the dining room window space... |
 |
| Meanwhile Imre gets to work on the side front...I have 2 fronts...a smaller front front and a long side front! |
 |
| He went great guns until the heat caught up again on Wednesday...So he cut the support braces into the body of the walls and tightened the bolts and hid them under the new covering! |
 |
| In the afternoon shade he came around and started on the trims at the front. I thought he was going to paint them before placing them, but he didn't... |
 |
| The lovely neighbours collecting all the fallen plums to make Palinka...They gathered 2 big buckets full today...The dirt area is from crushing up the cast off mud bricks...nearly all done now, just a few left in the middle of the big dump area, towards the other side of the paddock. |
 |
| The second overflowing and squashed down bucket of plums for the morning...Am wondering how the palinka will turn out! |
 |
| The peaches will be ready soon...then that's the last of it for another year! Will get Margit to teach me how to bottle them as there is not an inch of space left in the freezer! |
Amazing, but am gradually learning how to get things done here in summer. It's a bit of all or nothing, I'm learning!
Have almost got all the preserving done I wanted, even a big bucket of freshly pulled raw beetroot a neighbour gave me last night, has been cooked, cleaned and cut up and put in jars with vinegar etc. Only the peaches to do in a few weeks after the elderberries to pick tonight and make into jam or jelly.
Next week I'll begin pulling out half the tomato plants along the length of the garden area, leaving me a supply of fresh ones for another month or more yet. There are just too many and I hate seeing them go to waste.
Then the weather settles down and things grow cooler very quickly...
I see all the shops advertising wood heaters for Winter already. Every month with an "R" in it, you need a heater on, they say over here!
The reason is to get the heaters going on low heat to keep the house warm at 23-24C all winter, so it isn't as hard to heat it when it's very cold. Saves wood I'm told.
Anyways, see you all next week,
Cheers and I hope you are all well and enjoying the lovely weather over there too.
Love to all,
Mary
xxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment