Spring... it feels like it's been a long time coming

Finally the rain has stopped a bit. Well, it did rain yesterday, but we've had a few lovely days. It's given me a chance to do a lot in the garden, which has been totally wonderful ( if a little stiff making of the old body!)
So after a bit of hard work, it was nice this morning to just have a meander around the garden, with the camera,  and look at the signs of spring appearing.
When it's sunny like it is now, this is one of my favourite times of year. I'm not a huge fan of winter up here. It seems very long, wet and damp. I actually wish it did get freezing cold with a bit of snow!

I'm much happier when I can see signs of new life appearing everywhere.

Plum blossom

 Cherry blossom - about to burst open

Clematis, almost in bloom

Bluebells springing up everywhere

 And one of my absolute favourites... the fresias are out. As I sit here typing I can smell them!

And it's not only flowers. The asparagus season is just starting in my veggie garden. There are 5 spears almost ready for eating. Something ate the top off the first one - it looked like it could have been a mouse?? So I've covered the others as they come through and it seems to be working a treat. I LOVE asparagus.

There's some spring greens, which I actually grew this for the chooks! The garlic is also doing well, as are the Alderman peas which have been growing all winter. Oh and the potatoes are coming up beautifully too.  Apart from that I didn't plant much in the veggie garden, because I knew I was going to have to buy in some top soil or something as the beds are looking a bit low. So really, I just wanted pretty much empty beds at this time of year so it was easy to fill them up. This is a job for tomorrow or Tuesday as I need Lloyd ( who is away on a writer's course this weekend) to drive the jeep with the trailer on the back - I can drive forward with a trailer, but have never mastered reverse! It should be fun!

Oh, and my egg sign? What a raging success that's been! The eggs have been selling like hot cakes, mostly to people from our wee village which is lovely, as they could become regular customers. Already quite a few have said they'll bring the box back to be refilled, which is great. I hope they all like them. I've also met some lovely people. One old chap came to meet all the chickens with me and gave them a pat. Another lady and I swapped lemon curd recipes. It's been so nice.

So, in 4 days my lovely girls have earned enough  money to pay for their feed for the whole of this month! I had to go down to the verge this morning and rub out the "For Sale" part and change it to "sorry all sold out, more tomorrow" It felt really good!  What I've also realised is that I have to keep back some eggs for ourselves and enough to put down at The Acorn, for guests. It's getting really booked up now which is amazing. It's shaping up to be it's busiest year, ever!

All in all a lovely time of year!

The Acorn

We feel rather like we're on holiday! We're so lucky to have The Acorn to stay in while the bathroom is being done. The builders have never done a house where there is only one bathroom before - if we'd not had the Acorn I have no idea what we'd have done - made do, I guess.

The dogs love it too. There is a post and rail fence all round the garden which means we can leave the door open and they can play till they are so tired.

Even Banana, one of our cats has come down to stay!

(then howled outside the bedroom window all night!)

This is The Acorn

Animal mayhem in the wee kitchen, poor Lloyd was trying to cook dinner.

Dogs, totally safe and sound, waiting for 'daddy' to come home.

There's no change in the bathroom, it's hard getting the timings for builders, water proofers, tilers and electricians! Tomorrow more is being done, then on Monday the tiler is coming so there may be something to see then...

Busy morning already.

I got up nice and early and headed down to get the Acorn all finished for mum coming, just had a big clean to do. Walking down our garden towards it I noticed that wee Lachie wasn't in his paddock with Candy, but in the garden! Oh oh. 

He's such a biddable wee chap that he followed me right down the drive, waited for me to open 2 lots of gates, trotted after me through another paddock and back to mum. I decided that I might as well let Aoife and Ruairidh back in now that Lachie is bigger and they all greeted eachother like long lost friends. Candy was licking Aoife and they're all being nice to Lachie. It's lovely to have all the Highlands back together.

So after that I started off to the Acorn again only to be stopped by all the boy ducks faffing around beside the bonfire! MMMmm I thought, perhaps the baby ducklings have hatched - they have! I think there are 8 or 9 but again it's difficult to tell. I could see about 6 unhatched eggs in the nest so she must have been sitting on a huge pile of them!

I headed back to the house and got them some food and water so she doesn't have to venture too far for a couple of days, then finally got to work on the Acorn!

It's looking lovely, even if I do say so myself.

Ah butter wouldn't melt!

Right off to get some tomato food and veggie stuff.

On the farm today

Well, the fence is coming on great guns. I love it! It's going to be so great. Mum these pics are for you! Now there won't be any gates to open to get down either. How good is that! And it's not electric ~ joy of joys.

It's rather nice seeing a huge tractor in the paddock too!

It's a bit fancier than ours!

And look! Lachie is growing so fast. We can pat him now a wee bit, he's still very shy though. Candy is such a sweet mum and now that she gets special feeding she rather likes us and lets us scratch her head.

We are seriously thinking about having to sell the steers and just have the highland cows. We are so so incredibly short of grass which is not a good thing at this time of year at all. It's very dry with no real rain forecast and all the wind dried the ground out even further. If the long range forecasts are to be believed we're in for another very dry summer. Anyway, Lloyd was chatting to a friend of ours this afternoon who was up getting some dental treatment done and mentioned that we were thinking we may have to sell the steers and she said - "we'll buy them, we're looking for more stock" what perfect timing! So it may all work out brilliantly.

Isn't he the cutest thing.

Op shop find!

I have a secret op shop that I go to about once a month ~ well it's not really an op shop as such ~ it just sells things made of fabric, clothes, sheets, etc.

This morning I found this...for...40c!

Result!

It's with great wee finds like this that I 'linen out' The Acorn cos I think it makes it look nice!

The Acorn

This is my mum and dads house.
As you may know, our house is called Darroch Cottage. Darroch means"Oak" or son of oak in gaelic. We have a gigantic oak tree in our garden, so the cottage is named after it. And where do oak trees come from? Acorns!
 I rent it out as a holiiday let when they're not here and I have lovely people coming at the end of the week, so this morning I've been down there making it all nice. Usually I put down fresh eggs and veggies for guests, but my chooks aren't laying just now - all either moulting or too young, and there's nothing really in the veggie garden. It's either finished or not ready yet so I won't have anything ☹. Except very hot chillis!

After it was all tidied up I thought I should take some new pics for the website where it's advertised as it's changed a bit since the old ones were put up.

Mostly it's the garden that's changed. This is it now...

... and this is when it was new.

It's amazing how much everything has grown. It used to be a grassy cow paddock.

I just love it. It's an old state house that arrived on the back of a lorry. It had been very loved, you could just tell by the feeling it had. I'm a strong believer in how things feel. L and I went to see it on a cold rainy winters day. It was in a yard, being held up on huge oil drums. We had to climb up a rickety old ladder to get in and I think both of us were wondering what on earth we were doing! But the second we stepped inside we just knew! It felt warm and like a home. So it moved 75 kms up the road to it's new place of rest. Where I think it's happy.

I spent a few weeks working on it to get it ready for my mum and dad coming over. I did all the decorating and inside work myself. The plumbing and electricity etc was done by professionals - I thought that best!

I often go down when there's nobody there and just sit in silence. It's nice.

The day The Acorn arrived! way back when. It's amazing that you forget the work that was done and how much it's changed! 

The Great House moving!

Well mum and dads house arived this morning at 4.45am! It was really exciting. We were woken up by orange flashing lights - it was much earlier than had been expected so we got dressed really fast and went out to watch. It was kind of weird watching it all by ourselves cos when the owens one came there was a huge crowd of us - but since everyone is away just now....( thank goodness Lloyd got the morning off)





The guys from Haines are amazing. We thought that the driveway was really tricky - they thought it was easy. They had it on site within an hour! I had made a wee mistake with the plans cos I didnt know that it had to be 30m from the boundry line so we had to move it forward about 15m - they werent bothered at all, even though the measurements had originally been taken from the old position. It actually turned out that the new bit was flatter than the original site so I made their job easier - but they didnt know this to begin with and they were still great!


Its 3pm now and they have done all the piles for the foundations and poured the concrete. They're just straightening the piles then they'll have to wait till tomorrow for the concrete to be dry before they lower it down. I can't wait!! The paint is already bought and I'm chomping at the bit to get in and redecorate!
There will definitely be some before and after pictures later.



How it looks from our house - we forgot that we would actually be able to see it!!!!












Update!! ( Wednesday 16th August)
I've done loads of work inside the house. Mostly painting, but some work to the wooden floors and stuff - Lloyd helped with the carpets. Here's some before and afters....

the Master Bedroom before
and after...



little bedroom before


Little bedroom after

kitchen beforeKitchen after


Living room beforeliving room after

I'm so pleased with it - once we get curtains and paintings up and more furniture it will look really lovely. I still have to finish off the toilet and do the kitchen floor - then I really am finished!
Just waiting for mum to come out in September so we can do the inside finishing touches. The electrician was round yesterday and all hat outside stuff ( septic tank, water and electricity) is all in hand and should be startinf soonish!)

30th August
The septic tank and the electricity are going in today. The digger man used to live on this farm when he as a boy! When it was all one big farm, he had some really interesting stories.


this is the tank coming off the lorry and about to be dropped into the newly dug hole.



















this is it going down into the hole - it looks smaller in the picture than it is in real life!













and finally the drainage ditches. All the pipework to the house is laid and the council have been to inspect it - so they can carry on now.
The digger man did another trench for Barry the electrician and he can share that trench with the plumber for all his stuff too. Everyone has been so amazing.

Its got its own fence round it now and the outside has all been painted. There is still a lot of tree planting to be done, the deck to go round the front and one side, the base boards and the french doors in the side too. Oh and new guttering!

18th November - update!
The guttering and deck are all done and the french door is in - The builder that did it was absolutely amazing! So if anyone is looking for a good builder... There was a lot of tidying up and painting to do after they were finished - but its looking so great! Mum and dad have decised that they would definitely like a verandah over just teh front for next year - so we're going to book Murry again - hes booked for 6 months so no hope of getting it on in time for this trip!