It'll be alright on the night.

I just don’t know how to tell you how fantastic I’m feeling today.  But before I go into that, my lovely husband is insisting I blog about my recent tantrum.  It’s kind of a confession.

Last week I blogged about being desensitized to all the bugs and animals that share this plot of land with us.  I really made it sound like I was doing ok.  Sadly, I was writing that post just before my hangover kicked in.  About an hour later, the nausea and headache started to mount while we were out on the farm building.  Things weren’t going well, every time I started a job something happened to stop me.  Ian tried to get me to finish painting the entrance and put me on a scaffold tower to do it.  Fear and alcohol excess reduced me to a quivering, sweating wreck clinging to the top of the scaffold as if I’d been tasked with crossing Niagara Falls on a wire.  Pathetic!  I was walking back up the drive to confess my failings to Ian when I stood on a snake.  In its bid to escape it slithered over my foot.  I had flip flops on.  We had physical, skin to skin contact.  That was it, the straw that broke the donkeys back.  I burst into tears and stormed off to the house and went to bed.  I barricaded the door to stop anyone coming in, but actually no one even noticed I was missing which made things worse.  So there I stayed for 3 hours, first sulking and then sleeping it off.  I sincerely hope this was a hangover induced episode and not the first cracks beginning to show.  Anyway, the entrance is finished now and looks pretty good.

It’s Monday morning as I write this post and Saturday was the big Housewarming party.  Ian took the week off work to finish jobs and prepare for the party.  But this is Ian so nothing is ever simple.  As well as finishing jobs, he decided to knock down the old but perfectly sufficient extension on the barn…on Thursday!!!  I nearly lost my mind and had to engage in some high drama protests of “don’t you know there are 100 people coming here in 2 days”, complete with over exaggerated hand gestures, foot stomping, eye rolling and hands on hips stance.  But amazingly he not only knocked it down but rebuilt another one.  I’m used to his skills as a carpenter and his ability to work at lightning speed, but even I was impressed with what he achieved.  Obviously not so impressed that I’m motivated to apologise for my eye rolling and other condescending behaviours.

Friday came and we shopped and worked until late, finally falling asleep about midnight.  I dreamt that someone had cancelled the party while we were sleeping and at 4am sat up in bed and shouted “Ian, get the band to come back”.  That was enough to wake us up completely and so we set to work again.  Good job we did because we only just got things ready on time.  Needless to say, things go wrong when you’re under pressure, not least the compost heap spontaneously combusting about an hour before the party.  I can now add ‘firefighting skills’ to my résumé.

Guests started to arrive at 4pm.  I was so happy with how the place looked; the hard work had really paid off.  Not only that, but the food looked awesome.  My friends Jenessa and Kirstin had supported me by bringing platters, salads and homemade marshmallows and our neighbours, Glorious Organics, had provided a wonderful salad with edible flowers.  Ian had doubled the size of our Texas BBQ which created quite the impression.  But most the most exciting thing was the live band setting up in the barn!

Glorious Organics Celebration Salad

The atmosphere was that of an English village fete.  The band was amazing.  They are local guys called The NewAtlas.  I’d left the set list up to them and they managed to please everyone here.  Check them out if you get the chance.  They are playing the local circuit and have a gig coming up in Vancouver soon as well as an album in the works.

The New Atlas

Later on as night approached we lit the place up.  We’d put fairy lights up and made lanterns from Mason jars.  My friend Monique had supplied tea lights from Party Lite and so to add to the effect, we had wonderful scents coming from the candles.  It truly felt magical.  And of course people naturally gravitated towards the Tiki hut and sat around the fire pit.  The Tiki hut was an absolute hit and worked superbly.  The smoke went out through the octagonal chimney that Ian built and the warmth of the fire was kept in.  Just take a moment to imagine it….it’s dark, we’re sitting around a fire, there’s candles twinkling in the trees and white fairy lights overhead and creamy marshmallows being passed around.  The music was playing, the drink was flowing and ‘Sweet Caroline’ was being massacred thanks to an impromptu sing along.  Neil Diamond may have been mortified if he’d been there, but I was as happy as I’ve ever been.

Plans are in progress for a music festival next summer!

Cast aside all your preconceptions of homesteaders and farming ye who enter here.  This is what country living is about.

BBQ made from 2 oil drums - total cost $80

Desserts...mmmmmmm

Setting up

Last minute barn extension 

Hell yeah!

Some revelers enjoying the band

Lining up at the BBQ

Inside the Tiki bar!

The (current) plan

Bigger, better and far more fun.

This is week has been incredibly busy but very rewarding.  Firstly, Chickingham Palace is finished and looking very retro.  After we got the structure and chicken run up and painted we had to go begging for some cladding for their double insulated house.  I sent my friend Kirstin, whose husband Bruce works for a roofing company, a begging text.  Now this is the one thing I find difficult, making ‘the ask’.  Asking people for anything makes me squirm, and so after typing the specifics of what we needed in the text, I ended it with “SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMER”.  It worked!  We have corrugated cladding on our chicken coop at no cost.  This will now be my default line whenever I need anything.  Surely this technique of playing on people’s emotions is classed as psychological warfare?

The next big project is well underway.  Obviously we have prioritized, sort of.  There are many things we need to do.  We need to build an animal shelter, the barn needs remedial work, there are shelves to be built and land to be tilled.  However, all these tasks have come second to Ian building what is essentially a grown-up swing set.  I showed Ian this picture from the Internet:

Now we have one, almost.  But this is Ian Finley; ours has to be bigger and better.  Ours is hexagonal and will have hammocks as well as swinging benches.  The fire pit will not be a commercial, purchased one but rather hand made from reclaimed rock.  It is filled with reclaimed gravel, built with reclaimed timbers and crafted with love and alcohol.  We will have more seating than friends.

Talking of friends, this week has been a time for valuing existing friends (again) and making new ones.  I went to meet the neighbours behind us.  We knew they had some sort of growing operation and spotted a sign saying that they were open to the public on Sundays, so in I went.  How absolutely wonderful their enterprise, Glorious Organics, is!  Not only was I welcomed enthusiastically by “oh, you’re the people with THE chicken coop” but I was introduced to their cooperative and given unusual fruits, veggies and flowers to sample.  I left with an Ikea bag full of organic yumminess for $20 and an inflated ego knowing that our chicken coop was a thing of legend.

This weekend was a holiday weekend and we received offers of help from our friends.  I found it amazing that people wanted to give up free time to come and help us.  On Sunday afternoon, three couples plus kids arrived at Farmagddon to paint and construct.  It felt sooooooo gooooooooooooood.  Not only was this saving us time and effort but people were willingly investing their time in this little project of ours.  My heart swelled to see our friends sweating in the hot sun and covered in paint, cuts, bruises and mosquito bites.  Thank you to Martin, Erica, Shenade, Kyle, Travis and Kyla.  In exchange for services rendered we lit Ian’s homemade Texas BBQ (an oil drum cut in half, put on a stand and filled with charcoal) and served up homemade Alpaca burgers (the Alpaca farm is just a couple of blocks away) with bread baked in the Otter Co-op and organic salad and edible flowers from the field right behind us.

I also want to talk about growing, the thing we came here to do believe it or not.  Occasionally, but not very often, I get to talk to Ian, you know, when I’m holding something he’s nailing together or we’re washing paint brushes together.  The topic of conversation recently has been what and where to grow.  We know we want an orchard at the back right section of the land.  This will be netted at the top to protect from birds and other fruit stealing critters.  The bee hives will be here too for effective pollination.  I’m going to plant wild flower seeds in the orchard to make it beautiful.  The Royal Hens, Elizabeth, Victoria, Anne, Eugene, Beatrice and Georgia, of Chickingham Palace will be able to roam in the orchard during the day to forage and provide natural fertilizers.  The location is also near to the barn which will someday double as a brew house and kitchen….think craft cider and jams.

The veggies are presenting more of a challenge to our marital harmony, where to put them and what to plant changes daily.  Our continued discussions are largely irrelevant really.  We need to do some tests on the soil here to assess for nutrients and PH levels.  As far as we know the land has never been used for growing but it is quite sandy in places and very stony everywhere.  There is also noticeable differences in the soil in various places.  We can argue about the virtues of the back left section vs. the front paddock all we like but it is these tests that will determine the outcome.  In the meantime, I’m putting a few broad beans in a pot outside the back door as a gesture towards self-sufficiency.  Maybe when we have a swing set to swing on and our creativity is warmed by a hand crafted fire pit we’ll be able to make better decisions????!!!