"Working 9 to 5 what a way to make a living!"

Poor old Mr M has been tied to the desk (dining room table) for the past 2 weeks,  his current boss has had a bit of a crack down on the meanderings around the shop floor and the unnecessary bio breaks!

The result being that he is making good headway on the house plans.  The plans we brought were mostly engineered, however we are not having a basement and will be building on a crawl space so he had to engineer the footings, then the roof hadn't been engineered and so that was the second part.

First he has modeled the house on catia which is pretty much the same idea as the model he has built but on the computer.  It would be so cool now to print the model on a 3D printer and have a little plastic house!

I suppose our little wooden model is just as cool....

Once it is fully modeled he can complete the drawings for the foundations and the roof, and then the package can be submitted to the planning office!  Exciting stuff? I now am much more knowledgeable on modeling that is for sure, in fact not sure what all the fuss is about, from what I've seen this Engineering malarkey is a piece of pie!

I do think that he should go and get his eyes tested though, his current mode of eyewear is a pair of safety glasses from the shop floor which have magnifier lens in the bottom half!

He did take a day or 2 away from the computer to make me a screen door for our house.  It has been glorious weather.....

And so it is nice to leave the door open, but the bugs do like to take advantage!  This particular door is modeled off of the one on our airstream, you can open and close it with the main door, or if you choose have it open by itself! 

 

 

It's all in the hinges you see, specially crafted (bent) by the one and only Mr M....

 

 

The chicken/duck run has also had some important enhancements....

 

 

A landslide victory "YES" vote....

 

 

The garden is really starting to give back.....

 

 

Garlic scapes, these are the sign that the garlic is starting to produce their bulbs, these are snipped off and I use them in tomato sauces with pasta etc.

 

 

Plenty of green zuchinni's already, soon be time for yellow ones...

 

 

I did have a visitor to the garden this week, helping herself to 2 of my tomato plants and some of my peas - Oh Deer!

 

 

Nasturtiums are starting to flower and are SO pretty...

 

 

And this pretty wildflower is popping up all over....

 

 

And that is it.. that's all I've got for this installment.  This year is flying by so fast, as Mr M says the downside of being happy with your job is that each day goes so quickly, when he was working "for the man" his days just dragged by.. and consequently the weeks, months and years!! Poor Buggar!

When Ducks go bad....

Here we are once again Sunday evening and *drumroll* it's blog time!!

What are you looking at?

What's been happening Mr M? Well mostly he has been working on finishing up his garage and sorting everything between the container and the garage to enable him to have a proper workspace, it's looking good!

And also we have decided on our house and have purchased our plans... wooohoooo!  Here it is, this is a color rendering of the house, we won't be having the basement, we are building on a crawl space! so cut off the bottom left hand corner and there you go...

So, we have plans... but of course there is some work to do with them, we need to engineer the roof to meet Oregon codes (by we, I mean Mr M) he is going to engineer as much of it as he can and hopefully we won't need to involve anyone else! it is after all his "thang"!

In order to fully understand how to build the roof etc. it seemed like a good idea to build a model! and so he has been beavering away in his garage making a model - worth finding out now he can't build it, whilst it is teeny tiny!  So far he seems to be able to read the plans ok *ducks* and here's hoping the real thing gets built as quick!

Doesn't look like he has been that busy does it, I might need to put an end to these afternoon jaunts out on the Ducati or the mountain bike ;)

Right so onto the exciting stuff!  He has also finished up the duck/chicken run, he has put cedar boards all around the top and sides which has made it look much smarter, we just need to buy some plastic roofing and then it is all completed!

The babies have been up in the main run for 2 weeks... things are all AOK and they are all settling into who is in charge! it basically goes - baby chicken being chased by older chicken being chased by duck!! It is very fun to watch, they are all getting on ok and it is just chasing and nothing nasty like pecking etc.

I swear the little chickens are using the ducks as muscle, just as the older chickens arrive to make sure they know who is in charge, in steps a duck to warn them off!!  Quite what damage they are going to do with those bills is anyone's guess! the older ladies are beginning to wise up and don't run off quite as fast anymore!

It's brilliant entertainment that's for sure....

We also brought them a paddling pool that they LOVE!!!

It is serving a dual purpose, I am taking out the "duck poop tea" to water my veggies which are now growing as fast as a white duck..

I am so excited about how good it is looking, and not only looking, but is starting to produce!

I have far too many tomato plants, so hard not to plant them all up after they seeds worked so hard to germinate and grow - I see lots of salsa and tomato sauce in my future, if the duck tea does its thing!

 

Green zucchini's (corgettes) WOW they are going great guns and tonight we had our first zucchini, they are full of fruit! they LOVE their sunny spot!

Potato bins are also impressing me, my earlies are start to flower...

 

And my nasturtiums are just about to flower, that will make the bees happy...

Cucumber is also covered in flowers, just need the fruits to set and then we will be off and running..

The fruit trees we planted last fall are looking lovely and healthy..

 



 So far we have had a zucchini, lots of turnips (yummy! raw like radishes) radishes and salad!

Maybe it is the soil, the duck poop tea or the abundance of these beauties which are all over the garden!

Next year I am planning to add a couple of bee hives, I am so excited about this project, I have the spot all picked out and I have commissioned Mr M to build me some hives over the winter!

We are still enjoying the mass of foxgloves that have popped up all over, we have so many I was quite happy to sacrifice a few to bring them inside!

 

 

So it isn't all house, ducks and garden!  I have also signed up to do the season at the Port Orford farmers market selling my button jewelry.  I am so far loving it, not only is it an opportunity to make some pocket money but also to meet some lovely fellow Port Orfordians every Saturday 9am - noon! 

 

It is a small funky market with lots of local producers selling their veggies etc. live music and Mr M's most favorite find an authentic French lady selling crepes full of nutella! and this week I had a real authentic Londoner sat next to me selling her eggs.... she has been here since '77 and sounded like she had just stepped off of the tube!  We spent the 3 hours basically talking about tea and red buses (yes we really did discuss tea brands).

 

I am excited to be a part of it and am hopeful that everyone in town will soon be wearing buttons!