What do we need..a quick picture of what has happened over the past seven years. It might help explain why we can’t stop and why our plans get bigger and bigger...or just mad ( you decide). I will attach a few early photos. You know what they say; a picture tells 1000 words.
There is no doubt we bought good bones. Not flat and boring. The property has a beautiful big dam, undulating lands...the perfect proposition for a money pit...and they say that poverty is owning a horse!!!!
The property itself has three building, the Barnstay, which is a converted 100 year old Barn which is rented to groups, a small caretakers cottage ( the corn cabin) and a 3 bedroom house. Don’t get too excited, they are all very rustic and one of the very first things we did was to try and may the place livable. It was alot of hard work. We are thinking of doing a few extra little things to improve our place but my husband is desperate to put a big D9 bulldozer through it; so no point going overboard really. Of course the Barnstay is the exception..we love that and so do our guests. It has so much character and is great for our friends who come up to visit. We are going to re-build the BBQ area and look to put some sail cloth over the verandah so it will be pleasant in summer in the future but that’s about it really .
Our first group of trees we planted were the 47 golden elms up the drive ( after we had that rebuilt of course...the photos of that are great) and then we started planting some atlas cedars, deodera’s and planning for our planting around the dam. They consisted of manchurian pears, cherry trees, a couple of willow trees, magnolias, claret ash’s as well as a couple of lebanese cedars and what we thought were norfolk pines....we are still not sure what they are..definitely pines but not sure they are norfolk, maybe they are a hybrid. They look like they come straight out of the Jurassic period....
I have to say that my mother has been a fantastic resource in helping segment the property and selecting/suggesting types of trees for their different seasonal effects. Both Chris and I have really learnt a great deal..in fact I think my husband is more fanatical about the trees and the garden than I am!!! His male friends still can’t quite believe it. When I first met him, he was such a city boy, went to the cool bars, different restaurant each night, smart clothes...now he feels most comfortable in his work boots and flannel shirt...my, my, what a turn-around!
You can’t help but laugh at yourself sometimes. I remember we had decided to put new fencing along the roadside and plant boundary trees for both sound and privacy reasons.It was Easter and we had a few friends with us. We thought that it should not be such a big deal to put in over 2km of fencing and plant 550 trees over the 4 days...easy..
Needless to say that the dam thing took us almost 2 years to finish!!!! 4 days my ###
The story of the property’s development is full of stories like that..we always seem to bite of more than we can chew..maybe because we don’t realise how much we have bitten off in the first place. Rookies I hear you say..indeed, well at least we seem to provide entertainment for others and manage to make sure we end the weekend absolutely stuffed.
