After only a week we are able to stand upstairs in our new house! The downstairs frame has gone up rapidly - our builder basically called in his carpenter mates from around the state and has wasted no time in assembling the frame and modifying it to suit as required. We picked up a couple of small changes required, and it's utterly brilliant to be able to have these modifications made an hour or two later.
Roof trusses were delivered yesterday for the bedroom wing where they will be hidden, and we are almost at the point of deciding on what the exposed trusses will be over the cathedral-roofed living wing. The builder will assemble these himself as we the clients are being picky and want these to be features of the space.
We have spent the last couple of weekends getting an internal fence up to contain the first furry creature to find its way to our land - we'll take delivery of a Shetland pony this weekend. He is from the house next door to our last one in Picton - his current owners offered him to us as they want to get some cows in their paddock instead. We formed quite a bond with him while living there as we fed him most days over the fence, and hope he settles in well.
So we have a 2600m2 field set aside for him to munch on. Given the crazy rate of our grass growth he'll likely need some friends such as sheep to ensure he doesn't over-eat and meet the same fate as his mother unfortunately did. All in good time. Learning to fence has been great fun and it is very satisfying to see the progress. We've also finished getting our cables into the trenches and now just need to complete the back-filling so that he doesn't fall in.
As Phoebe keeps saying "we have our own little farm now", which is truly heart-warming - it's just the lifestyle we hoped to be providing for our kids. William keeps trying to escape the shed and go for a wander outside by himself too. Once he is past the eat-everything phase we might even let him.
The first couple of trees are in, and we're planning the layout of the rest of the land for more as time permits.