Birthday, carport, firewood shed...

My 60th birthday was last Friday. It was a good day. My mum has been here for two weeks now and our mate Phil came from Cairns to help mark the occasion, with new crocs (shoes) and a birthday cake.

He also brought fresh prawns (lucky as the red claws have been scarce).

Mum and a red claw

We started celebrating at lunch time with seafood and a couple of beers, then 3..4…10…? We then had bloody-maries before dinner which was an easy BBQ cooked by the men. Then of course champagne with the cake!

Just before mum retired about 1.00am

A little later Phil and myself

Much later as you can see!

We ended up in bed at around 4am, after a visit from Kermit and his mate, which probably liked the swedish and french music.

Let's party!

Where did you go party-pooper?

I can tell you I really felt like 60 the next day! But we had a ball.

Nevertheless, beware of what you're wishing on you 60th birthday!

 I wished for rain as everything was so dried. The grass was down to nothing and brown. No matter how much water I was putting on the vegetables every night, the next morning the soil was dry again. Don't get me wrong they still flourished and I had to harvest the snow peas and tomatoes every second day!

On the Sunday we had a huge storm that came from nowhere, all of a sudden we had like a mini cyclone that lasted about 45 minutes. Branches from the tree in the farmer's paddock landed in our garden  with its fruits plump and ripe scattering our lawn like Easter eggs! (Pity we don't know if they're edible and are not game to try). The veggie patch took a beating as well, snow peas and tomatoes got pushed to the ground, as  the dill and coriander (goodbye seeds…?). But with a bit of TLC they might still be ok.

Poor veggies after the storm

 Dill looking very sad

Do they look edible to you?

We even had hail for 5 minutes. (Never witnessed hail in the tropics before!). That's when the rain started and hasn't stopped since. But I'm not complaining… yet!

Weatherzone reports: **Cairns has seen one of its heaviest one day rain totals with more than 224mm of rain falling steadily. The city rarely sees this much rain, except during cyclone season, and the last time it exceeded 200mm in a one day was with Cyclone Yasi!

Many parts of the Northern Tropical Coast and Tableland district or from the Daintree Village to Cardwell and just inland have seen rainfall totals of 100-200mm over the past 24 hours, with Goldsborough Alert topped the gauges at 317mm.These downpours look to be kicking off an early start to the wet season!**

We're very lucky that Sven has finished building the carport next to the house, the cars are now parked safe and dry and will be cool (when the sun comes out again).

Ian had to help with his tractor to dig the holes for the posts, as the ground was as hard as concrete!

Ian's tractor at work

Fine machine!

Even Penny agrees

Then Sven  concreted the posts in, and the rest quickly went up, as usual. The longest part was waiting for the materials to be delivered, which was frustrating. If they could have fitted on top of his van he would have picked them up. But too long and too heavy.

Posts up

Posts concreted

Purlins up

However, it was all finished last Thursday, just before the storm!

Job done

Mind you, while waiting for the materials to be delivered,Sven also built a firewood shed, made out of recycled timber.

We used to have all the timber for "Old Benny" stacked under a tarp, but noticed that rats were nesting under, stealing  the macadamia nuts  left  to dry in a basket on the patio table. (They are now inside… No more free feed for vermin… ) We have to use a vice to crack the nuts open, they only use their teeth to make a neat hole. Wish I had their teeth! Oops... careful, no... I'm safe (I hope) it's not my birthday anymore!

The firewood shed is much more practical and cleaner too. 

Nice and tidy firewood shed

Guess what? Sven is now extending the carport, that is in between rain showers… 

Can't keep  still for a minute!

 

The best improvement

The best improvement since we moved in, is no doubt, the ensuite.

Very roomy with lots of cupboard for storage, which was lacking in the house.

Sven started mid May with connecting the plumbing.

Sewer line

Plumbing

Then came the form setting for the slab, which was poured ten days later.

Concreting the slab

Slab almost completed

A week after, the framing for the walls started going up complete with cyclone rods . 

Then the water pipes connected,  the shower sill, the inside walls. 

The roof and ceiling came up next, the electricity connected.

Framing the walls

Roof is on

Water connected

It was time to cut the wall from the bedroom. Cutting is not really the word, maybe smashing the besser blocks? (which is not for the faint hearted)! 

He carefully removed the window and re-installed it on the outside wall of the ensuite, put a gutter up and the fascia board.

Wall cut, window re-fitted

 

Then the vanity was installed, the toilet was connected, the shower and the floor tiled… 

We then had a functional ensuite only a month after he started and working on it all by himself!

All the "little" finishing touches came later, grouting ,window framing,  plastering, sanding, painting and I probably miss a lot of things. But we both agree it was all worth it.

Tiling

Grouting

The washing machine was moved from the patio to the ensuite where it now lives. I always feared that a green frog would enter it and get washed out...

At last an ensuite!

All finished

Very practical

I have to add that at the same time he started on the ensuite, he also worked  with erecting another shed, next to the existing one.  

Spot prepared for shed

Shed erected

Concreting the shed floor

For those of you who know how much bits and pieces he collected over the years, this shed came very handy, it is now full!

But a lot of these "bits and pieces" came very handy and were recycled in the building of the ensuite.

Shed completed

The original shed now has a twin brother...

You might wonder where was I while all this was going on? 

Well, I was nursing a nasty skin cancer surgery (which is still in the healing process). So apart from helping him every now and again when he needed an extra hand to hold things, (which wasn't very often), I was snapping pictures… But don't worry, I won't upset you with pictures of my wound...

I was also sewing curtains, emptying boxes after boxes, moving furniture from one place to the other, cooking, cleaning... oh well, doing things that a woman should do after all!

I think I've found another name for Sven... 

Instead of Viking I'll call him "Hercules". Very befitting don't you think?

Viking / Hercules

 

I'm not feeling sour any longer!

Why did I feel sour???

I think I had a good reason! Our lemon tree has been over productive with big fruits plump and juicy since we got here in March. 

Our lemon tree

Plump and juicy lemons

But towards the end of  August, one cockatoo  decided it was his supermarket and descended on it every now and again, destroying up to 35 lemons in one go.

We would wake up in the morning and find all those lemons, even green ones, half eaten covering the ground.

The culprit!

How he "opens"the fruit

34 lemons down!

Now I hate waste… So I cleaned them, cut the damaged part, juice and freeze it for later use.

But last week he decided to visit the garden every day, and I've tallied  up to 203 lemons down!

So I had to come up with ideas on how to use these lemons. 

I started with 3 huge jars of lemon achards, lemon confit (both of these with olive oil, chilli, herbs and spices)and  preserved lemons.

All the goodies: achards, confit, preserved...

 Lemon butter, lemon and melon jam, came second.

Then freezing:  I sliced lemons, peeled lemons, zested lemons….

I was still left with a lot of lemons, so I  came up with a mixture of minced lemons/sugar/onion/dill/olive oil put through the food processor (like a pesto) and this is delicious on fish or grilled meat. (Our dill is oversized and almost reaching the veranda's ceiling , so plenty of it went in that concoction).

Sliced lemons ready for freezing

Our dill and coriander

I had to freeze some in plastic bags as it made such a big batch. I might add some chilli and macadamia nuts to some of it. I'm sure it would taste nice ! Anything with chilli tastes nice! As for macadamia nuts we get heaps of it from our tree.

Macadamia nut tree flowering

Recent harvest

I also mixed some juice with sugar and froze it. The mixture doesn't freeze solid and we can scoop a teaspoon of it and mix it with water and presto! Fresh lemonade!

No wonder I felt sour! Over four days, all I was doing was working with lemons! My skin smelt like lemon, my mouth tasted lemon. However, it was all worth it.

But, I was running out of ideas and our freezer is running out of space. So I decided this had to stop.

First we put a casting net over the tree, but it wasn't big enough to cover all of it. I tied plastic bags all around it, but the cockatoo was still making a dive for it.

Then I found some old transparent curtains that were left by the previous owners and we pegged these all over the tree. YES! this seems to work!. The bird flies over it but cannot land anywhere and pick at the fruits.

One way to protect the tree!

Now who's feeling sour??? Not me any longer!

Let's hope this is the end of all the devastation! (Until the orange, mandarin and cumquat trees start fruiting…)