August 2009 – Various updates

I can't quite believe how busy August got.

Our own fault. Part of our plan to stay here was to downsize and also buy a rental propertyfor income/long-term investment. So we did it. At the end of July 2009. And then gave ourselves one month for some pretty major renos – as we cleverly got some very nice tenants who wanted to move in August 30th! I'll save the details for another post.

Also, it has been an incredibly dry and often hot summer. This has meant a lot of watering our various veg patches/plants. One (big) thing we learned is not to have your food growing all over the property if you need to water it on a regular basis. We're hoping we can still rescue our native hazelnut trees, as we forget about them way over there… Next year we cluster our growing areas together!

And speaking of hot – phew! It's been such great weather that we've got a really good crop of peaches (see the biggie at right!) coming from a tree we're still in the process of rescuing… And we have two melons from plants that have been OUTSIDE and never seen a greenhouse! Our tomatoes have gone wild, ripening nicely! But many of our winter crops are struggling in the heat. Let's hope they make it.

We also had the great idea of turning our hot tub into a cool tub – which worked amazingly! We turned it down to just below body temperature and would wallow in it or paddle our feet. It made a HUGE difference on those 35-40 degree celsius days.

Other things we've done in the last month or so include 2 trips to Vancouver 1) for a friend's wedding (congrats to Trev and Charmaine!) and 2) to see AC/DC (who were awesome!). I became an auntie for the first time to a wonderful little boy called Rupert Edward (luckily my brother also moved to Canada and lives on Vancouver Island so I will get to see my nephew grow up!). We've also had a few visitorsto keep us on our toes and of course as well as renos on our home and the rental property we also had finally got the permit for our guest cottage and had the foundation poured/got the ball rolling there!

So I hope you excuse my lax approach to blogging of late. I'm making up for it now!