The local wild life

Some pics of the local wildlife in the stream.
Kopuku

 

Long finned eel

Crayfish

Then and Now

Three years ago we purchased a site that was no more than a rubbish tip. Now all the hard work has paid off, we have cleaned up all the rubbish and noxious weeds and have the beginnings of a lawn.

Play tme

Me having a go on the neighbour's 20 tonne digger last Sunday.

It was fun, could do better with practise, I'll stick to my normal job in the meantime.

More fill for the quarry

Before we finished the front lawn we had 7 truckloads of clay delivered to the quarry courtesy of our generous neighbour, Rodney. He spread the bulk of the fill and I finished it off with the tractor. June seen here inspecting my handiwork. I only got the tractor stuck once.

The extra fill will give us a firm base over the entire area, up untill now we couldn't mow anywhere near the stream without getting bogged down. If the whole area is mowable it will be much easier to look after.

It would be nice to spread some top soil and plant some grass but that will need to wait till the spring now.

It was pleasing to see our earthworks haven't adversly affected the stream life. Looking along the stream last night I saw numerous fresh water crayfish in the area where we have been working.

Wind blown dust and dirt

Aka getting the ground levelled and grass seed planted.

Grant the digger driver finished off by leaving around 50-100mm of top soil around the house. All except where we will be laying paving or building decks.

It was our job to level the top soil, rake out any stones and finally plant grass seed.

once again our 45year old international tractor pays for itself.

  

 

Finally we have a lawn planted.

Thank goodness we have access to unlimited water thanks to the the little dam in the stream up in the range.

The back lawn that we finished the weekend before is already greening up,

Easters efforts

Rolling the drive, leveling and planting grass sead around the back of the house.

Finishing the ground work around the house

Finally Grant has been able to come back and finish contouring the ground around the house.

Finally the top soil. We will do the final leveling.

More insulation for the floor slab

I've attached 70mm polystyrene to the outside edge of the floor slab using polystyrene left over from the build.
The majority of heat loss from the floor slab will be through the outside edges, 70mm of poly should reduce this considerably. The poly will be in contact with the ground so won't last indefinately but a couple of coats of sealer (more left overs) should extend its life greatly.

Time for a catch up

Since moving in we have been very busy, heres a few pics of what weve been up to.

Dontay helping set the trap

Caught our first rodent

Unfortumately we caught a Hawk as well, thank fully he flew away after taking a while to recover.