Deck

The deck is pretty much finished and it is huge!

The "temporary" deck

Full length shot

And now with all the treads

Thanksgiving

Yesterday we had our annual Thanksgiving party. Helen claims that I only have the parties so that I can eat turkey and judging by the whole three pictures I took it would be pretty easy to believe her.

The guest of honour, all 6.8kg of him.

There were people there too. All up I think we had 15 adults and 6 children. Most of the younger children busied themselves with my collection of Lego blocks and the older ones took turns swinging in and climbing on my hammock. The adults chatted away and kept eyes on children.

It was a beautiful day with a slight southerly which meant we were able to open up all the doors. Sadly the back wasn't finished in time, so we didn't have as much room to spread out as we would have liked. It will be great for the rest of summer though.

Helen cooked the turkey, stuffing and a giant pot of mashed potatoes and everyone contributed a plate of something. If anyone asked me what to bring I told them dessert as it is my favourite. So we had quite a few to choose from.

Helen cooked a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin and a pavlova as well for a Kiwi twist.

Gravel

Gravel down around the greenhouse

And the side of the house

Footings for the steps

And on the south side of the house. The steps I have been making will eventually connect up with these.

More work being done on the front of the house.

Greenhouse

Matt finished the paving on Thursday so that we could put the greenhouse together on the weekend. The weather was crap on Saturday so I started assembling the greenhouse in the garage. Sunday, however, was a beautiful day so we spent most of the morning finishing the greenhouse.

Mifi had been helping but she disappeared. We found her a short time later taking shelter from the sun in one of the boxes.

A hint of where the cat was hiding.

Enjoying the shade.

Attaching the top to the base

The finished product

Helen brought home some rocks on Saturday, so we were finally able to finish off the front of the extension.

All filled in. Now we just have to finish the rest of the terraces.

Landscaping around the back

Work has begun on the area behind the house - a new deck, paving for the greenhouse and gravel for everywhere else. This area doesn't drain very well so they have dug a channel (the gravel bit down the centre of the picture) to help reduce the puddles that appear in heavy or prolonged rain.

Footings for the new deck

Preparing the area where the new pavers will go

The new pavers waiting to be mortared in

Planting

Heaps of new flax, ferns and other things on the bank

Lancewood left, Pittosporum on the right with renga rengas all around

A couple of climbing plants between the daisies.

From left to right kowhai, pittoporum, lancewood and cabbage tree in the corner

Helper kitty number one

Helper kitty number two