THE REGENT THEATER

Many WWOOFers enjoy a night out at the Regent Theater. It is an old style theater with intermission- time for an icecream or popcorn- and as it is run by a Trust the prices are pretty reasonable too. This is a nostalgic experience for many who come from cities where the only movie theaters now are multiplexes.

Jo and Nick

Jo and Nick could only stay a couple of days, but they helped dig out some more squares for the orchard weeding carefully and replacing the dirt in barriers made by Wal out of corrugated iron. The concept behind this labour intensive job is to plant the orchard squares with a herbal ley and to keep the twitch at bay.

Penny and Charlie Brown

Penny and Charlie were a chatty couple and we enjoyed family time with them. They helped dig out some squares to plant the orchard in the spring and planted comfrey root all around the edge of the orchard. They put down lots of carpet squares and tires around the trees planted by Carrie. And they insulated the south wall with batts. This is the only wall using batts- the rest of the house is insulated with TerraLana natural wool insulation.

Returning friends

We were delighted to have Matt and Carrie come back to visit. Matt and Carrie planted the first trees in the Trees for Travellers programme and in 6 months the total was up to 32. They added to that with some belated Christmas shopping for family bringing the count to 45! The garden Matt and Carrie helped to plant to border the new section at the front had grown unbelievably well. Compare the previous post of them to this new picture. Carrie's sunflowers had all sprouted, grown 6 feet tall and died off before she came back again.

Carrie planted 2 hedges, one for a windbreak to screen the future orchard, and one on the boundary between the current house and the new section. Matt and Carrie helped build the first adobe wall of the WWOOFers room. When they returned the walls were all laid up. Some finishing was required so Carrie and I threw cob at all the gaps in the walls and down the sides of the pillars and our pinnacle of artistic achievement was the sculpturing in cob on the two pillars inside at the sides of the French doors. Adrienne also helped with this. Rusty did the leaves and vines and Carrie did the AMAZING piwakawaka (fantails)!

Matt's major contribution was the handmaking of our kitchen table. He inserted rimu butterflies to stop the splitting, planed, sanded and oiled the table with help from Wal. To celebrate the completion of the masterpiece we transported it down to the new house and had a party. Last weekend on Queen's Birthday Wal entered the table into a woodworking expo where it was much admired.

Matt also made the cupboard for the outside basin for the laundry along with shelving on the outside wall.

We are indebted to Matt and Carrie for their huge contribution and will always cherish their friendship.

OUR FRENCH FAMILY

Apparently, we say in the WWOOFer book we don't take families BUT Monika and Geoff and family arrived nonetheless and we had a ball. After a couple of days the children were playing together, Rusty was cuddling the baby and chaos reigned........ha!ha! Monika made jam and paper pulp ( not at the same time!) and the kids picked up fallen fruit from around the trees to help tidy up.

Geoff was very experienced in brick laying so he made the concrete block manhole on top of the grey water tank and helped Wal put deer fencing wire around the pizza garden.

We particularly enjoyed a picnic at the Black Hole, a local swimming spot, with several friends.

Beth & Mac

Mud!!!Hmmmm.........this was a challenge for Mac- a professional plasterer by trade. He spent several days instructing Wal in the finer arts of plastering, which was a great help. We wish he could have stayed longer...

Beth helped Rusty with some jam making and odds and ends.

Funnily enough, Beth (from England) also visited parents of a penfriend in Waimate. The penfriend now lives in London!!

Kathy & John

Kathy & John arrived in their own accommodation- a camper- and parked down the back. When it cam to weeding Kathy turned out to be superwoman and we made great progress in tidying up the gardens. John helped Wal out with some fencing at the front of the new drive.

Kathy and John live in a 3 bay shed converted into a strawbale dwelling, so it was interesting to have some exchange with people of a very similar ilk.

Jerome and Shiho

Jerome and Shiho joined our family for Christmas along with Gran and Poppa. The weather wasn't great so we had a leisurely day inside. The plan had been to lunch in the new house but the inclement weather meant a lunch at home.

Jerome and Shiho helped Yooko and I fill in the drain along the back of the house. A little arduous, but one of those jobs it was good to get tidied up.

We also made several trailer loads of bricks, creeping ever closer to the final trailer.....

OP SHOPS

Do you need some clothes? Opportunity shops and bargains galore in Waimate.

This pure wool jersey kindly modeled by ...( well, let's keep that secret) only cost 50c.

Xelp with the Xouse

Delphine and Junko turned up separately on the same day only to discover they had bunked together in Oamaru at the backpackers. (NZ is a small place.) They were both fun loving, cheerful workers.

They helped complete the first inside wall both finishing the laying with Wal and then helping Rusty to set a row of bottles into the top of the wall.






Then they helped to lay the rest of the second inside wall and thus, were present for an historic moment....

da
da
da
da!!!!!!!!!!




The laying of the very LAST brick into the top corner.

Big celebrations!!!!

Champagne!!!

& fireworks!!!

THE LAST TRAILER

Jen, Cassie and River helped us make the very last ( really and truly) trailer load of bricks. To celebrate we had a small mud fight but decided that facials and a lie in the sunshine was more therapeutic!

So to any intending mud brick makers-sorry! you'll have to wait till we build our next adobe house.

FAIR DINKUM MATE

Sam and Alex, brothers from Aussie, came for 2 days and we got started on laying the 2 inside walls. 4 rows on 1, then 4 rows on the other. We found out after all this time we had been making two different sized bricks. Our bricks were from a 300mm mould and had generally shrunk to 297mm. The others were from our friend's 310mm shrunk to 305 or so. So, having realised this and sorted the remaining bricks by size we got remarkably straight walls.

YOSHI! YOSHI!

Yoshi came and stayed around New Year. His strength was instrumental in helping us complete the battery room. We ended up with a small gap at the top, which we filled in with a cob mix of mud and lots of straw.

Yoshi could compete with Shannah for tomato sauce consumption!

I used to say "yosh! yosh!" which is a play on the sound of his name. "yosh! yosh!" means go!go!-let's get on with it!

Waimate

A nice stroll is to walk up to the WhiteHorse on the hill, which is a monument to the role of Clydesdale horses in breaking in the countryside. Some WWOOFers have walked from our place there and back ( about 3-4 hours). Others start at the bottom of the walkway-about 40 minutes to the top.

Our house "Earthwood" can be seen quite clearly.

White Horse Walk

On New Year's Eve the family and Yoshi went by car to the top of the White Horse Monument and had a picnic in the car. A few wwoofers have done this local walk from the township up through a small stand of native bush then into forestry near the ridge. A good view of Waimate and our NEW HOUSE!!!! can be seen from the top.

See picture "EarthWood from WhiteHorse" when I get it on!

French doors

The doors were in by Christmas. What used to be an expansive view now looks quite different - rather segmented. We had hoped to picnic in the house for Christmas kunch but the north-easterly was a bit cool as the windows and doors don't have glazing!

home schoolers get muddy!

About 22 children and parents from the local homeschooling group came to have a go at making mudbricks. According to our graph of progress this is the last load of bricks we need to finish all outside walls-both house and battery room.

The end is in sight............

An historic moment

Yoko, Kevin, Rusty and Wal finished laying bricks on the last piece of outside house wall.

YEEHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

an historic moment indeed!

Wo-men in black

Nikki and Yoko, with the invaluable assistance of mighty Kevin from next door and Wal, finished off the south wall to stud height. You can see the wet mortar in the south wall in the background of the picture.

honeymoon destination

Yep! It's right here at "Earthwood" Waimate.

Tara and Alex joined us for 2 nights of their short honeymoon in New Zealand and it was awesome to share such a special time with them.

They arrived on the same mad weekend as Sabrina,Timo, Steffi and Ruth. Coincidentally, Tara's grandmother was German and she spoke German also. So lots of "sprechen auf Deutsch" all around.