The garden is blooming

Spring is definitely here and the star jasmine I planted less than a year ago has bloomed spectacularly! It's reached the top of the fence and burst into life literally overnight with a mass of flowers spilling down the wire creating a cascading wall of perfume!

I love this flower so, so much. The smell is wafting up into the house. It reminds me of some exotic, oriental land.

I only planted one for every panel, and while some I've trained to go sideways, others have only grown up, so I'm thinking a few more in between will do the trick and by this time next year, it will be a complete wall of mass flowers.

Sooo exciting, and so satisfying!

Backyard Progress

Like everything with this project, the underneath part of the house is progressing slowly, but surely, little bit by little bit. The good thing about taking so many photos is that you can look back when you're a bit frustrated by progress to see how far you've really come from the beginning.

The paths on both sides are complete and the remaining stones are underneath the house. The side garden has been planted out with gardenias, murrayas, spider lilies and star jasmine and it's just time and patience for these to grow. So for the most part, the underneath part of the house is pretty much complete. I'm really struggling though to decide (and fund) what to do in the back part of the house as I wanted to turn it into an entertainment area. I got a quote for concrete, which I don't think would look amazing, but probably the most economical, and that came in at twice what I thought it would be. I'm yet to get a quote for decking, but I'm almost positive it will be more expensive.

In my frustrated state I had a look back on my old photos of the backyard from when we first moved in. I feel a lot better, we have made a lot of progress and it's pretty much all been done by hand, by us and not contractors. This photo was taken even before we had a blind in the dining room and just used old sheets to cover the windows. I remember taking this photo and thinking, "where do I even start?"

There's still so much to do…but also so much that's been done.

Baby Goat Goals

Can I please take this kid home? PLEASE!!?? She will have a huge back yard to run around in, plenty of grass and plants to graze on, two crazy dogs to play with and some humans to cuddle her and take a million Instagram photos of her.

Seriously, I want this baby goat so, so badly…what do I have to do??

Time out with the fam bam

No work on the house lately, I've been in North Queensland visiting my family. It was hot, hot, hot!! Actually, 33°C to be exact and 110% humidity. But the parents have a pool so all good.

My Mumsy's garden is the ultimate. Flowers, veggies, succulents, cacti, fruit trees AND the time to work on it all the time. The beauty of retirement.

These cotton harlequin beetles are stunning, but apparently not great for the garden. Luckily they weren't in her garden, just one we were walking past.

The cumquat tree was laden with fruit to the point they were just falling on the floor. I've decided yes, one of these is going in my garden.

The hippeastrums bloomed the day before we left. Gorgeous vibrant shades of orange and red.

I collected eggs because….

They have chickens!!!!!! I wish I had chickens. I wish I had this garden. I wish I had time to have this garden. But I had time with the family so…win. #grateful