insulation day

Today we used our carefully stashed home maintenance savings and bought a ladder, two bales of pink batts (fibreglass insulation wool) and some other home maintenance items which I didn't look so closely at. Something to do with soldering.

So now the worst-blocked part of the guttering is cleaned and we have 3.6 R batts through more all of the house. When we began the insulation project two years ago, 3.6 was two steps above the minimum but now it is the new minimum for all new buildings. Only the kitchen and the laundry are yet to be done now.

I planted some green beans and bought some butter beans and celery plants for planting tomorrow morning. My own beans from seed have been totally disastrous. Let's hope the timing is better for this round, bought from the local garden nursery.

I made spanakopita for dinner and felt very clever because using filo pastry does that for me. Another use for the home grown eggs and silverbeet.

I cleaned out the chicken coop and checked on the current compost heap.. Since I turned it a fortnight ago, it has matured very nicely and I'm closing that one down. In a few weeks I'll put it on the garden. One reason for this is that it is on the corner where our neighbours are building a new garage. It blocks all view of the northeast from our place and we want to get trees and climbers and shrubs growing in that corner as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Some foliage should soften the effect of the huge garage.

I did sneak out to the garden this evening and dig out a few silverbeet plants that I'd cut off for dinner. I weeded the little plot and fed the slugs from under the border logs to the chooks. I'm going to put some of the celery in this spot to replace the silverbeet. The borage is looking gorgeous and the bees are already visiting.

I am grateful for a very very beautiful day today.