{"id":1596,"date":"2016-06-12T20:25:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T08:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=1596"},"modified":"2019-10-17T14:05:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T01:05:24","slug":"anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well now, all of a sudden this blog’s\u00a0one year anniversary has cantered up.<\/p>\n

It’s been a very\u00a0eventful twelve months. First\u00a0I dragged<\/del>\u00a0enticed my very forbearing\u00a0husband out of the big city<\/a>\u00a0to live on 14 acres of Northland<\/a>, two\u00a0hours drive\u00a0from the nearest BurgerFuel outlet. We both\u00a0gave up our\u00a0reliable sources of income. I\u00a0panicked a bit<\/a>. We sold our old house<\/a> and one rainy day<\/a> I will<\/em> get around to unpacking<\/a>\u00a0the rest of those boxes in the living room.<\/p>\n

I still do a bit of back and forth to Auckland, but once\u00a0a certain short term contract comes to an end in November there\u00a0will be a little less travel. Just\u00a0now though this is\u00a0my favorite view because it means I’m driving home.<\/p>\n

\"Brynderwyns\"<\/a>

Whangarei Heads from the Brynderwyns (it’s ok, someone else was driving when I took this).<\/p><\/div>\n

The Forbearing Husband has adapted admirably. He\u00a0took to a life with a chainsaw like a guinea fowl<\/del> duck to water<\/a>, and has spent many happy hours masterfully striding around Seven Acre Wood<\/a>\u00a0cutting up fallen trees to\u00a0fill the woodsheds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"chainsaw\"<\/a>

Man and chainsaw<\/p><\/div>\n

As for how I am coping with the move… Well,\u00a0I used to weed a\u00a0veggie patch on a 1\/4 acre and water arrived at our\u00a0taps with no visible effort\u00a0from anyone. Recently\u00a0I’ve been weeding whole\u00a0paddocks*, and I know far\u00a0more about the operation and maintenance of a rural water pump than I ever thought I would want to.<\/p>\n

Buying this place has been\u00a0(almost) the scariest thing I have ever\u00a0done. Last year, while\u00a0I was still working three days a week in Auckland,\u00a0I would drive up here listening to\u00a0Alanis Morissette recommend\u00a0‘biting off more than you can chew’<\/a> and think ‘Yup, just did that!’.**<\/p>\n

My\u00a0list of projects is endless.\u00a0In the space of a walk from the house to the barn I can easily spot another five things to add to my To-Do-Urgently list. Right now we have a pile of about 100 flax bushes ready to go into the ground of which about\u00a020 or so have been\u00a0planted*, there’s a second round of JC weeding in the orange grove<\/a> which I started and need to finish, I really should do something about those\u00a0hairline cracks in our\u00a0concrete water tank (…first find out what it\u00a0is exactly I am supposed to do), then there’s the leaking roof on the tack shed that needs repairing before\u00a0I can move my saddles out of our\u00a0bedroom (did I mention that the husband is very forbearing?), oh and that’s not to mention a\u00a0huge\u00a0pile of weeds due for incineration.<\/a><\/p>\n

So, the property is large, the work seems unrelenting, and the weeding is like a game of\u00a0whack a mole<\/a>. Does Chrissy B want to go back to town now?<\/p>\n

Ha, not\u00a0a chance! I get to wake up to cows mooing\u00a0on the dairy farm\u00a0across the stream and ponies\u00a0snorting in our paddocks; I go strolling\u00a0in the woods as\u00a0the dogs sniff around in the undergrowth and\u00a0Kitty-Pop trots along\u00a0behind\u00a0(she does like to take a walk with the family), I take Young Explorers<\/a> rock hopping to the\u00a0island and think about\u00a0Swallows and Amazons<\/a>,\u00a0and yes, I even enjoy\u00a0weeding paddocks — they look so beautiful and grassy afterwards. Best place I’ve ever lived. Ever.<\/p>\n

\"chickens\"<\/a>

Getting comfortable in our\u00a0new perch.<\/p><\/div>\n

Well that’s me, what about you? We started with five or so in The Readership, and I hope most of you are hanging on. Big thanks to everyone who has ever left a comment. The Forbearing Husband is well used to my\u00a0exclamations ‘Look, someone read my blog!’ (I even\u00a0get excited when my own just-posted posts pop up\u00a0in my blog feed<\/a>\u00a0which I am aware is a bit sad).<\/p>\n

Anyway, if you feel like giving\u00a0a lonely blogger a bit of a thrill leave me a comment (even if it’s just a smiley face) and we’ll do a bit of a headcount.\u00a0Promise to reply.<\/p>\n

* Big thanks to the Williams family for help with\u00a0weeding in\u00a0the Bottom Paddock, and to the Irish Lads Eamon and Michael who planted\u00a0flax.<\/p>\n

** And I never could have done it without the Forbearing Husband. It’s amazing how much braver you can be when you know for sure someone you love will always have your back. Thank you <heart emoji>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well now, all of a sudden this blog’s\u00a0one year anniversary has cantered up. It’s been a very\u00a0eventful twelve months. First\u00a0I dragged\u00a0enticed my very forbearing\u00a0husband out of the big city\u00a0to live on 14 acres of Northland, two\u00a0hours drive\u00a0from the nearest BurgerFuel… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leaving-auckland","category-moving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1596"}],"version-history":[{"count":64,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6844,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions\/6844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}