And our second weekend here has flown by. Because of Pentecost we could stay Friday until Monday, so we got a lot more done! On Friday I went to the water company that handles irrigation for our municipality and got us registered. They told us we’re getting water every 14 days and we can find the exact dates on their site. On those days we can open the lock and let the water go to our property. We actually opened the lock earlier that day to see where the water would go, besides a route to the bassin we have some other locations the irrigation goes to that we wanted to check.
After this we went to some stores to find the material for the fence, our outdoor toilet and everything for a big clean up. We got the wire-mesh for the fence, but we still needed some things for the posts. Coming back, after less than an hour, the basin was already completely filled and overflowing for a while. They didn’t lie when they said we could flood our fields easily everytime we’re actually allowed water. Which to be honest wasn’t that Friday, because we heard from our neighbours someone was saying that it was their day and looking for the reason why he didn’t have water anymore. Oops..
We took a small hike to a hill we can see from our house, since we haven’t really explored the area yet. We had to walk through fields of weeds and something called fake wheat, which has a very annoying hook-like structure which gets caught in everything. Apparently also in Luna’s nose, which caused her to sneeze for about 15 minutes. Really cute, but next time we use the mountain bike path or walking routes we found along the way.
In the evening we went to the older couple in the street and got a really big bag of cherries, and after this we visited the Dutch family. This night we actually prepared and inflated our air-mattress, this meant we had our first good night of sleep! We woke up early because we heard some birds chittering right next to us, but we now think the sound travelled down the chimney for this weird effect. Even early it was amazing waking up with the sunrise and our lovely view.
The next day we went to pick up the fence posts, just some 20 mm rebar, and with the help of our lovely neighborhood kid we installed part of the fence. We broke the day by having a short siësta, which was necessary with the temperatures, but we’ll call that assimilation 😉
I rid the whole shed from cobwebs, old bird nests and some wasp nests. One of the wasp nests had a small family in it, and I’m ashamed to say we roasted them. But unfortunately they didn’t look that friendly. We found out there are two geckos and a salamander staying with us, and evidence of another critter: some snake skin. Besides this we also found other treasures:
- A Cuban cigar
- Paintings
- Old tools
- Scaffolding
- A wood and marble closet
- Old trash (not really treasure I know but fun to find regardless)
In the afternoon we ate some pancakes made by Jackie (the daughter of the Dutch family) and played some Uno and ‘Don’t get upset’[List of cross and circle games – Wikipedia] (which if you don’t know, it gets you upset). Coming back from this we decided to work hard so Luna could run freely tomorrow.
On Sunday morning we opened the door and let Luna walk herself. We were concerned she could jump over the fence, which she definitely can. But she doesn’t, just enjoying the space she has and after about half an hour playing in the sun she was already sleepy again. We can also work with the fence open, since Luna stays by our side. We expect her to get more comfortable and stay close the more time we spend here. After the previous weekend Luna almost slept for two straight days so it seems she actually does have a limited amount of energy.
Sunday and Monday Thomas improvised some gates on the fence. We had some neighbours over who gave a ton of tips. Maybe it was said last time, but the plan is now to clean up and fix the shed so we can move in there while we renovate the other part. We’ll need to do a lot of things for this first part already:
- Toilet
- Shower
- Both require running water
- Floor – we’re going to paint the concrete floor in the shed
- Electricity – Generator + solar
- Internet – 4G antenna somewhere
We’ve split this in each of their own little projects so we’re not overwhelmed with things to do. This means we’re busy during the week with planning, reading up (or watching Youtube), ordering things and of course work and socializing. With only the weekends for now it’s slow going but we’re excited to get it done and start moving in there.
I’ve already started with writing about the month June. The first weekend we were not able to go, because a friend from the Netherlands arrived. But the second weekend we went with the three of us and started building the outside house for the compost toilet 🙂