Dream House (Part 1 - more photos)

 Greg rescuing a cow out of the dam.

 A spider in our garden.

Walking the goats from the house to the land.

 The front of the house.

 The back of the house.

 Our view through the front door.

Our shady pagoda.

 The back door that was stolen.

 Minus 7 degrees inspired the quick building of our little room.

 Snug and warm inside.

Beginning the kitchen wall.

The roof is on.

The kitchen doorway.

 The outer layer is rock.

 The window frames.

The windows glazed and the doors in.

 The foundation for the bathroom wall.

Dream House (Part 1)

OK, Greg has set it up that I can write a blog entry from my cell! This is fantastic as I have NO idea how to use a computer. Greg has set my cell up that all I have to do is push 1 button and I get e-mail. Well enough of my illiteracy about computers.

I am also a bad speller and with homonyms out there spell check won't work for me! And guess what? I do not know how to use the spellcheck program anyway. SO if this is going to offend you please DO NOT read any further.

OK, this is how our dream house began.

When my youngest child Sheth was 3 months old we sold our house and my husbands business, and moved to the country. We had three young children: a 3 month old baby, Sheth, 3 year old girl, Hannah, and Caleb who was 5. We moved into the nicest run down cottage ever.

My Dad had bought land and put it in a family trust for us. After being there for about a year we moved onto the land in tents and started to build.

It was very exciting because it was so different to anything that we had ever done. It was also very hard as we had no money so Greg was seeing clients
700 km away from us. He would hitch hike which worried me!

We dug our foundations and collected mountain rock off different farms. This was free!

We paid a builder and got about a quarter of the building done. Then we had to start looking for doors and windows. This was fun as we got everything old and in good wood such as oregan pine.

The winter was harsh. It was -7 deg celsius, the frost was beautiful. It was black frost and killed most of our plants. Sheth was just over a year old now and he got Bacterial Pneumonia. We did not sleep for three nights, it was a very difficult time for us as a family.

Shortly after this we moved back to the Western Cape, but not to the suburbs. We moved to a quaint little town. That was four and a half years ago.

We have been building when we go on holiday to our small holding. This has been a long process as we live so far away.

In the mean time my dad has built his own house, and my sister has proceeded to have four more children, making it six in total.

This is the end of this entry. I will write next as I get time.

Greg painting

If you want to see the finished painting, go to greg.ashleycooper.net. Greg does commissions and sometime just paints what he likes to look at.

Red wine goes well with painting.
I can't seem to get him to wear a red beret (yet).

We enjoy baking!

Smarty biscuits
| 400g brown sugar | 225g soft butter
| 2 eggs | 15ml vanilla | 300g flour
| 250g oats | 5ml bicarb | 2ml salt
| 300g Smarties | 125g chopped peanuts

Preheat oven to 180C. Combine sugar, butter, eggs & vanilla. Beat until light & fluffy. Add remaining ingredients except Smarties & peanuts. Beat slowly till mixed well. Stir in Smarties and peanuts. Drop tablespoons of dough, 5cm apart onto greased baking sheet and bake for 13-16 min. until golden brown.

Boeterkoek
| 520g flour (or ground almond)
| 400g butter | 400g sugar

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix ingredients till smooth. Press into two greased sandwich tins. (Optional: Decorate edge of cake with whole almonds.) Bake for 30 min. Cool for 10 min. before removing from tins. Best eaten cool.

We also like to eat Caleb's taffy.

Hannukah in Philly

From early December:

We had so much fun with family and friends joining us almost every night.
Our best night was the last night when Grandpa from Twee Riviere arrived to stay for a few weeks.