We promised that we'd be back with big news! At the beginning of June, the team at Baluchon, the makers of our Tiny House, told us that they'd started working on the Tiny House. They shared some pictures with us but of course we had to go visit it ourselves to see it in person. With a mixture of excitement and nervousness, we arrived at the workshop where it's being made. It's amazing to see the transformation of the plans into reality. It seems really big for a Tiny House and we're in awe of how quickly it's come together as well as how amazing it looks. We've already visited three times now! There's loads of pics below, so you can see how quickly it's progressed in such a small amount of time.
It's so close to being ready and during our last visit we agreed on a delivery date and we can now announce that our Tiny House will arrive at Le Boulay on the 5th of August!
Each Tiny House is unique and is given it's own name. We've decided on ours so we can also reveal that the name we've chosen is: La Tiny Kiwi!
At Le Boulay, we've been preparing for the arrival of La Tiny Kiwi and there's certainly a lot to do. I've spent a lot of time creating our new website which I'm proud to say is now live! We'll keep this article short so you can spend some time looking around the new site and we'd greatly appreciate any feedback you have on how we can improve it or if you thing anything is missing or unclear.
We've also been busy digging holes and making new ways to capture water. Jean-Guy (Magali's dad) helped us to install a pipe that goes from the downpipe at the back of the house to go into the old septic tank. He then added a pump so we can use the water in the garden. It was quite a bit of work but it's a great way to utilise and store the rainwater just by reusing what we have available. And the septic tank holds 6000 litres, so it'll definitely come in handy during the drier months.
We also added another old bathtub, this time to the Squirrel garden so there's a place for birds to drink as well as making it easier to water the vegetables if they need it from a shorter distance. No more carrying buckets in each hand for 200m!
Jean-Guy has also been spending long days working on our electricity in the garage that will allow us to connect La Tiny Kiwi to the network. Even the water network needs to be extended so he's working on that too. He's also looking for the leak in the pipe from the well that we've connected to the house for the dishwasher and washing machine. We hope that it's easy to find and fix as well since it will save us a lot of water and we don't want to dig up all of the soil to find it!
It's difficult for us to help him with everything as it's really technical and my French doesn't stretch that far. Plus I'm working full time and then after work I've been spending all my time on the website as well as reworking our logo with the help of our friend Dade, thanks Dade!!!
Magali was able to restart her Accueil Paysan training, and she's started working again at La Verrière at lunchtimes. She's also been busy the last few weeks with her role at the municipal council as the new counsel has finally taken over. She's gotten her official papers and from the 30th of July, Magali will officially be a farmer! Well, a maraichère, but I don't know how to translate that as the literal translation is Market Gardener but she won't be selling at a market so it doesn't quite fit. She's spent a lot of time researching, doing paperwork and on the phone as well to prepare for everything. She's even found the time to try hypnotherapy to help with her phobia of insects, which isn't the best phobia a farmer can have. She's definitely made improvements and isn't as jumpy but she'll probably go for another session or two for it really to take effect.
We've spent a lot of time looking after our cat who had to have an operation thanks to an infection. He had to wear a cone for 10 days and wasn't allowed to go outside which was very hard for all of us. It was very funny at times (like when he could only walk backwards and reversed into the other cat) but mostly heartbreaking. Thankfully, he's much better and back to his old self (I do miss how affectionate he was when he had the cone on though).
So we've been busy and we're super excited that our beautiful project will finally see the light of day!
Now we're into summer, all the vegetables and flowers are growing well but we're a bit impatient to be able to eat our harvest after waiting so long!
Other than that (and working as usual), we've been readying ourselves for the Tiny House, buying the supplies we need, like sheets and towels. We've also been timing ourselves to see how long it takes to put on a duvet cover, just in case we're really in a rush one day. Takes me one minute 45 seconds, in case you're interested...
Next time you'll read our blog, we'll have a Tiny House!!! How exciting is that?! After years of dreaming, planning and waiting, it's really happening. We really can't wait!