Farm happenings...

Things are very wet around here again, had some heavy rain over the last few days, a little over 200ml, only a 1/4 of what we had a few weeks back, but everything was already so wet from that, that the ground is pretty soggy. The cows have been hanging around in the mud around the shed, I don't know why they find it so attractive, but apparently they do. I don't know how this one ended up covered in mud all over her face :S

 And this one decided I need an audience while making my breakfast.

Luckily we got a load of gravel in on Saturday and Damian spread it around where we park the car, so we can now get from the car to the verandah without sinking in a few inches of mud, it's the little things that can make such a difference. One more load of gravel should see the rest of the driveway done between the shed and the property entrance, and then we can start on the parts of the main track in from the main road that need redoing, the heavy rains have damaged it in places.
Kasey celebrated her 9th birthday last week, we relented and have bought her a little pup, a little Bichon Frise, we will pick him up next weekend when he is ready to leave his Mum.

 

I received my incubator in the post yesterday, so I set it up last night to let it run for 24 hours so I could get a bit of a handle on the settings and how it runs etc. I have loaded it up with 10 guinea fowl eggs this afternoon, they take 28 days to hatch, so I am going to put some fertile chicken eggs in there in 1 weeks time as they incubate on the same settings, which take 21 days, so hopefully they will all hatch around the same time. I am not sure if all of the guinea fowl eggs will hatch as some are over 7 days old as I only have 1 female laying eggs at the moment, and I have read that they are viable for up to 7 days, so I will see how they go, I have marked them all so will be able to tell which age ones have the best hatch rates. Apparently the best settings are 37.5 deg Celsius, and 65% humidity, and then on the final 3 days stop the egg turning and raise humidity to 80% so that the shells are soft enough for the chicks to be able to break through. This incubator is automatic, so it turns the eggs every 2 hours and sounds an alarm if the temps and humidity go out of range by too much. I am hoping to get at least a 50% hatch rate, I would be very happy with 80% but will see how we go.

I have been busy setting up my new website for my wedding flower business up here and getting things made and photos taken etc, so I am hoping that keeps me occupied as Damian is still away in Mackay and probably wont be back until after the weekend. :(  We went and bought the fencing for the house yard on Monday, so we plan to get the front sectioned off when he gets back , from the chooks, cows and horse, and then we can hopefully get some grass straight out the front of the shed which will be great for keeping the mud off the concrete and a couple of gardens in and I can get a few vegies planted here and there. I don't want to go overboard at this stage, just a few things growing while we plan a bigger edible forest garden based on observations of the land for the first 12 months.

A Family Visit

We had Damian's Mum and Dad and Sister come up to see the farm for the first time on the weekend. Toni caught a lift up with them as well, and Michael surprised us by turning up on Saturday afternoon as well, so we had a full house, which was lovely. We did a nice big roast beef on Saturday night, we were hoping to do it in the camp oven, but the coals took too long to heat up, so we did it in our benchtop oven instead but did the vegies in the camp oven. We went to the pub in town on Saturday for lunch, and then had a big cookup for breakfast Sunday morning, and a sausage sizzle for lunch before everyone headed off home or back to work. The weekend went so fast, but it was lovely catching up with everyone.

(The big and small kids having fun on the flying fox!)

 

 

 

 

(Damian doing some work on the driveway to make it less slippery in the wet)

 (Diesel waiting for Damian, striking his usual "Meerkat" pose)

 (John, Bev and Leanne)

 (John and Bev and Mitsy on the Quad)

(Michael, Toni, Kasey and I)

 (Michael, Toni and Kasey)

A rustic box

In keeping with my woodworking bug, I wanted to make a rustic box, initially to use as a centerpiece on the table, but have decided instead to use it on the kitchen windowsill to put sink things in. I just cut some timber with the drop saw, nailed it together, chipped bits off here and there and distressed it, painted it black then did a thin topcoat of white over the top. I might still add some letters or similar, but love the look.

 

 

More snakes and some furniture making...

Got back from dropping Kasey at school this morning, and found another snake on the verandah. This time a black one...just sitting there with its' head up looking over at where the dogs and chooks are. It took off fairly quickly, but it slithered up underneath the corrugated iron on the side wall of the shed... Damian is going to need to seal that off when he gets home, they can't go far, but I don't want them getting in there at all. They are quite noisy when slithering on the concrete, you can hear their skin skimming on the surface. I was much calmer with this one, because I saw it before I got to the concrete so I was able to stop a few metres away from it and watch what it did. I bet when Damian gets home we don't see any!
I decided to stay home yesterday and build the little table for the sofa. I saw the idea on Holly's blog for a "c" table, and totally loved it, and thought "I could make that"...so I did. Was only a couple of hours work including the painting and I L.O.V.E it....

 

 

I have washing to do today, our machine has been playing up since we moved, I think something has either broken or isn't sitting right after transporting it up here. It causes it to continually go off balance during the spin, annoying, but I am working around it. Then I might make some more stuff, got the wood working bug a little bit now....

Feeling better today...and snakes....

Feeling much better today....I have woken up with some energy and my legs are still quite sore, but better than yesterday that's for sure. This is the huge bruise on my leg from coming down hard on the saddle...plus I had inner muscle soreness as well...

I have been so tired the last few days, however, on reflection, I was given a big tin of yummy chocolates a few days back, and I have umm....indulged...just a bit. Forgetting of course just how tired chocolates makes me, I hit the sugar low BIG time....I only started to twig yesterday and refrained from eating them, and what do you know? I feel better all of a sudden, more energy and way less emotional...I had a brown snake on the front verandah last night, scared the begeezes out of me! Diesel was standing right next to it, luckily he came when I called him...and then it scooted under the BBQ. I spent the next 20 minutes standing on a chair in my gumboots on the verandah pushing and prodding and removing the cover of the BBQ with the broom to make sure it had gone...it was...Kasey thought that looked pretty funny...I was terrified....I am so scared of snakes....I need to do something to get over my fear, as I'm sure I will see plenty more. So, the house is clean, took me all of 20 minutes this morning to clean the bathroom, toilet, and vacuum and mop, there is definitely an advantage of a small house! Not sure if I will head in to Childers today or build a sofa table....decisions, decisions....

Relocating....the difficulties

The 2 biggest dilemmas I was facing personally when deciding to relocate to our country farm was changing Kasey's school and leaving my adult daughter. Kasey loves school, and I have been so worried that she would be overwhelmed by the whole process of changing school and find things really difficult. Kasey can be "clingy" at times, and I was not looking forward to the process of dropping her to her first day at her new school, fearing a tears session. School was cancelled here last week due to the floods, so her first day was yesterday. I have been as upbeat as I can about the whole process for her, and yesterday she was so excited about starting. Upon arriving at school we were shocked at how unchaotic the traffic was. The first day at her last school, in fact the first couple of months is pretty chaotic and there is usually traffic everywhere. But yesterday, we easily found a park, and casually wandered through the gates and quickly found her class room. This is the first time she has had a male teacher, he was very organised and directed Kasey to her desk for her to unpack her books along with the other students who were there as well. I said to Kasey, do you want me to leave you to get on with things, and she looked up at me with a HUGE grin and said Yes Please! and with that she waved goodbye. I met her in the afternoon at the gate, and she came running out again with a huge grin, and told me she LOVED her day, loved the school and that it is MUCH better than her last school, the playground is better, less kids is better, and she wished she had started last year! Phew....all that worry for nothing.

My 2nd dilemma is not proving so easy, I do miss Toni...I am better than I thought I would be though...and today I am feeling tired, sore and a bit emotional which is probably not helping. I rode my horse the other day for the first time since being up here at the property, I was taking him for a bit of a canter and the dogs aren't used to him either, and they rushed at his back legs which made him prop and buck at the same time...wasn't expecting it, but did manage to stay on....just....but landed heavily down on the saddle and also from not riding for a long time, my upper legs are sooo sore.....but I will pick myself up soon hopefully, ..I still don't have a lot of my possessions up here, all my sewing stuff and scrapping stuff is still down at the other house, as I don't have the room here yet to set up, so I am torn between the 2 homes right now....we are heading down this weekend for an engagement party so will pick up some more of our belongings, so hopefully I will start to feel more at "home" then. :) I have book work to do....blah....wonder how much longer I can put that off for :)

Make it Possible - Imagine a world without factory farming

Make it Possible - Imagine a world without factory farming

I'm a huge sook when it comes to watching anything bad towards animals, but I managed to watch this, EVERYONE needs to watch this....and make informed choices about what we buy and how animals are treated.
Please click on the first line of this text, which is the link, then click watch the film...

That's a BIG chook!!

Yes, the cow IS in the chook pen!! Animals, geez they make you smile :)