Snakes, New Life on the farm and other stuff

Someone up there certainly likes to make my life interesting that's for sure. Damian's parents and sister came up to the farm for the weekend to see the property and for my birthday. Toni also turned up to surprise me on Saturday afternoon and stayed until Tuesday. I was having a real downer of a birthday missing the big kids until Toni turned up, it made my day immensely. I ended up having a lovely day. Damian and Toni bought me a really nice pair of western boots, they even have purple stitching!

Love them! So on Sunday we had just finished having breakfast, when out of the corner of our eye a snake was noticed slithering along the concrete in the shed. It was quite small and had a head similar to the red naped snake, but the underside of it's belly had the orange spots of a brown snake. Needless to say that snake was quickly relocated. Then a bit later on that day Damian was searching through a box of poly fittings so he could hook up the water trough, and nearly put his hand on a snake hiding at the bottom of the box, luckily this snake was not a dangerous one. Here we are trying to ascertain what we are dealing with.

We really wanted to try and identify what we were dealing with before calling a snake catcher. So we googled the snakes found around our area, and found that it was a brown tree snake.

We loaded it in to a bin with a lid with the help of a broom, and Damian took it down to the dam and put it up a tree down there.The 3 snakes we have seen in the last couple of weeks have all been down the end of the house where the snake detector seems to be a bit dodgy, so I think we will return it for a replacement. This morning I went out to check on the guinea fowl as she was due to have her babies, and I found 3 babies under her, and another 2 by lunchtime. I have relocated all the babies in to a brooder to look after them, as they will only get picked off by birds or snakes if I leave them out with the mum, and guinea fowls have a reputation as not being the best mothers.So far we have 4 cinnamon pied ones, and 1 lavender pied. I don't know where the cinnamon comes in as our adults are all pearl and lavender..I found 1 dead one under her this afternoon, it had managed to hatch, but either suffocated or was squashed by mum...I have heard 2 other eggs either cheeping or rustling, so we'll see if any more hatch over the next 24 hours.

They have all started eating and drinking, and all seem pretty healthy. These little ones will more than double the guinea fowl numbers after we lost 10 to the fox massacre last year, so hopefully it will start to build up stocks again, and hopefully lots of these are girls as we currently have 1 girl to 3 boys! Mum can have all her babies back in 6-8 weeks when they are big enough to look after themselves. I have started back at work this week after school went back, so I have been busy catching up there. Kasey is really happy with her class so far this year, and when we turned up to class on day 1, her friends had saved her a desk next to them, so she was pretty chuffed. Kasey has also asked to start earning pocket money, so I have done up a chore chart for her, and will laminate it and put it on the fridge, so she can tick off her jobs each day, and then re-use it over and over. She will earn $10 a week for completing all her jobs, and nothing if she misses jobs. This is the chart I made up for her, she has daily chores which are smaller ones, and a few larger weekly chores. We have decided to make it an all or nothing deal, otherwise she will just get slack and not want to stick to her deal, and in the real world once you start work, if you don't do your job, you don't have a job..and a good work ethic gets noticed these days.

I also received my dvd from the library that I booked, River Cottage Australia. I have watched a few of the episodes online, but this way Damian and I can sit down and watch the whole series.

I am possibly heading down to Brisbane this weekend to meet with the real estate agent to finalise renting the house out down there as the real estate market it still slow for our type of house. I am hoping to go to a basket making workshop while I am down there as that is something I have wanted to try for a few years now. And catch up with the kids and pop over to catch up with how much little Grace is growing. xx

Grace has arrived

Our grand daughter and first grandchild made her entrance in to the world on Thursday..Grace Michelle, born 16.1.2014 at 12.11pm, weighing 7lb8oz, 11 days early. She came by caesarian...this is the moment of her arrival, taken by a doctor in the delivery theatre. This was a lovely thing for the doctor to do, and he took lots and lots of photos of the birth, and of the first moments of the new Mum and Dad with their precious bundle, which I though was such a nice thought.

Mum and bub are both doing well, and Dad is extremely proud.

She is such a tiny little thing, she is in size 00000....and we are all absolutely smitten.

 Grace with Aunty Kasey, Grandad and Grandma xx

It's been a whirlwind few days, and a very exciting time, welcoming a gorgeous new baby to our family. I have started pinning some lovely projects to make at the sewing machine this year.

"Grace Michelle DOB 16 January, 2014"

 

A bit more craft studio progress

We moved the craft studio today to its' final position. It is now located up on top of the hill, with easy access to the shower and toilet up there, so it will be good for anyone staying in there in the sofa bed.  Once up there, I started on staining the benchtops. I decided on a walnut stain by British Paints.

 The end result, I am really happy with it.

The old cupboard has also been finished. It has come up beautifully, and the black fittings really finish it off beautifully.

I have also put in the first decor item....a lovely set of sewing machine bookends I received for Xmas from Ann....

I will set them up with my craft magazines once I start moving my craft supplies in there. Toni got a bit crafty up here today, helping to make some baskets out of boxes for the shelving units under the benches.

I'll post some pics once they're done. Toni heads home tomorrow, but we should catch up again soon once Michael and Kacey have their bub.

Craft studio progress

Well, after the last few months of establishing the business, Christmas etc, we have gotten back in to getting the craft studio finished off. The painting and floor has been done. So, on the weekend, we started the building of the benches.

We have also pulled out the sofa bed mechanism from a sofa bed I picked up for free last year, and we have built a box for it to go in to. I am going to upholster the box with textured fabric, and then cover the cushion and make it all look good. This way we will be able to use it as guest accomodation as well.

I also have a beautiful cupboard that I was given by Mum and Dad, and I am going to use that in the craft room, but it needed renovating. So I have started painting it.

 I have been painting the hinges and handles as well, in black, as they are all quite fancy and original.

I am hoping to finish putting it all back together today and move it in. So then we still need to stain the timber bench tops, install some shelving, then install the blind and  do the cladding on the outside to make it look nice, and I will be able to start moving things in and doing the decor...yay...can't wait. Toni has arrived up here to visit for a couple of days, so looking forward to spending some quality time with her while she is here.

Neatening up our bedroom at the farm, and a slippery visitor

Damian has been busy up at the farm on his own this weekend. He spent most of the day yesterday in the horrible heat of 44 deg outside in the bobcat removing the slurry from the bottom of the drying out dam. He estimates he has removed about 15 cubic metres of sludge so far, so that is about an extra 15000 litres of water that the dam will take once we finally start to get some rain. He spent today building our robe in our bedroom. We have had the materials sitting ready to go for a couple of months now, he just needed to find a spare few hours to put it all together. We have had the drawer units set up with a rail in between as a temporary measure since we have been there, but it always looked untidy just because clothes hanging can tend to look a bit messy. I am going to paint the doors in a white to match the bedroom, and then I will decorate the shelf above with some nic nacs to finish it all off. I look forward to seeing it in person when I get back from Brisbane.

Damian also had a slithery visitor on Friday. I am hoping it was just passing by...it was a pretty big one!

 

We have been fairly lucky since installing our snake repellers a couple of months ago, this is the first one we have seen since then. Nothing is ever 100% though, and the repellers are meant to deter the snakes from wanting to hang around, so I am hoping it was on its' way away from the repellers! Anyway, if we are going to have any I would prefer them to be black rather than brown, I would of course rather not have any...

Rocking chair makeover

Our first grandchild is due this month, and I bought Kacey a gliding rocking chair for her baby shower in November. The covers on it weren't really in keeping with her nursery theme, so I said I would recover it for her. This is how it looked originally.

We went to spotlight on New Years eve and purchased some fabric that she liked, so I could make up some new covers. I took the padded footstool off the stool, and recovered it as well. I love how it has come up, it looks brand new, and perfect for the nursery, and for Kacey to feed bub in, and it is sooo comfy.

I just took the original covers off, and then traced around them for the new ones, and bought some self covering buttons so I could replace the buttons as well. They have a bit of a jungle animal theme going on, with monkeys, elephants and giraffes, so the giraffe print will go well, and will suit either a boy or girl themed nursery, even though we know we are expecting a grand daughter. It was quite easy, and very quick to recover, and the end result has come up really nicely.