2015....ok....I'm getting ready for you....slowly.

I have been away from the farm for 5 weeks and I have come home to an overgrown jungle. It's amazing how much the rain affects things, and how much better the landscape is once we get some. The property goes from depressing and dusty, to lush, green and full of life. The rain has been wonderful. The tanks are full, the dam is overflowing and  there is lots of grass in the paddocks and the cows are looking full and happy. LOTS of weeding to be done... This arrowroot plant has more than doubled in size in 5 weeks and is now over 2 metres tall!

 

Everything has grown so much, Damian got back to the farm 2 weeks earlier than me, and he came home to our small front yard looking like this:

My gardens are in there somewhere! He even resorted to bringing in the heavy artillery to bring the grass down to a mow-able level.

I have managed to make a small dent in the weeding, and the grass is back to being nice and mowed, now with the added benefit of being green and lush. The rain makes the weeds fairly easy to pull out as well, even though when I was weeding yesterday I got stung by a nasty wasp...nevermind, I am loving the rain! In the 2 years we have been here, the only good rain we have had was from the floods in Jan 2013, so to have had some regular rain, and to have our tanks full again has been fantastic.
While down in Brisbane, we made the house quite Christmassy and even put up a few outside lights this year!

It was  Grace's 1st birthday party on the weekend, this first year has gone so quickly. It was ridiculously hot, but Grace had a great day.

We did a visit to Lollipop Land at Old Petrie Town before coming home, I took Kasey and her best friend Bethany for a day out. It is about "Lollipop Land" a town of the North Pole where all of the lollies and sweet things are made for the world at Christmas time. It is only held for a few more days, so if you haven't had a chance, go and see the displays before they disappear, as they won't be back until the end of the year. The show is put on by doll maker Chris Boston, and visual display artist Jule, from Whimsical Imaginings.

So, now we're back at the farm and Kasey is back at school next week... Time to get back in to the swing of things and see what 2015 brings...

Tagging the cattle and improving the yards

We spent our weekend here out in the heat, doing some work outside. I am not a fan of summer, I would rather do things outside from autumn through to spring when it's cooler. Damian had to hire a dingo digger to do a plumbing job on Saturday, so we hired it for the weekend and did some things around here. He dug some trenches to bury the poly coming from the dam up to the top tank underground, he also ran a trench from the tanks to the chook pen so I have water there instead of lugging buckets of water over each day. We also dug LOTS of holes for future use, for planting trees etc or burying the odd chicken that dies. We dug holes down at the cattle yards for the corner and strainer posts to build our laneway in to our cattle yards. Most of our cattle will go in to the yards fairly easily with a molasses bribe, but we have a few that refuse so by having the laneway, we hope to be able to force them in a lot easier. We got 2 sections of fencing done, and just have one more run of about 50 metres to do to finish them off.
Our cattle are also being plagued by buffalo flies at the moment, and were due for worming again. A few came in to the yards while we were working down there, so I ran them through the crush and wormed and tagged them. I put hot pink ear tags in to identify them as ours easily from a distance, and I also put insecticidal ear tags in to treat them for flies. I put 4 girls through and the bull. We have 14 to go, so will try and do them one afternoon this week. It makes it so much easier by ear tagging them as I know which ones I have wormed and which ones I haven't. It was very hot, but we achieved a lot.

(Hertie Gertie, our mini hereford, after tagging)

We got just under 30mm of rain here last Thursday, so the cows should have a bit of green pick to eat now hopefully. They have all lost condition over the last few months of dry weather, and with the flies giving them a hard time, they were starting to struggle.
The rest of this week will be spent working on finishing off Christmas presents, and then we will head down to Brisbane on Sunday or Monday to spend some time down there and spend Christmas with family.

Christmas 2011

Well Christmas is done and dusted in our household for another year. It was a very rushed downhill run into Christmas, and I didn't manage to get everything finished that I would have liked to, but anyway, it all worked out well. Kasey was tapping me awake at 5.30 this morning, and she was happy to watch tv for a while until we got up about 6.30. It was actually funny, as we decided this year to give Kasey more worthwhile presents, instead of lots of little things that don't get used. So we had a word with Santa, and asked him to not give Kasey so much this year, and as I walked out this morning Kasey turned to me and motioned to the smaller pile of presents from Santa and said..."that's it...that's all I got..." with a very unimpressed look on her face...however, she was actually totally fine with it, and has received more than enough from both Santa, us, her brother and sister, and her aunts, uncles and grandparents, cousins etc, and has gone off to sleep tonight tired but happy, and not overwhelmed by too many things....which has been great, as she has been so easy to get along with today, unlike previous years where she has had a meltdown as the day has worn on.
Unfortunately, the day has not been all great, when we got home I went up to check the clucky hen, who had 1 baby chick 2 days ago, and still has 10 eggs under her to hatch, to find the baby chick gone....we don't know where it has ended up, but my thought is that a rat has taken it..we have a big rat plague problem here at the moment. We pulled up some metal sheets that were on the ground, and the dogs got about another six or so rats this afternoon, but there is still lots more up there to get.....I have managed to move the clucky hen this afternoon into the protected large cage which a rat would not hopefully be able to get in to, it only has spaces about 10mm wide, so I am hoping that will protect any new hatchings from them...I don't know if we are going to get anymore to hatch or not, as there has been no more since 2 days ago when they were due...we will see what happens over the next few days, but it's not looking really good at this point, and may have been a futile exercise both for the hen and for us. Disappointing....
Damian and Kasey are both asleep, and all presents have been put away, and the washing is on and the house is tidy, all rubbish from today has been boxed up ready to go to the tip, so I will be heading to bed soon. We need to pack tomorrow as we will be heading back up to the property on Tuesday for a week or so, hopefully there hasn't been too much rain up there at the moment, so we can get the gully in the access road fixed so that delivery trucks can get in and deliver the supplies for the septic to be installed.  Damian has built a fantastic little flatpacked bathroom which will have a flushing toilet and a shower etc, to make it much easier for when we stay for extended periods, or for when we have visitors to the property. We are really looking forward to it. Michael and Toni are staying behind, and will look after things here for us, and monitor any new babies that may be born up at the chookhouse and relocate them to the chicken tractor once it is safe to do so

Another Xmas t-shirt

This one is for Toni...she saw me making Kasey one and put in her request for one for herself. I have another t-shirt to do for myself as well, so all of us girls will be sort of matching on Xmas Day

I purchased this nifty little mannequin today from Overflow, I saw them there a few weeks back, and was tossing up whether or not to get one, but they come in so handy. It isn't an adjustable one, but it will allow me to get the idea on how something is going to look so I can bring all of the colours together nicely and be able to stand back and get a good look at the project I am working on. Kasey finished school for the year today, so sleep in tomorrow....yay....

Camembert, books and crafts

My camembert cheese from my course at the end of October is maturing quite nicely. It has grown all of it's white mould, so now I have cryovaced it and it is in the fridge waiting to be eaten as a Christmas treat.

 I have purchased myself a couple of books in the last couple of weeks. I saw this book today, and grabbed it. It is a huge book, a couple of inches thick, with so many old classic recipes in it.

  I picked up this book at Spotlight a couple of weeks back, it is a lovely book with lots of lovely sewing projects for the home, but all are with a modern look.

I knitted up this scarf as a gift for my heartsister in Melbourne, as well as this lovely heart sachet, which I thought was apt for my heartsister. The heartsister idea is through the Simple Savings website, and we send a gift or card or thought to someone anonomously each month or so, and we receive something from someone else, and at the end of 12 months, we all reveal who we are a heartsister to. It's a nice way to make some new friends, sort of like a penpal, but a little different.

I managed to finish off the Christmas shopping today, which is great because Kasey finishes school tomorrow, and I didn't want to be traipsing around the shops trying to think with Kasey in tow. So now we can concentrate on doing fun things in the lead up to Christmas, and go to the movies and other Christmas time activities.  So just need to finish the wrapping, and a few hand  made things, and that's it. The shops were so busy as well, people absolutely everywhere, and it's only going to get worse, so I m glad I don't have any more shopping to do, other than grocery shopping.

Christmas planning coming together....

Diesel is back home from the vet. He is fine apparently, his leg seems much better, so we just have to go through the long recovery process now. The Christmas tree was put up on the weekend, as well as the other decorations.

 I have been trying to find Kasey a nice Christmas t-shirt for weeks now, and haven't been able to find anything in her size, or the messages on them have not been appropriate for a 7 year old girl. So I bought just a plain t-shirt, and embroidered it myself. The only request from Kasey was that she wanted a reindeer, so I am happy with the end result.

Managed to get a little more Xmas shopping done yesterday, so I am getting pretty well organised now. I have quite a large project underway for Kasey for Christmas though, so hopefully I can get that finished...might be a few late nights spent on that one. I have to go now and make a phonecall, I ordered Mum a subscription of Handmade magazine for Christmas, with the first issue to start in January so I could include the voucher in her Xmas present...they sent her the first one yesterday!! Not Happy Jan!! Luckily it is only part of her present, but I really expressed to them that it HAD to start in January, and they said, yes, yes, no problems, definitely won't start until January.... ok...off to get started on my very busy day....

Weekend happenings

On my way back from up north last weekend, I picked up a large tray of mangoes from a street market stall. Today I thought I would use some of them up, rather than them going to waste. I am in the process of making mango icecream with the thermomix, but I forgot the cream, so we will make it for dessert tomorrow night instead, it only takes a couple of minutes. But I did get the mango chutney made. And it is extremely yummy, it is a thermomix recipe, and has a nice bit of spice to it to make it tasty, but not hot, and this mixed with the sweetness of the mango and raisins, is yum.

I played around about a bit with my scrapbook max software, to do up the label, as I might make some for Xmas presents. We do have another clucky hen, one of the black australorp girls is sitting, so I will get her some fertile eggs this week, and allow her to hatch some out. She is so funny, if I feel under her, or speak to her while she is sitting, she carries on like there is no tomorrow, cackles away and won't be quiet for at least 5 minutes....I purchased a new chicken feeder as Damian hasn't had time to make the necessary adjustments to the one he made, and we have so many rats taking the chookseed, so I have finally been able to put the lid to the fully closed position today, and they are working it out, with a couple of the girls very confident in using it, and they are teaching the other girls at the same time. We have managed to dispatch of a few rats this weekend, they were nesting above the nesting box at the chook pen, so Damian took the dogs down there, and promptly got rid of quite a few, the dogs are so quick, and the job is done in a matter of a second, much more humane than baiting them and them having a long, slow death. We have to get them all gone, as I have been stressing about snakes, and nearly stood on a huge snake this morning, I don't know if it was a black or a brown, it looked like a brown snake to me, but some of the black snakes can look brown as well....whatever it was I want it GONE.....snakes absolutely creep me out, I am terrified of them....it took off towards next door pretty quickly, and the neighbours aren't helping  by having grass 2 foot tall in their back yard, so I think we might have a word to them and ask them if they can keep the grass down, at least through summer when they are really moving about. So I will only be going down there with my gumboots on, and keeping a really good eye out from now on. We have seen more snakes here in the last 2 years, than we have seen in the previous 17 years here...ugh.....I shudder at the thought of them....Damian managed to get the skirting and arcitraves all done in the office today, and get it prepped for painting, so that will be next on the list. I have managed to get a few Christmas presents sorted over the last few days, so I am feeling much more organsied about that, even though I still have no idea what to get Damian, or Michael. Damian and I might even forego presents for each other this year, as we really don't need anything in particular...and we have a few other things happening during December and January which will more than make up for it. So, off to sewing class tomorrow to finish the project started last week, and to finish organising Toni's Xmas present. I have a busy week coming up, Diesel's surgery is Tuesday, I have a wedding on Thursday and the sewing club Xmas party on Friday night. After that, things should settle down though for the run in to Christmas, hopefully

We have mushrooms!!

My  first try at growing mushrooms is appearing to be successful so far. I soaked this log of shiitake mushroom spores a couple of weeks ago, and put it in the greenhouse where it will get regular mistings of water...and it is going great guns.Lots of yummy mushrooms coming along nicely. So I will need to make something yummy with these.

I still have to plant my field mushroom kit down the back in the shade, but need to build a fence to keep the chickens out of them. Still lots to do to keep me busy, I need to get a lot of seedlings up and running, plant a big crop of corn, and  get some sunflowers coming along (just because they're pretty)
Damian picked the pumpkins that had grown, we only got a few off the vine, they just didn't seem to do very well this year. I also have quite a few varieties of potatoes to plant, I have had them sitting ready to plant for weeks now, but haven't got to it. I still need to paint Kasey's bed and desk, and it is right in the middle of a very busy wedding season, so I have lots of weddings coming up over the next couple of months, as well as lots of preservations to finish off.  I also need to start to put some effort in to getting a little organised for Christmas...I haven't done anything really so far this year to prepare for that...but it will all come together, so I'm not going to get my knickers in a knot over it! If I don't get things handmade, then I will just head off to the shops...or the markets, or etsy or similar...anyway...I might try and get a batch of soy candles and a batch of soap made this afternoon, and head out to the vegie garden this afternoon to do a few plantings....we'll see how we go.

Today...

Just got home from going out to dinner at the Sports Club. We haven't been for a long, long time, and the food was really, really nice. I had a beautiful seafood laksa, absolutely yummy. We will definitely go again as the standard of food was great. We had a really quiet, lazy day today. I spent most of the day reading and catching up on blogs....I have started a new Christmas blog so I can keep track of that, as well as a birthday blog so I can keep track of those...it will allow me to put all of my ideas and lists in 1 place, with a current to do list etc etc...I have a couple of apps on my ipad for this, but find them too hard to navigate around, so the blogs will be much easier, and I have made them private blogs so only I can access them, so that family can't see what I'm doing and ruin the surprises! We have had the fire gently burning away all day, and I bought a new stovetop kettle a couple of days ago, which has taken up residence on top of the fireplace, so that we get free boiling water on hand for cuppa refills...it has so far saved us many, many electric kettle uses so it should pay for itself in no time at all (it was only $10 from KMart) I actually have a nice quiet start to the week this week, nothing too much in the diary at all...yay...I have a preservation coming in the morning, but that's about it until a wedding at the end of the week...this will be the quietest week in soooo long....absolutely lovely. Actually, I think Kasey has her sports day on Friday, so Friday morning will probably be at the school, but it's nice to sit in the sun and watch the kids on sports day, but I won't be able to stay all day as I will have the wedding to prep....so the house is lovely and quiet, Toni just went to bed, Kasey is in bed asleep and Damian is asleep on the lounge (how unusual!! not! )  so a bit more time doing some reading for me, then off to bed....oooh...nearly forgot to add...we've been getting a few eggs over the last week and a half or so, seems like just 1 of the girls is laying, but we have about 8-9 fresh eggs, so hopefully the others will start to come back on as well soon....they have been off the lay for months!

The firm favourite....and this weather!!

Out of all of the gifts Kasey received for Xmas, there are a couple of firm favourites....the green machine, a set of walkie talkies, and the swimming pool toys. This was the theme I was going with this year, activities and toys that gets Kasey outside, and can be used over and over again. So even though the weather hasn't been very favourable, she has been riding her machine around (and around and around) the verandahs, and been having great fun with the walkie talkies....she also received lots of crafty and scrapbooking things, and this has been getting lots of use also, and I have received lots of pictures and cards in the last couple of weeks from her new stash. She has also been getting lots of wear out of a couple of new items of clothing and some new togs.

I still ended up with sooo many things to try and incorporate in to Kasey's room, which is pretty normal with Christmas and kids...and I can't really go through and take out the things she no longer uses while she is on school holidays as she brings things back in as fast as I take them out!!  Kasey is a major hoarder....so her room will get sorted when she goes back to school, everything is tidy and put away for now...which is the main thing.   We have been having really heavy rain here again this morning, it was so dark when  I got up at 6, I could have easily rolled over and stayed snuggled under the blankets, but I have a courier coming this morning, so had to get up..typical though, last week when I didn't know they were coming they were here just after 7.30 and woke me up and got me out of bed, today when I got up early so I would be ready, they haven't turned up!! 

Everything is so wet again now, I think the grass is going to be a couple of feet tall by the time things dry out enough to get the mowing done....however, I don't mind....we have nothing to worry about here other than some long grass and having to wear gumboots in the yard, much better than having to wear gumboots in the house like our poor neighbours up north who are flooded are having to do. I look at pictures on the news where you can only see the roof of some houses....that would just be devastating, and the clean up would be horrendous, and some people are still waiting for the floods to hit, but at least they have had time to prepare and move their valuable posessions and their livestock, unlike the people up north. Mother Nature is sure reminding us right now that we are mere mortals, and she has complete control of things, and that we had better not forget it!

More water backed up after more heavy downpours today...

Fresh produce prices are going to hit the roof in the coming months, and things have been so wet in the gardens, that most of my produce has died so I basically have to start again, but it has been too wet to plant anything right now, as things are getting too wet and rotting and dying..I have stocked up on a few frozen vegies, and with bananas apparently going to hit record high prices, we will be sticking with the basic fruits for the next few months...my banana tree hasn't fruited yet...hopefully it isn't too far off now..

Xmas 2010

We had a lovely Xmas Day.  Kasey was awake a little after 5am....Mum was awake with Kasey at this point, I went in to wake up Toni at about 6am...I thought I would jump on her bed to wake her up....but tripped over her shoes on the way to her bed, landed on the corner of the bed and then bounced and landed on the floor on my arm and shoulder...very funny at the time, I did end up with a heat pack on my arm and shoulder all day on Boxing Day though.... we then spent the morning opening gifts and we had home made waffles and icecream and maple syrup for breakfast...it was the first time I had used the waffle maker so the first couple were a failure, but once I worked it out, it made some yummy fluffy waffles which were very well received.  After this we headed down to Damian's family for lunch, and came home about 6pm.  All of my hand made gifts were very well received, especially the chilli jam...We were all pretty worn out and spent Boxing Day just relaxing at home and having fun with our new gifts. We have spent the last few days just relaxing....watching a few movies and just being very lazy.  The weather has been pretty wet and horrible, so a good time to spend time inside and catching up on some rest. I have been making notes on the gifts I made this year, so I can organise next year as the year progresses....Xmas Day at home might be on the cards for next year I think....we'll see what pans out....Damian heads back to work tomorrow, so I will have to start making some plans for the rest of the school holidays....

Home made Christmas Gifts from the heart

I have finished all the wrapping and prepping, and now just waiting for Santa to come...

I have made up a few little gifts for a few people that I just wanted to give something small to..

Jams and Christmas cake in a gift box

Jam and soap gift box

A Secret Santa gift including a gift voucher, soaps, jams etc

Another secret santa gift including a cd, giftcard, wine, soaps and chilli jam

Boxed chiili jams

Boxed chilli jam and Onion Jam

A soap and chilli jam gift box

So, some nice gifts given from the heart, which won't cause clutter, and all handmade, other than the couple of gift cards and wine and cd in the secret santa gifts. The chilli jam was made from home grown chillies I have been growing and freezing throughout the year in preparation for making up a large batch for Christmas gifts. The christmas cakes I made in tuna cans to make up single serve cakes, and they are beautiful and moist this year, as I taste tested one today...yummy!!

So...Merry Christmas everyone...hope the day is a beautiful one....