A handmade gift

Toni turned 21 on Monday. We have this fabulous photo of her standing on the ledge of a mountain, which I thought would be inspirational for her to have as a print with a meaningful quote on it. So, Damian cut and sanded down a piece of Oregon we had here, and then I set about transferring the image to it. It has turned out really well, and Toni really loved it.

While at the time I was really cranky at her when she showed me this photo, as I was terrified that she had stood out on this ledge so high up, it has created an awesome photo for her to take through her life with her.
Happy 21st beautiful lady xx

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 growing family...

We have recently found out some wonderful news...our son and his partner are expecting their first child...a little over 12 weeks along now.

Bub is due 29th January. Very exciting. I still think I am too young to be a grandparent ;) Congratulations you 2, we are very happy for you both and can't wait to meet our first grandchild xx

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)

It's been a bit busy....and a celebration cake...

Wow....it's been so busy...ridiculously busy actually. Have had lots going on the last few weeks. Got back from our cruise a week ago, and have had Michael's 21st birthday party at home the next day, have also had Damian's mum's 75th birthday the weekend just gone, as well as our niece's 18th birthday, and did the flowers for 3 weddings on the weekend as well, oh, and Fathers Day yesterday! Today, I have decided to take the day off. Damian and Michael will be away for the week at work, so just the 3 of us left here at home, so some peace and quiet. Today I have had too many cups of tea to count, and I have been lazing about on the lounge catching up on computer land...this is the first lazy day I have had in...I don't remember, I have still done the washing and cleaned the bathrooms, but that has been in between being lazy...during all of the chaos and busyness of last week, I spent a couple of nights doing a celebration cake for Damian's mum's birthday.  It is certainly very bright and colourful, but I figured it's a celebration cake, it needs to be colourful! It has given me lots of experience now in the fundamentals of putting a 2 tiered cake together, and I got the cake thickness much better for this cake, than I did for my first cake.  It also gave me some more experience in the decoration side of things, so I am gradually getting a bit more confidence with this cake decorating thing.

What a day

Got up at 5.30 this morning to drive Michael to work, had to get Kasey up early and then have breakfast at Maccas while we waited for him to finish his job...then drove him home, just about cleaned up a car on the way home who pulled out straight in front of us, had to lock Damian's ute up to avoid it, they would have been way worse off than us, small car vs Landcruiser with a bullbar, not a good outcome there, then dropped Kasey off to school, only to have her having a meltdown because she forgot her show and tell because we left so early...then got home and had to pull out all of the furniture in Michael and Toni's room for the carpet layer, discovered after he left that he has gotten carpet glue on our new wardrobe sliding door tracks.... went to do some washing, Michael was using the machine, spent all day doing an embroidery for a friend who's sister just had a baby.....has taken me ALL day....the machine was not coping at all well doing small letters on fleece....was getting very close to throwing something...grrrr, not to mention the house was like a bomb had gone off with the contents of two bedrooms in the hallway, laundry and loungeroom, which makes me feel even more disorganised. It has also been a bit pointless trying to keep everything tidy at the moment with renovations, so my daily routines have not been happening, and all I seem to do is constantly pick up after everyone anyway, I tidy up and they mess up....Toni borrowed my lovely new black cowl that I purchased after I was wanting one for ages....now she has lost it! Just logged on to facebook on my laptop....was looking at strange faces until I realised I was logged in to Toni's account....my laptop...her account...how does that work when she has her own laptop??? Then cooking dinner while 2 other adults in the house wait for dinner...hellooooo....you could help or heaven forbid actually cook a meal every now and then...  Honestly....sometimes it feels like I have just disappeared in to the background and no longer exist, I am not just Mum you know....I really, really need a holiday....and people wonder why I get stressed so "easily"..was there something in the air today?? Nothing seemed to just flow....anyway....got that off my chest now, sitting down with a Tia Maria for a nightcap....(or two) then off to bed, to put today behind me....

Permaculture course day 1...and some lemons!

Yesterday was the first day of my permaculture design certificate course.  I arrived late...not a good start...I allowed an hour and a 1/4 to make a 40-45 minute trip to allow for traffic...WRONG....it took me about an hour and a half....geez....what's with the traffic! Anyway, I only really missed the intro...but ended up making a grand entrance instead of quietly sitting at my desk waiting for the course to start.  The farm has only the very basics in the way of utilities, so I will know for next week to take a lunch that doesn't need heating, and an esky with ice so I can take my own milk, teabags etc for a nice cuppa during the day. It's definitely an urban hippy existence there, does take a little bit to get used to. Day 1 was a basic introduction to the 3 principles and 12 elements relating to permaculture. There was a bit of roleplay (very embarrasing, but a way for everyone to get to know each other a little) and farm tour.  There was also a food presentation on Bunya nuts, the nuts boiled weren't really my thing, but the bunya nut pesto on the fruit loaf was quite nice, but I think that's because the fruit loaf masked some of the bunya nut flavour. We were also given our plant allocation that we each need to do a food presentation on during the course. I lucked out with passionfruit, and I have some growing here, so I get to make some yummy sweet treats for my presentation. Need to do the research between now and the next fortnight, so I can hand out the information sheet during the presentation. I was pretty bushed (and cranky) when I got home, as I spent another hour and a helf in the traffic, and was still quite tired today. This afternoon I planted out the comfrey in the garden, and as I was wandering around the garden, I thought I would check out the lazy lemon tree, and was delighted to see 5 lovely lemons at quite a good size, and a couple more babies coming along. This is the lemon trees first fruiting, so quite exciting.

I gave the bush a drink of seaweed solution this afternoon, and weeded around the base, and removed the big hungry catepillar on one of the leaves and gave it to the chooks, they don't seem very interested in it though!  I purchased a lots a lemons tree about a month back as this lemon tree didn't seem to be making any progress, it must have scared it in to giving up some lemons. So, tomorrow is Kasey's 7th birthday, so I have a couple of wedding quotes to go and do in the morning, and Toni is going to take Kasey out for the morning to the park or maybe to the beach for an icecream. We'll do presents in the morning, and then a family BBQ in the afternoon. She has a little friend coming to play early in the afternoon, and they always play so well together. So..I'm off to bed, I am pretty tired, so I think I will sleep well. Next week I need to put some serious effort in to expanding my home routines app, I have the rotational house work and daily am and pm routines pretty much sorted at the moment, but I need to now start to allocate days to certain tasks and also some self improvement time (think...exercise...blaghhh) and need to start making set times for sewing and craft, gardening, mowing etc...I want to try and work them in to my routine so I have set days for these things as a rough promptor to each day for me. I have a bit of time in between quotes in the morning, so I may visit Gloria Jeans, and pop myself, my laptop and my ipad in the corner for a couple of hours and try and sort all that out...we'll see how I go....

Our day at the zoo......

We ended up having nice enough weather to go to the zoo today.  It was looking very "iffy" this morning, but Kasey was really looking forward to going, so we risked it and it ended up being a good day. 

This peacock put on a lovely display for us when we got there...he waited until I took the photo, and then retracted his feathers....very thoughtful...thankyou Mr Peacock!

Toni...you are always so bright and bubbly, and we love that about you....

 I patted the Alpacas...this one spat on my hand....eeewwww...it stank...their spit smells like it comes from the other end, not out of their mouth....

Kasey was mesmerised by the baby chickens 

Toni "drinking" from the fountain...a trick of the eye... 

Patting the wallabies

And feeding the deer's

 Awww...cuddling a koala...

 This cow was hilarious, it was chasing everyone around wanting their food, and ended up stealing Kasey's bag of food...bag and all, and promptly swallowed it before anyone knew anything about it....lucky it's a paper bag....!!!

Kasey and Hannah feeding and patting the kangaroos

We invited one of Kasey's oldest friend's along as well, they have been friends since toddlers at daycare. We came back here for a swim after the zoo as it was quite hot, and Hannah didn't end up going home until about 8.30 tonight, so they should both sleep well tonight, come to think of...so should I !!!

Organising the organisation manual....

I have today started to fill out my home organisation manual that I was sent by a fellow ss member. It is very comprehensive...so far I have printed out an a4 calendar showing school terms, pupil free days and public holidays for the year. This is page one of the manual. I have also noted down in the appliance section details of the fridge so I could make a note of the part number for the water filter for the fridge, so I can thrown the old one out that has been sitting on my sink for nearly a week. Now I will be able to order the correct cartridge number when required. I have also started to list the details of the cards in my wallet in the cards list. Hopefully, between this, and the flylady control journal which I hope to start putting together over the next few days some time, will ensure that things really start to get sorted, and I can get over the Non routine part and start to actually flow from one day to the next without being a bit aimless. It's a start, which is the main thing. Depending on the weather tomorrow, we will be going to the zoo for the day. They have lovely park grounds where you can sit and have a picnic lunch, or cook a BBQ. I have invited one of Kasey's friends to come with us for the day, so if the day isn't good for going out, they should have a fun day together playing here. Anyway...bed time I think...

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....