Month: September 2018

G’day! Well… I hadn’t finished whinging about how sore I was from yesterdays efforts, when we put in quite the day in the garden today!
Cousin Jeff came over with his two bigger chainsaws and his skills and really helped us make enormous progress!

I did the spray painting – the aim there is to get a reasonable sized log for the fire – moved logs over to Jeff (Husband Jeff) and cleared up, chopped and burned lots of scraps.
Husband Jeff did a massive amount of wood splitting! Clearly he was getting in touch with his Canadian Lumberjack self.

By the end of the day we had unearthed the crushed raised bed

A couple of months back:

Check out the beautiful grain in this timber! Smells really good too!

Poor Gate! Still feel bad for Husband Jeff as he did such a wonderful job of installing it!

Cousin Jeff managed to get a lot further than we expected him to be able to, given the size of the lower part of the trunk. He has done a brilliant job!

Husband Jeff is aiming to split all these huge pieces before I get ‘ideas’ and start using words like ‘Garden Feature’ ‘Planters’ and ‘Rustic Seats’

I spent a lot of the day hand chopping branches and keeping the fire going. We burned a lot more today. Phew – didn’t I smell smokey by the days end!

Pretty proud of Husband Jeff – when he first moved to Australia he was definitely a City Boy

His beautiful smooth nurse hands have been somewhat ruined tho!

A lot of work right there!! (Remains to be seen if the Millars can walk tomorrow!! Haha)

A couple of months ago:

Such a tangled mess! Now at least we are seeing real progress and now that Cousin Jeff has made short work of the bigger pieces, we can make a lot more headway ourselves.

One issue we have to really attend to is the chooks!! The very second I had walked out of the veggie patch, they were right into that uncovered broken bed scratching it up!!
We had to make a new fence to a restricted area for them as its too easy for them to hop over the logs and out… either into my garden or up to the other side of the yard where we risk them getting onto the highway.
And our new girls are USELESS at going where you want them to go. The others follow or herd quite well. These ones are lunatics!

They are not pleased and are doing the Velociraptor thing and checking the boundary for weaknesses.
I did some very very dodgy work

Wings will need clipping and I will fix this travesty tomorrow.
Smarty pants brown chook got straight back into the veggie patch somehow!
I was just driving off to the supermarket and there she was, bold as brass, digging up one of the raised beds!!
Sigh.

I have started also raking up parts of the vegetable patch to pick up as much tree debris as possible before weeding and digging.

I might get a garden this season…

Well… its time for me to trot off (or perhaps hobble) to bed!
Hope everyone has had a wonderful day and has had to lift far less wood than me!
Cheers

Hello!
We had a couple of pressing tasks to work on today (besides all the dishes that had mounted up within 24 hours of my mother leaving! Seriously! How does that happen??)
Anyway, step one was to load up the car and trailer with the very full bins and recycling etc and do a tip run.
I don’t think its been quite three months since we went but extra visitors means a bit more in the rubbish department… especially over winter when there is less coming in from the garden.

Then we went and bought two crates of firewood.
We have gone through so much this season!! We started burning way early this year when summer came to an abrupt stop, and all the miserable rain meant we have been keeping it going during the day more too!

Hopefully that does us for this season… but I am not positive. If we get good days, then we will be outside working and no need for a cosy fire. Just the night fire.
Legs and arms feeling it tonight! Glad its done though. I feel better when I know its there.

New neighbours have acquired a poddy-calf.
He runs over for a scratch from his new best buddy, Jeff. He is a cute little fellow.
Haven’t spoken much to the new neighbours. Just really once a while back when they were about to settle. They are quite elderly (in their 80’s I would assume)
Quite something to take on nearly 2 acres at their time of life.
We do see family over there doing this and that to help out.

Spring flowers are popping up here and there.
Now that we have the pressing tasks of rubbish and firewood sorted I can concentrate on those raspberries and strawberries.
Bit by bit!!

Cheers

Plenty of rainbows today!
Tassie was doing its typical thing with the on and off rain all day!
Mum and Dad went out visiting, while Jeff and I did some basic domestics – folded and put away clothes. (Am I the only one allergic to this??) Anyway… it was getting silly since I couldn’t find clothing essentials, so I was forced into it.
Also ran about with the vacuum cleaner and other such boring things.
Then I made jam.

My youngest sister, Michelle and her family are involved in Dragon Boat racing and they are having a High Tea fund raiser. Sending these jars over for the scones!

Despite the rain, we decided to get outside and try to continue the raspberry patch. We cut and made up a few more pallets for the wall.

I had to relocate the little plum tree and we had to dig up a lot of canes to get as far as we did.

I’ll relocate the canes into the newly dug row as soon as I can.
I tell you what… that mud today!! Erk.
Sticky sticky sticky!! It was a horror job. The mud just stuck to the shovels and our boots. I think I was walking a couple of inches higher and each foot weighed a few kilos more each!!
The chooks were loving it!! They must have eaten a ton of worms this afternoon!

Thats my boots after ten minutes of being cleaned and scraped.

Snow peas peeking through!

I was working on the Cradle photos then one of our cousins dropped in this evening… so they are still a work in progress!
Hope your day is less muddy!
Cheers!

Hello!
How was your Sunday? Or are you just heading into your Sunday in another part of the world??
We went off to the markets this morning in Penguin. Always a good standby especially if the weather is a bit dodgy.
Jeff and I did a little Christmas shopping (Determined this year not to let the festive season slide by without noticing like the past couple of years haha)
This afternoon Mum and Dad came out into the back paddock with me.
Mum collected a bucket of daffies.

Dad helped me fill and haul three bags of pine cones back up to the house!

We walked down to the little creek just for a sticky-beak as my parents hadn’t been down there before.

I still have my eye on this beauty 🙂

I managed to collect some more eggs! We have so many eggs!! We’ve been selling them on and using lots. I am loving having my supply line back on track! I reckon Mum and Dad will take a few dozen home with them!

I put some of my collected snow pea seeds into the ground. I am using the raised bed where there is a climbing frame for them

Then I moved all those ridiculously heavy sods of grass that I dug out of the raspberry patch for the third and hopefully last time.
Jeff had the idea to put them around the man ferns where the soil and grass is a bit poor

I am sure after a while it will all grow in and look less patchworky.
(if it doesn’t die!!)

The cos lettuce seeds have started making an appearance!
The rocket is really looking good too!

After all that I stocked up on firewood for the back veranda, dropped into the supermarket, made dinner, baked a cake, put on bread to bake and got our gear together as tomorrows plan is a drive up to Cradle!

Ready for bed I reckon!
Cheers!

PS – Thank-you for all Ruby’s well wishes!! When I have a chance I will ring her so I can read out everyones messages from here and facebook! 🙂