4.10.2010
The sun is still shining and we are warm again. Al came over again on Sunday and helped us put up a cheap Bunnings structure so that we can have a picnic table under a shade cloth down in the ruins. We moved the BBQ into the old chimney and there we were, instant out door room. I am getting ready for some friends who are visiting from the UK soon and I am worried that they will find our demountable building too hot to get into.

India got the horses out again and she and Ti rode Waldamar bare back. We thought we had got enough horse tack assembled but apparently we still need girths before we can use the saddles. Edd brought new bits for the new bridles last week, but every time we try to do anything we find that we are still missing a vital ingredient.

I am still trying to get all the gear together to make cheese again. I am getting close but rebuying everything we need to get our life back on track takes time. Mostly I cannot even remember I ever had the stuff until I try to do something and find it is missing. It is the same with clothes. Once I had something suitable to wear for every occasion that cropped up. Now I have not even the space to put more than the most basic gear.

The garden has surprised me and come out with a splendid display of spring flowers. We have mown our patch of grass and cleared the weeds off the brick paths and it all looks amazing. Flynn tries very hard to help me and interprets weeding as a search for food. He eagerly digs where I dig and as that fails to yield edible results he digs harder and deeper. When all his efforts fail he decides to sit close by me in a nice soft plant and watch to try and find exactly what I am after. This does not exactly help with my garden efforts.

He tries so hard to help. At night he rolls the hay bales with me and pulls off the strings and he carefully fetches the tin mugs that we use to measure out oats, regardless of the fact that they were already in the right place in the buckets. I left him outside the vegetable garden today, which upset him. When at last I started to climb out over the sheet of corrugated iron that closes the door he wrapped his front legs round my leg and pulled to speed me out.

25.9.2010

At last! The sun is back, things are drying out and we have the new house plans in to get a building permit. Suddenly we all begin to feel optimistic again. The new puppy, Flynn, is fantastic. He follows me everywhere at my heel and has settled down to farm life with amazing cool. Janner is still young so the dogs often play together which is great. Bryn was so old when we got Tess that he never did more than tolerate her and certainly never let her share his bed.

I was totally impressed by Andrew’s book. He shames me with his honesty. Somehow I still find inhibited when it comes to describing my total reality. There is still so much I experience that even I don’t understand that it seems silly to expect anyone else to. After Edd left Yuendumu trouble sprang up, mostly to do with a pay back situation and it was on the main news. I am not surprised everyone is simmering with anger under the surface. The “intervention” Yuendumu people have been put through has been truly horrific and totally unjustified.