Xmas 2010

26.12.2010 Building News.
This is getting serious! Edd asked Doug to explain some of the engineering he could not understand. Doug came over but after a bit decided we had the wrong plans! Oh no. Where are the right ones? Who has what plans! It looks as if we have some basic work to do on the site before anyone does anything. This is too hard and we have not even started yet. Al and family are in the UK for Xmas with lots of snow and ice. I just hope the airports are back in action again when it is time for them to come home.

Other news

Xmas has been duly celebrated. Bo put on a fantastic family meal at her place and today Edd and Simon have gone with Dave P to the cricket. Bo and Josh worked at the restaurant and I have been caring for the green-eyed monsters. We went to the cinema and saw a cartoon, which appealed to them. This was a peaceful activity as the cinema was 90 percent empty. Unfortunately it did not last very long.

I have a good idea for the front fence of the old house site. I can use all the old balustrade iron between brick pillars and on top of anti rabbit height brick walls. If I go straight across parallel to the old chimney at the edge of the paved area I will gain two very useful garden areas for veggies. I am confident about building low brick walls but I need someone like Garry to do the pillars. At least all the materials will be recycled.

I do not feel at all confident about my ability to build a house but at least I can make an ordered area out of the old house site that produces food and make it into a nice place to be. I am horrified about how little I get done on a daily basis but when I ran the business before I had Tony to help me with the landscape and Merrie to help me with the inside looks. I could concentrate on the paper work and the animals. Now it is all my workload. Edd has been battling to replace all the missing fencing and shedding.

Bo has reclaimed the green eyed ones and I am now boiling up turkey bones to make stock and dog food. The vacuum cleaner has over heated trying to get the floor back in order so I am taking time out to write. Maybe it will be the last entry for the year. Somehow I have to get 2010 cleaned up and put away and plan a viable approach that will work for 2011. It might be possible. My target is Xmas 2011 in our new home. By then I hope all these worries I am going through will be resolved, the last of my kids will be finished with education and that I do not have to put up with water dripping down beside my bed when it rains.

Celebration time

15.12.2010 Building News.

Xmas is starting to take over. The weather is still unsettled and all we can do is check up that orders are in for the building materials we need to start and that the various tradesmen we need have agreed to approximate dates. The windows are being made and today’s job for Edd was to try and work out the steel reinforcing needed in the walls. Last week Edd completed the fencing around the building site so all stock are now excluded from that area.

Other news

We have now had our first party in the old house ruins. Lots of local friends came last Sunday and celebrated survival (fire, 40 years of marriage, and that sort of thing) with us. It was really special that so many people came, but we could easily have invited twice as many if we had included friends from further afield. What I loved was that the venue made it possible to invite all age groups and some of our friends had 4 generations represented!

David H did a fantastic job and some how juggled taking photos with running the BBQ. My market gazebos were needed as we had a few small showers but generally the weather was not too bad. Warm enough for some kids to have a swim but cool enough for comfort My newly made benches, brick pillars with railway sleeper tops, helped provide enough seating. As usual I could never have managed with out Bo who provided the bulk of the food and made memorable salads. Simon provided a keg of beer with a cooling system and x made a great cake tower. Everyone else added plates so there was a real feast.

We had a treasure hunt, a sack race and an egg and spoon race for the middle sized kids who were all full of go and there were lots of babies who all seemed to have incredible blue eyes. Must be something in the water! I had been hard at work cleaning and painting the toilet walls that were still black and sooty. I rigged up a few plants and a screen to make the entrance more private but then Dave P pointed out that the window with no curtain was much more of a problem. I had forgotten about that! A cheap shower curtain cut short, a stick off a tree and two cup hooks sorted that out.

I had asked Edd to organise somewhere to wash hands and he discovered that the underground pipe from the shed tank to the old house was still in tact. We rescued a sink from the rubbish heap and Edd plumbed up between a spout and the old pipe. I could see something was missing when he proudly showed me his work. There was a lovely new waterspout but no tap to turn it on with. He had forgotten that bit! We ended up with a drum of water balanced on the sink but some guests still tried to find the tap which gave those in the know a laugh.

This week we are tired but Edd has now put in a tap and David H and I planted zucchini seedlings. Josh has begun the long drive back from Perth and is now in the worry zone where there is no mobile phone contact. On Friday we drive Al and his family to the airport and they fly out to England. My family tell me the weather is grim over there but at least I have finished knitting the woolly jumpers.

parties and positives

7.12.2010 Building News.

The plumber may be able to start the under slab work before Xmas. Edd is spending every available minute on the fencing so the actual building site can be sheep free. The sheep are in an area with plenty of grass and shade areas but choose to spend most of the time sitting on the bare earth where we have dug out for the house and they have made an awful mess.

There is a different type of mess with the solar panel system we have installed for grid interactive power. We have been waiting for months to be connected to the grid and today we found out that the system was wrong for two-phase country supplies! The company who promised me that they had done loads of connections with no hold ups are now feeling fairly embarrassed. Why does everything have to be so hard? Perhaps I should have gone with the people Al recommended!

Other news
We are now sheltering in the donga because we have just been hit by a storm. The poor swallows had a dreadful time getting home, at one stage it looked as if they would not make it. They are raising a young family above our door. It is the second lot of youngsters in the nest this year but we have no way of telling if the same parents have had a second go or if they have let out their nest to others.

It is still warm, but most of this week it has been really hot. It was up to 40 degrees in the donga one day but we are coping better with the heat than the cold. Bo brought all her kids over for a swim last night to cool off after school. Her dog, Tommy, the golden retriever, also had a swim in the dogs’ pool and got very wet and muddy. He was in too bad a state to fit in Bo’s car so Edd had to drive him home on the back of his ute.

I love the summer. All the goats come in of an evening feeling relaxed and full of grass and we can milk them watching the stars and listening to music on the radio. When I feed the chooks each morning I have a second breakfast grazing on the raspberries in their run and can fill in with loquats and mulberries all warmed by the sun. The basil is growing well in the wicking bed above rabbit height. One of summers best treat and my idea of total bliss is fresh basil and garlic pesto., newly made goats cheese and special bread.

We are so proud of Josh who has coped with a year of challenges in Perth and passed his first year of Audiology. He plans to fulfil a life long dream and drive up North to see the stomolites in shark bay before heading home across the Nullarbor. He has practical experience to work at until mid December so he will not be home for the party we have planned for next weekend.

Edd and I have been married for 40 years so we felt a sort of survival party would be a good thing and a chance to thank all the friends and neighbours who have given us so much support since we were burnt out. It is difficult to plan a party in this uncertain weather with out the back up of a house. Yesterday I went shopping for solutions and ended up in the Ringwood shopping centre with a trolley laden with two market gazebos, 16 resin chairs and 21 plastic wine glasses. (Believe it or not this is possible)!

Getting through the shopping centre was challenging but getting to the car park was worse. My theory is that when one attempts visibly to do the impossible a good Samaritan usually arrives. This time my rescuer was an attractive young lady. Together we man handled the unwieldy load over roads and down slopes to the ute where she astounded me by effortlessly lifting the gazebos aboard. I commented on her fitness and asked if she did gym training. She explained she was in the army and the training helped. Good on the army. If it is manned by ladies like her the world will be a better place.

We have a lot to live up to in the party stakes. Last Friday Craig and family had a party before his parents returned to Perth. It was a perfect evening. The weather was just right and they had hired a jazz group who were fantastic. We all danced on their donga veranda and chatted away to other neighbours of all ages. It was very uniting. We are all stressed out after coping with two years of problems and getting together for fun was just the right thing we needed. There are lots of larger group activities but we all belong to this small sub area so it was personally relevant.

The two great David’s have worked miracles. Dave P has set up proper gates for the chooks and veggies so that I no longer get injured climbing over barriers and David H has cleaned out behind the veggie garden fence so that rabbit raiders have reduced. I am so lucky to still have this sort of support. Actually I feel very, very, lucky. Life is different but feels good.