Category Archives: life on the farm

i’ve been busy, ok?

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I’ve been busy. So get off my case.
I haven’t had time to blog.
Usually I make time. I know. But this time I really over extended myself.
You know I believe I’m superwoman, right?
Well, turns out I’m not.
This month I bit off more than I could chew. I tried, but I had to spit something out. A few somethings in fact. Like blogging. And vacuuming.
Now that things have slowed down a bit, I thought I might take the time to catch up on a few things. 
Like blogging.
And vacuuming.
Really.
Even the dogs are ready to move out if the standard of living doesn’t pick up around here.
So, what have I been doing that’s kept me away from here and enabled me to build a close relationship with the dust bunnies under couch?
Well, I’m still working 5 days a week at the moment.
I’m still grooming one day a week. 
I entered an art competition, a salvaged art competition, committed myself to making some items for a shop, and started an art course one evening a week. I did 2 paintings, 3 salvaged art projects, 3 art projects for the course and am still making products for the shop…
No one does excess like I do.
The only things I’ve managed to do outside of the above are:
1. do the washing on a regular basis
2. do the dishes on a semi regular basis
3. clean the house once or twice
4. ride Cass a few times
5. sleep occasionally
5. discover I have osteoarthritis in my left thumb and a wrist injury in my right hand
6. put up the coat rack I brought home from my grandmother’s house on Paros.
This coat hanger now hangs outside our kitchen door in the mud room and holds scarves and beanies.
I love those little faces on the hooks.
On the arthritis and injury, its a horrible bummer. I need my hands for everything I do. (Like, doesn’t everyone?) But you know me! I’m always doing stuff, making things, painting…
I was very depressed for a few weeks.
For one thing, how long can I go on grooming dogs if I have a problem with my hands? I love grooming dogs. I love dogs! I hate the thought of letting my little friends down by  not being able to groom them any more. Plus, I was rather counting on doing more grooming and less work in a ‘real job’ in the future.
Now I have to rethink everything.
I’m feeling a bit better now, though still sore. I ate a lot of cake and chocolate. That helped.
As long as I can be creative I know I’ll find myself again and be happy.
z

today was a nice day

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Today was a nice day. 
It was sunny, not cold. No rain. No wind.
I had some dogs to groom in the morning but I was determined to get outside and spend some time with the horses.
Soon as I finished the last dog I took some brushes and a halter and went out and got Cass. We spent some time bonding over some intense back rubbing. I think she loved it more than I did… I was choking on horse hair.
I swear, I’ve never seen a horse shed as much as she does. The other day I was watching her in the paddock after we’d taken their rugs off so they could get some sun… Cass shook and a cloud of white hair rose around her, settling on the ground like snow.
Its still there now! After a whole week and many many inches of rain!
In fact when you walk around the paddock you’ll see spots… “This is where Cass rolled, this is where she shook”…
The view from Cass’ back.
I had to get Wayne’s help to saddle her up. I can’t do up a girth. I’m a weakling.
Then I had to use a milk crate to get on her.  My legs can’t get up high enough to put my foot in the stirrup… And my arms aren’t strong enough to lift my butt off the ground…
Let’s not go there.
After the ride. Sleepy Cass.
Wayne said he wasn’t going to ride. He was just going to hassle watch me ride Cass around the paddock. The aim of the exercise was to just get to know eachother. I haven’t ridden in YEARS. I need to build my confidence. And Cass thought she’d come here to retire. We brought her here, fed her and let her do her own thing for months, what’s a girl to think?
In the end, Wayne got jealous. He got out his gear and saddled up Wally, then we both ambled around the paddocks, letting the horses relax under saddle and with eachother and us on their backs. 
Basically it was a very relaxed hour.
I plan to make this a regular thing. Its a promise to myself. To start doing something we planned to do when we bought Wind Dancer Farm. We bought this particular property cause it has access to good riding areas both on our own property and beyond it. Yet we’ve been here for over 2 years and haven’t ridden together yet.
Now I have Cass, its time.
Meanwhile, its good to be home. Though I when I opened the shed last week to get something, this is what I was greeted by:
I hadn’t left it like that. Believe me.
The poodles were in there hunting a possum. Or two.
One of them didn’t make it apparently. I found a LOT of grey possum fur when pooperscooping the yard that first day… Wayne said he had to bury an ex-possum while I’d been away. The poodles went feral, wreaking destruction to get at the possums… 
You should see the new car’s fender…
I almost came back to ex-poodles.
I also found some red possum fur. That little guy did make it. Though he was stupid enough to come into the yard again. The other night he was frozen on top of the trellis while the dogs paced around below. The poodles were like “I know he’s around here somewhere but I just can’t see him…”
The possum was still as a statue thinking “If I don’t move maybe they won’t notice me.”
Poor little thing… He had quite a few bald spots. Luckily no injuries, just bald spots.
I got the dogs inside and he escaped… I hope he’s smart enough to find another hangout.
z

i can still do the splits!

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But not in any way that I’d like to repeat any time soon.
I came home from work yesterday and went about doing all those millions of little things you have to do when you live in the country and come home late. In the dark. And cold.
I brought in firewood. I lit the fire. I put on some washing. I groomed a dog.* I fed horses. I fed dogs. I put on some drying. I washed dishes. I folded towels drying in front of the fire and went to put them away.
I took one step into the bathroom with an armload of towels and went WHOOOAAAAAEEEEE!!!!!  SPLAT!
One leg out front, one out back, towels all over the place.
Wayne came running “What happened? Are you alright?…. Where are you?”
Down here. Wedged between the shower and the vanity. I couldn’t get up cause I couldn’t bring my legs together (not a problem I normally have). Wayne tried to help. By then the hysterical laughter didn’t help. He had to drag me out backwards on my butt before I could gather myself together sufficiently to get up.
How embarrassing.
I have bruises in places that never normally meet the hard ground.
Turns out I hadn’t turned off the HOT water tap properly in the morning and it dripped all day, flooding the bathroom floor. 
Good one Zef.
Eh. We need a new bathroom anyway. What kind of bathroom is it when you fall and get wedged between the shower and the vanity and there’s not enough room to get up?
Note to self: add ‘new bathroom’ to the To Do list.
You know, there really is no rest for the wicked… I must have been very naughty in a previous life. Really. I mean it just never ends. And I don’t even have children. Imagine if I did! Mom always warned me that one day I’d have children who’d give me as much trouble as I gave her. The Mother’s Curse. 
Well. I showed her. I didn’t have kids.
But maybe it still got me anyway, cause I sure as hell don’t have one of those easy, selfish, relaxed lives people with kids envy their childless friends for.
Today I thought I had it easy. No grooming appointments and I got home earlier than usual. It was actually light when I got home. So I fed the chickens and collected the eggs (why do we keep chickens… with feed it works out to about $5 an egg right now), pooperscooped the yard (it was time, having stepped in poop this morning), fed the horses, repotted some plants and put them on the porch cause the frost was killing them (to think I picked frost tolerant plants), fed the dogs, lit the fire, brought in more firewood. 
About 1.5 hours later I was able to sit down.
Ah. This is the life.
Surely he’ll drop something soon. He always does…
*Grooming appointments. I’m leaving on Sunday. For six weeks. About two months ago I sent out a newsletter to my customers letting them know I’d be away for six weeks and that they should book in early to get their dog groomed before I go. I’ve been flat out. Which is a good thing, I might add. Regulars as well as new customers. And in winter too when a lot of people tend to let the dog’s hair get long. 
But I’m tired. And I still have so much organising to do before I go. I need a rest. I promised myself I will NOT take any appointments for Saturday. Or Sunday. I won’t. I absolutely will not! Cause you know me… I just can’t say no! 
Besides, I have my own dogs to do on Saturday. I want to leave behind a clean house and clean dogs.
And try not to stress about what I’ll come home to…
z

the molasses fiasco of 2013

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While I remember, I thought I might share our misadventure with the new truck. You may remember we traded my poor tired little Lancer Wagon in for a newer dual cab ute with canopy a few weeks ago.
It was spotless. All shiny and clean.
Of course that was never going to last. We live up a dirt road and car washes and I have a natural aversion to eachother. However I blame Wayne for the following debacle.
Here are the facts:

We mix molasses into the horse feed cause we own pampered nags.

Molasses is sweet, thick and very sticky.

We were out of molasses and the horses were taking it as a personal insult to be given unflavoured feed.

I stopped in at the feed store after work and picked up a 25 kilo bucket of molasses.

I put it in the back of the ute with 2 bags of horse pellets.

I told Wayne.

Wayne fed the horses that night and the next morning.

I looked into the back of the ute before heading off to work, didn’t see the bucket and presumed he’d taken it out.

That was my first mistake.
I mean, he’d FED the horses. 
TWICE. 
There was a new bucket of molasses in the truck! I think I can be excused for presuming he’d removed the bucked to add molasses to their feed.
At the end of that day some poor guy chased us on the freeway, hooting his horn and waving madly about something leaking out the back of our car. I guess we were lucky it wasn’t the cops presuming it was blood from a badly wrapped body.
Can you guess?
Yep. 2/3rds of a bucket of molasses. All over the tray and horse feed bags.
And it was dark.
We got home, I got the high pressure water cleaner thingy, connected it to the hot tap and started blasting it out. Every now and then I’d stop and use a portable spotlight to check… ‘Yep, still got molasses in that corner’… ‘oh look, its on the ceiling!’… Needless to say we were both soaked with diluted molasses and the grass got a good long drink of it. Come spring we’ll know if its good fertilizer.
Even the horses were laughing at us. 
Or they would have been if they weren’t crying over the waste of so much molasses. If we’d allowed them to they’d have happily licked it clean for us.
Object lessons:
Never leave a bucket of molasses in the back without securing it. It might be sealed but it opens easily!
Never presume ANYTHING.
Well, at least you can’t say life’s boring round here!
z

the upcoming trip and my blog

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I thought I’d start preparing the blog for my upcoming trip to Greece. Things will be different for a while so I wanted to prepare you for the type of thing you can expect while I’m away.

For one thing you’ll see so many photos like this that you’ll want to strangle me slowly:
You’ll also see plenty like this:
You’ll see photos of scrumptious food, read to eat:
Or food not-quite so ready (note the good use of barbed wire!):
In other words, you’ll see the kind of holiday photos you’d expect to see from a trip to the Greek islands.
But, being me, you’ll also see photos like these – slightly different, interesting and offbeat – rejoicing in colour, texture and garden implements:
I love the old, the worn, the falling down. As much as I hate seeing old buildings deteriorating and falling apart, they make for such beautiful photos:
I love the crumbling stone buildings with their chipped and discoloured whitewash, the faded paint… and the new signs:
There will also be photos of cute, fun examples of DIY and re-purposing, like this old shutter menu board:
Or these gorgeous old metal windchimes:
 
And of course things like this cute little rocking horse outside a shop on the market street:
 
You’ve been warned. 
Did you know my blog started as a way to keep in touch with everyone when I went to Greece 3 years ago? It was about the holiday, my family, my memories and finding myself. Then the trip was over and I started a new phase in my life, moving to the farm with Wayne and the blog transformed into a diary of our lives on the farm and my growing obsession with DIY, craft and decorating.
In preparation for the trip I’ve changed my blog header… That’s an old door I photographed on my last trip. Love those old door latches, they are so Paros to me. I really must see if I can find some to bring back.
Man… I hope I find all kinds of goodies to bring back. 
I’m gonna need a bigger boat suitcase. 
This trip I’ll probably share photos and stories like I did last time, but I’ll also be keeping a keen eye out for the type of things I’ve come to love so much: chippy paint, old doors and windows, latches, locks and handles, old tools… 
And hopefully beg, borrow and steal buy as much stuff as I can carry justify afford to bring back.
So, are you with me? Are you up to meeting my wonderful, crazy, funny family? 
If you are, then stay tuned!
Only a couple more weeks before I go!
z

welcoming cas

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Meet Cas:
Remember I decided to sell Ben cause he needed an experienced rider willing to take him on and train him? He was unbroken to saddle when we got him and we were finding it too hard to get someone to bring him along for me. And even if we had, he really was too green for me.
I had to face my limitations.
Enter Cas.
Cas is a 16yr old champagne appaloosa few spot mare. She’s gorgeous and she’s mine.
Not too big at 15hh (compared to Ben’s 16.2hh – that’s a lotta hands when you’re falling off!). She’s nice and fat and round. I could ride her bareback and be comfy. She’s just what I need, a nice quiet, steady girl who will give me back my confidence and help me get my saddle bum back.
(Hey, if sailors can call them ‘sea legs’ surely I can call it ‘saddle bum’!)
 
Cas arrived yesterday and while Dancer and Wally ran around like idiots, she remained calm, collected and way more interested in the grass.
This afternoon we let them all out together and it was all good. Dancer has her nose out of joint a bit, she’s used to having Wally’s affections all to herself. Wally is thrilled. He knew we’d eventually come round to getting him a harem.
I love the name ‘Cas’. It reminds me of Castiel – aka Cas – on (you guessed it!) Supernatural.
Apparently when she was purchased as a youngster her call name was Nova. Her new owners didn’t think that was a good name so they renamed her Casanova, thus Cas.
I first thought Cassandra.
When I told mom, she said Cassiopeia.
Wayne said Casserole.
Guess which one will stick?
sigh…
z

rustic crate window boxes

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I thought I’d share something I did a few weeks ago now. I had meant to share it soon as I finished it but the weather got nasty, then I never seemed to remember to take photos while the sun was out, you know how it goes.
This morning while taking photos of the fallen tree I noticed the window boxes and remembered to photograph them.
When I saw these crates at the tip shop over summer I knew they’d be perfect for the driveway side of our house which is BORING. I wanted something to brighten it up and make the house look more welcoming. These boxes are outside the mudroom and toilet windows.
(Excuse the ugly pipe, it will be painted to match the house. Its where the sink went into the mud room.)
I just love these crates! I have temporarily put stuff in them, some plants really need to go into the ground, but for now they brighten up the place. I love seeing them as I approach the house.
Mainly I’m going to keep succulents in them. This spot gets late afternoon sun in summer and I don’t want plants to shrivel up and die. Though I think a couple of them are already showing frost damage.
And just cause I happened to take them, here’s a couple of panoramic photos of our place from up the top paddock. I had to stitch these together from a lot of separate photos and I have to include them very small but you get an idea of the land around our house. (You can see the fallen tree to the right.)
The casita is the one with the red roof, the house with the blue. The wonky little shed in the foreground is the woodshed. Not so pretty from this side. 🙂
z

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life in the windy lane

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We’ve had the worst winds for the last couple of days. Really really strong winds. Lucky for us, everything seemed to stay more or less where we put it. Aside from tarps, rubbish, the garage…

Ok, only joking. Though the poor chickens were pinned up against the fence for most of the day…

Alright. That was a joke too.

But the wind was strong. And this morning while we were out battling with a round bale of hay I spied a tree down in the top paddock.

At first I thought the tree had come down from the neighbour’s drive, down over our fence. Turns out we were lucky.

The good news: It was our tree. On our side of the fence. The fence wasn’t damaged. Neither was the water tank.

The bad news: It was our tree.

More good news: Plenty more firewood.


Notice the deep root system gum trees have. NOT.

A whooping tree came down and there’s barely a hole to show where it was.

The poodles enjoyed running around in the tree. Its not often they get to walk among branches.

And here’s a shot of Wally enjoying a munch on the new round bale.

A friend suggested that rather than just putting a round bale in the stable and letting the horses pull it apart and walk, pee and poop all over the hay, we should surround it with pallets and restrict how much the horses can pull apart at one time.

We’ll see how it works. The way our monsters eat it won’t be long before we need to lower the fences around the bale so they can reach the hay.

z

tackling the tack room

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Last weekend I tackled the tack room.
Actually I continued tackling the tack room – a job I started the weekend before. It was a mammoth task. Till now the tack had been scattered around the property: some in the small timber shed which we planned to use as the original tack room, some in the garage, some in the casita.
Every time we needed to do something with a horse it was like “Where’s the halter?” “You had it last. Where did you put it?” “Behind the door.” “What door?”…
This is what I’d like the tack room to look like:
Instead it looks like this:
Eh. We work with what we have.
(The saddles are covered to keep bird poop off them as well as to protect them from the sun streaming in through that window despite its liberal coating of grime. Yes, we have birds living in the casita. And mice, and rats. And a black possum named Siegfried.)
At this point I should explain. The casita is the original old cottage on our property. Not technically a shed, but a home in which a family once raised 14 children. When the original owners sold it, the new owners ‘built’ a new (relocated) house about 5.5 inches away on the other side of a tiny yard cause it made better sense than putting it further up the hill to have a view of the countryside and not of the old house…  But hey, its Tasmania.
Anyway, the council apparently said “sure, you can put another house there, but you have to make the old house unlivable”. So they did. They ripped out half the ceilings, removed some doors, exposed stud walls, then put in a fence, gate, sheep grid flooring in the big room, a stock ramp on the porch and made it into a shearing shed.
When we bought the place we replaced the sheep grid floor with flooring, which I sealed with white undercoat/sealer and never painted, and we’ve been using it for all kinds of things. There’s a toilet no one would want to use without a tetanus shot, a laundry, a chest freezer for dog food, the hydrobath and my grooming room, plus a musty dark room we avoid, a feed room for horse feed and the big room which used to be the shearing shed.
The right side of the big room is my workshop. I had to re-organise that side as part of my ‘tack room makeover’.
You can see Romeo keeping an eye on me over the gate into the big room as I shifted things around.
I’d been using the left side of the big room as a hold-all area for things I was going to get to one day. One corner was being used as the spray paint spot. Horse rugs would got tossed on the floor, feed buckets thrown into corners… It was ugly.
Last week I started by clearing it out and sweeping it clean. I think the feed room yielded a full bag of chaff from the floor… In order to clean and organise you first must make a bigger mess. That’s the law.
I started by sorting out the workshop area, took down the trestles and door I was using as a work bench which I never used as it was always covered in stuff, and moved the cabinets to different walls to allow access to the dividing fence rail. That rail is a built-in horse rug airer! I added a slat of timber between the posts to create a 2nd tier of hanging space.
I used the trestles to hold the two heaviest saddles (my stock saddle and Wayne’s western saddle). Then I used an old ladder and a post to hold a second hand hybrid Wintec and some very old saddles.
Another timber slat between the far posts holds the rack I bought to hold our bridles. That’s the only new thing in this makeover.
Another slat became a spot for girths and older tack, not so regularly used. Since I have no idea where the studs are behind the masonite wall I thought it’d be safer to put a slat of timber on the wall for my hooks. I used anything I could find as hooks. More photos of those later.
I had something which looks like the side of a playpen so I attached it to the dividing fence, its now another spot to hang a horse rug. We only have 2 horses right now but we have something like 6 rugs. They’re all in varying degrees of repair (or disrepair).
We’ll be buying new winter rugs for them soon, we try to recycle and re-use old rugs as much as we can. At least Wayne does. He’s the rug stitcher in this family.
Cas will be joining us soon, this weekend I hope, and I’ll finally be riding again.
Have I mentioned Cas? She’s an older girl, a 16 yr old appaloosa who I met a few weeks ago. She belonged to the family who bought Ben. We went down to meet her and Chester, I rode both and I decided I liked Cas best. I loved Chester. He’s such a gorgeous boy, but Cas was so comfortable to ride, sweet natured and, really, she’s what I need… an older,  sensible, quiet horse I can get my confidence back with.
I can’t wait!
z

a post about nothing

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This is a post about nothing much. Things have been going on as normal around here: busy and busier.

We get up at the crack of dawn every day (actually we get up before dawn these days as winter creeps in) and get home as the sun goes down most nights.

My office still looks like a team of burglars went through it. Even the dogs avoid it these days, no room for them to lie at my feet any more.

I do plan to tidy it up. I do. I have big plans for it. Once I list a million things I need to get rid of on ebay.

As part of the tidy up and organise project I got rid of an ugly set of plastic drawers I had and bought this groovy little cabinet from Shiploads (a cheap and cheaper store). Its only chipboard but its so darn cute. I can forgive it being a fake. I made little labels for the drawers and sorted things into them, like ‘pens’ and ‘more pens’ etc. I love my little cabinet.

Now to bring it out of hiding by actually getting rid of a ton of crap from in front of it.

We do have some huge news actually. I went shopping today. (Nothing new there) Only this time I bought a car.

Ok. I didn’t just go out and buy a car. Its something we’d planned to do over a year ago. The plan was: when I sell my house we’ll buy a new car. Of course, who can afford a new car? We sure can’t. At least not the kind we wanted. A dual cab ute (truck to my american friends), preferably with a canopy, diesel, 4×4, powerful enough to tow a horse float and carry wood from up the hill on our property.

I always do my research. We found that the Mazda and the Ford Ranger kept coming out at the top of the comparisons, too close to pick a winner between them.

I don’t know what the price of a new Mazda ute is, but the Ranger was somewhere in the vicinity of $45,000-$poop-your-pants range.

So we decided to do what any sensible person would do if they have a healthy respect for their hard earned money… we decided to buy 2nd hand. Something newer than my car and with considerably less klms (wouldn’t take much. I think my poor old car went around the world a couple of times according to the odometer reading).

We looked around. We compared what kind of prices we’d be looking at. We looked online. We looked locally.

Then on Thursday we went to a dealership in town which had 3 cars in the lot which fit our requirements. Two Mazda’s and one Ranger. We test drove them all. We took one home one night, one home the next night.

Freaked the dogs out no end, coming home in a different car every night.

We talked about it. We talked about it more. We weighed up klms vs year of manufacture. We compared the minute differences. We compared the added extras or lack of. We discussed practicality and our needs. We looked online some more.

Then we decided that everything aside, we could NOT live with a brown car. That narrowed it down to two, one Mazda and the Ranger. Same engine, different cars.

This morning we were no closer on making a decision than we had been on Thursday evening.

Basically the Ranger was cuter, sexier. I love the look of the Ranger. Its ME. Its a newer model but it has a lot more klms on it. And the seats are lushious. Its more expensive by a couple of thousand and it doesn’t have a canopy or a cover on the back, both would mean spending more money as we need at least a cover – we carry stuff in the back all the time. Moisture sensitive stuff like horse feed.

The Mazda is not so cute. Its the difference of a ute that looks like a ‘ute’ and one that looks like a truck. I’m all for the truck look. I like chunky. Big. High. Tough.

Nice.

But the Mazda had a canopy. It was cheaper. Older in years but less in klms. It has spotlights that can blind oncoming cars 5 towns away. Exactly what you need when to spot wildlife when driving at night. Its a smoother ride, quieter inside…

This morning I left home with Wayne’s blessing to pick the one I wanted. Either one would suit us. He’d be happy with either.

I had no idea when I got to the dealership. They offered me tea with ‘say yes’ juice in it they said. I was planning to say yes anyway, but not sure on which.

In the end practicality won over my heart. I love the Ranger, but the Mazda is what we need. I called Wayne and he was surprised. hehehe. I can still surprise him. 🙂

So, next week we do the paperwork and get a new/old car. Maybe not the sexy one I hoped for, but one which will suit our needs better right off the bat.

Gotta share this as I still laugh when I think about it. Both Wayne and I are clowns which may be why we get along so well. Well, most the of the time…

Anyway, whenever I answer any questions of the “I need to ask you some questions before we can sign you up to a 224 month contract on a new phone” or “I just need you to answer these questions before you apply for this job” type, I channel the Blues Brothers:

“Do you have any convictions?”

“Convictions? ………..ummmm………….. No.”

Wayne did way better than that.

When asked if he had any photo ID on him he asked, “Will the Wanted poster at the Post Office do?”

I’ll leave you with some gorgeous antique poodle photos I found.

z