Category Archives: life on the farm

smokin’ hot

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This was the view from our front porch 2 nights ago. The bushfire started at Lake Repulse by idiot campers who didn’t put out a campfire (great name for a holiday destination huh? “Hey honey, lets go to Lake Repulse for a weekend getaway”….) spread down towards Ellendale and all the way down to Bushy Park. 
Fortunately for me, Fentonbury was spared although the fire went within 1 kilometre of the house.
The smoke has been hanging around the entire Derwent Valley and Hobart for days now, but we’ve been lucky. Nothing like what happened with the fires down south where a whole town burned down and thousands of people had to be evacuated by boat cause the roads were all closed. People had to stand in the sea to escape the flames which burned right down to the beach.
Its wierd. Here I am watching the news, seeing images of the fires and thinking “that doesn’t look that bad, they’re just small fires”… nothing like the huge fireballs in Victoria a few years ago which burned out King Lake and killed so many people. Compared to those fires, these were piddling little fires.
Seems the size of the fire doesn’t have to be so BIG to do a ton of damage…
We’ve been fine here but it really does make you realise that there are certain things you should have when you choose to live in the country. For instance, on Wind Dancer Farm we have bore water so we have ample water to defend our house and our animals. But without power we’d be lost like everyone else. We really need to buy a generator to run the pump. Cause if there was a fire in our valley we’d have to give serious consideration to what we’d choose to do… if a fire was coming down the hill behind us and our road out was clear, we could just leave. We could take the dogs, but what about the horses?
If a fire was coming up from below us and closed off the road, we’d have no choice but to stay and fight. And to do that we’d need the pump to work.
Since we have pasture around the house and very few trees we think we could easily fight a fire around the house using our irrigation system.
We just need a generator.
Shopping list: 
1 petrol generator.
z

junk finds

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Over the last few months I’ve quietly been adding to my collection of junk. I’ve been so busy, however, that I didn’t have time to actually sort through it, photograph it or decide what to work on or how.
The other day, being on holidays and all that, I finally got the chance to go through my booty and take photos which I thought I’d share.
The one downside is that I bought a milk bottle carrier from the tip shop and I can’t find it anywhere. I know I bought it. I remember it clearly. I was thrilled to find it cause I was picturing it on the table as a centrepiece, jam jars where the milk bottles would be, holding cutlery, napkins and lavender… or holding my blue sea glass bottles with flowers…
But its nowhere to be found. And I’ve searched repeatedly.
I’m holding out hope… barely. Maybe its somewhere under something, behind something in the shed…
Fingers crossed.
So, meanwhile, let me share these finds with you.
A very large wooden bowl, one of the wooden bowls I’ve added to my project list. This would look great painted and holding fruit on my table…
An interesting brass trivet. One of a few…
I got tons of frames of various sizes. I just adore the print in this one.
And I love the vintage photo in this one. I think I’m keeping her. I can pretend she’s my mother as a little girl… She looks like my mother might have looked. Heck… she looks like me so she must be related!
I got tons of old books. Love this little booklet. Oh so many things I could do with this…

And this tin lid. No tin, just the lid, but how gorgeous is this?
A sample of the tons of miscellaneous junk I’ve added to my collection… I love my junk. Things to hang off my dangles… and the tape measure! They are so hard to get at a decent price around here.
I love old tools and old bits and pieces…. that old level is just gorgeous. That makes 2 old levels now. One will go in my vintage tool display, the other I have big plans for.
I see another hand sander dangle in my future… and more egg cup bird cages. I now have a substantial collection of both dangle and birdcage materials. I just need to get working.
Now how could I leave this pretty little doorstop piggy behind?
More rusty bits. I love rusty bits. No idea what they are, but I know what I’ll use them for and that’s what counts.
I have one word for this little silver dish: birdcage!
And I see an extra large wind chime in the future for this:
Wayne got me some of these things (the man may complain about my junk collection, but he knows me well!). He got me this little spice rack too. Now I know I can use this for something other than spices… not sure what, but it will come to me.
Love old tins. This still has the protractor in it.
A french book and an old tray. Just one of the trays I got. And just one of the many vintage books I got.
This was a gift from a friend – an old rake head. Love it.
If you think about it, I must be so easy (and cheap) to buy gifts for. Old, chippy and rusty will do it every time.
Like this tiny little wood plane – it doesn’t work but who cares?
I plan to use a lot of the old tools to make another display to match my old shears display. I have two more shallow crates and it wont take me long to put them together. I think they’d look great in the mud room or on the deck with some hooks to hang often-used working tools. 
I just have to get organised.
Organised.
Easy to say. Not so easy to do!

With the heat lately I’ve been too wiped out to even sit in the living room in front of a fan and create. I do not cope well with the heat. I managed to strain my arm doing the tiny bit of gardening I did so even hand sewing was out of the question on the hot days.

When its not too hot I have plans on jobs to do outside that I have so far successfully managed to avoid.

For instance I’ve been talking about removing the bird nests from around the house so I can start washing/painting the house and porch railing… Yesterday while ‘researching’ and ‘planning’ I noticed a dead bird’s head hanging out of the roof. Great. Better get that out today before it stinks up the office…

 
Better go. Its still coolish outside. Maybe I should go look over what I could be doing. Then figure out a way to avoid it.

z

i killed santa

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I haven’t blogged for days. I’ve been lazy. And busy in other ways. I did a bit of gardening work. And I mean a BIT. While mowing I killed Santa. He was a toy the dogs have had for a few years now, he was lying on the grass… I did try to mow past him but he got sucked into the mower blades and was dismembered. There were Santa guts everywhere. The dogs are in mourning.
I’ve also had a lot to think about… about myself, new year’s resolutions, where I am in my life and what I want from my life. I’ll have some more to say on that later at some stage. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. For now I just wanted to touch base and let everyone know we’re ok.
There are fires burning around Tasmania with the strong winds and extreme heat, but we are safe.
Its been really hot.
 
Too hot to blog.
But then again, its too hot to do anything and at least the amount of energy expended typing is less than that expended doing anything else.
I’m sitting here on a recliner, two fans and an evaporative cooler working overtime to keep the living room bareable. Occasionally dripping water I’ve poured over my head. Dogs flat out, panting around me. The phone is next to me. As are the tv controls. Getting off the chair uses produces too much energy and thus heat. The less I move the better.
Dinner for tonight will be fruit, cheese, dips and crackers. No cooking.
z

digging it up

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This is Dancer, our gorgeous girl. She’s a 3yr old anglo arab x warmblood, but she’s almost entirely arab to my eye. She’s not that big, if she cracks 15hh we’ll be happy. But she’s the sweetest, prettiest thing. So gentle and loving and trusting. And she moves like a dream.

I’ve organised a lady who comes highly recommended and who’s a great rider to come work with Ben to get him going for me. Hopefully she’ll work on me as well to get me going for Ben!

When I feel confident with Ben I think we’ll get her to start with Dancer. She’s not had any work so far other than the work Wayne put in to get her trusting us and giving us her feet. He’ll start ground work with her soon (at least that’s the plan) so she’ll be ready to start.

If it goes well, I figure this winter Wayne and I will be riding on our tracks! Finally!

Meanwhile, today I finally got off my butt and got motivated to do some work.

I started by clearing out one corner of our metal garden shed. When we first moved in it was meant to be the gardening shed, plus storage since its nice and dry. Over the last 2 years things have spread and it got messy.

I got in there today and made a pile of stuff to go to the tip, organised storage stuff on one end, camping gear in a corner, fishing rods hung on the back wall, gardening tools and equipment one one side. The ride on will park in the middle of that side.

Its clean. Its tidy. And I have room to put my ‘projects to do’ and to store large finished pieces waiting for a home.

I went down to the casita and climbed over the broken fence (which Wally broke last winter rushing the gate to get into the corral) to retrieve one of the 3 old metal lockers we inherited out on the porch.

I managed to drag one into the casita where I dumped it. I’ll ask the boys to bring it up to the metal shed for me later. I figure the lockers will act as storage as well as a space divider.

Then, since I was on a roll, I decided to tackle the oily bog in the garden bed.

I doubt you’ll remember this fiasco, but  not long after we moved in I decided that the small ‘garden bed’ near the small timber shed and carport would make the perfect spot for my hydrangeas. I’ve always loved hydrangeas and really wanted a spot to grow my own.

So I dug out the pebbles, found weed barrier, pulled that up and started digging holes. Put in the first two hydrangeas ok. Then I hit oil.

Sump oil.

Seems the last owner of this place used that spot to tip out the oil when servicing his cars.

What kind of person does that????

Sigh.

Needless to say, I did what I could. I dug and dug and carted and dug some more. I got sick of the smell of oil. So I did what anyone in my place would do. I put it in the too hard basket.

I put three hydrangeas in the not affected areas and left a hole to deal with ‘later’.

Today ‘later’ finally came around. I started again. Pulling up oil soaked weed barrier and digging, carting and digging more.

I’m a weakling. I can only do a job like that for a short time before my arms fall off. So I called the boys. Wayne and Chris (who’s visiting). Chris is too polite to refuse to do me a favour so I got them to dig the soil looked normal. I have a nice big hole now. Tomorrow I’ll take the trailer down and buy some topsoil to fill it and I’ll finally be able to put in the last hydrangea.

Talk about having a quiet day!

z


getting the christmas spirit

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It was evading me for a while there.
I mean, it was really absent. I wanted to close up the house, park the car around the back, and pretend I wasn’t home.
It wasn’t a ‘bah humbug’ kind of thing. Just a ‘really tired and worn out’ kind of thing.
However, I seem to be snapping back to my usual hyperactive self. If the fact that I can no longer sleep at night is any indication…
This is what it was like inside my head for the past two nights:

I must clean the house. Vacuum. Might be easier to rip up and replace the carpet at this stage, its so dirty in there. Presents are wrapped. Where will I put the table for us to eat on? I have enough chairs… Should I re-arrange the living room furniture (run through 31 scenarios of where to move what). I really want to make the smallest room into a walk in wardrobe. How to do it? Should I try to build my own our of pallets or MDF? Adapt other objects (old doors, hardware shelving, old lockers)? Will 2 salads be enough for tomorrow or should I make a pasta salad as well? I need to find my bottle holder for a centrepiece on the table. Its in the shed. I think. That shed needs sorting out. Should I use that to store larger projects waiting to be worked on? The lawn really needs mowing. Are the baby birds out of the nests yet? Found another unfeathered dead one on the lawn last night. I want to remove the nests so I can clean the house and start painting. My office is a mess. Gotta change all the throws over the couches. And wash the dogs…
Sheesh.
Its exhausting being me.
I’ve just been so tired lately that I’ve had no desire (or energy) to tackle anything at all. But somehow, a couple of days ago I recaptured the need to be creative. I took out the old broken gateleg table my first tenants had left behind and started mending it planning to use it as a dining table for Christmas. Then, since I had only a bit of a tin of Stain Cover left and it was on the edge, I undercoated two kitchen chairs which have been waiting to be painted for about a year. I also went through some booty I’d collected from trips to op shops and tip shops over the last month or so. 
I’m back!
What really got the christmas juices flowing however, was going to my friend Amanda’s yesterday and making three batches of melomakarona! These delicious traditional greek christmas sweets are one of my favourite. I helped mom make them many times as I grew up but have only made them myself 3 times counting yesterday.
Here is the recipe I use and, let me tell you, its delicious and easy!
z

christmas is coming

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Is it just me, or does time seem to be playing up this week?
I have so much to do and can’t seem to get on top of things. Its so bad I’ve buried my To Do List cause it was depressing me. If the world does end tomorrow it won’t matter.
In the hopes that it doesn’t end, I bought chicken for the dogs yesterday – a great sale. Normally a box of chicken frames is $10, on sale for $5, but when I went in they said they had them down to $2.50 each! I’d ordered 4, I said I’d take 5 and the guy at the shop gave me one more as a Christmas present. Isn’t that sweet?
Anyway, wishing everyone in blogland a wonderful Christmas (or Holiday Season if you’re politically correct) and a great New Year.
z

little miracles

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Yesterday I was out in the paddock with the horses and dogs when I heard laughter coming from the chicken coop. 
Wayne is the designated chicken feeder, putter-awayer at night, and egg collector. I love listening to him when he goes up there, filling up chicken feeders, calling the chooks…
“Chook chook chook… here you go…. No ducks! You’re a duck! Get out!” etc.
But then I heard laughter. Real belly laughter. 
This is why:
At first glance its just another egg, right?
But look again:
Its the smallest chicken egg in the world!
I’m still laughing!
I can picture it now:
The poor chicken that lays the huge eggs, straining and pushing, face all squinched up, leaving claw marks on the perch as she struggles to bring forth the monstrous eggs.
The chicken next door thinking “Eh, that’s big enough” and popping out the tiny egg…
Maybe she’s lazy. Maybe she’s going on strike – “Till we get better food, better working conditions, a new chicken coop, an entertainment centre with blu ray and wide screen TV – this is the size of eggs you’ll get from us.”
I love this egg!
I love all things miniature. I used to have a big miniature collection of anything tiny. There’s the (working) tiny spanner I have on the ute (truck to my american friends) key ring which Wayne gave me. I sold most of my miniatures a few years ago, all except the poodles, but this is one I want to keep.
Now… how best to preserve it… Boil it so its hard? Or punch holes and blow it empty which will mean no stinkiness if it breaks, but its much more fragile…?
z
PS. The tiny spanner:
P.P. S. OHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I broke it!

I was putting the eggs into the fridge and dropped it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I’m so sad! 😦

it snowed in the dog room & public dog shaming

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All I wanted was a quiet night. That’s all. Was it too much to ask?
I think it was. 
I stepped into the mud room and was greeted by this scene.

It had snowed.
Let me explain. Barney and Mischa sleep in the mud room on this bed. Together. 
I’ve been recycling old doonas, which I no longer want or need, as dog blankets.
The first one got very dirty so I threw it out, giving them this down-filled one.
They loved it. It was fluffy and snuggly and comfortable.
Then I made a mistake… I fed Montana and Romeo in the mud room, separating them from Mischa and Barney, cause I’d given them lamb bones and we have had a bit of growling over bones in the past.
I thought I was playing it safe. I reckoned without the Romeo Boredom Factor.
Sigh.
This afternoon I received a dog public shaming email and laughed out loud at some of them. So I’ve now forwarded the email with my own addition.
Here are my favourites in case you missed the email.

 z

smelling the roses

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I’ve been taking it easy since the end of the 31 day challenge.

By that I mean I’ve been working till late every night (after work) on projects for Hobart’s first Shabby Chic Market on December 8. And I still have a long way to go!

As I work, watching Criminal Minds, CSI, Bones, Grey’s Anatomy, House Husbands… (I multitask ya know) the poodles keep me company by sitting nearby and watching me work.

Montana, above, next to me, and Romeo opposite. I love the way they’re always nearby!

I always say “get a poodle and never pee alone again”!

The weather has been great lately. Warm days, some light rain. Perfect weather for grass, and weeds, to grow. I got the mower going (or should I say ‘someone else got my mower going so I used it’) and I mowed the lawn.

Of course it needs doing again – mow, look back and its grown an inch… A fact that I ignored on the weekend cause I only had so much time between grooming dogs to work on my market projects. I figure the market has a deadline. The grass will always be there.

But the farm is looking gorgeous and its the best time of year to really appreciate living here. The weather is warm enough to sit in the sun without burning to a crisp in 2 minutes, the breeze fresh, the smell of grass pleasant, the smell of dead things gone. (Only found one dead wallaby on the weekend, seems the toxoplasmosis outbreak may be slowing down. We can only hope.)

Anyway, no rest for the wicket. I have to go to work and then get back to the treadmill that is my life.

More later!

z

i love the sound of munching horses

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I sit here, at the outdoor table, in our yard. Surrounded by horses munching on the grass and dogs under the table, hiding from the horses.

Its a glorious day.

Wayne trimmed hooves today cause our farrier is out of action for a while. I held horses. Dancer, who had never had her feet done before we got her, was the best. Wally was like a bucking bronco with his back legs. Ben was just naughty with his front.

After that, neither of us felt like doing much but sitting in the sun and just enjoying. Listening to old 60s British pop bands, including Herman’s Hermits.

For some reason I woke up this morning with “No milk today” on my mind. Love that song.

So here are a few photos of the broncs enjoying the grass.

Ben, below, has started to fill out and put on weight. He’s looking good.


 I love Ben’s stripe and the way one of his eyes has a spot of white on the lid and some white eyelashes.

Ben and Wally, best buds.



 Dancer, also filling out, outside the woodshed.

Dancer eating around the pom pom bush and the columbines.

A close up of the columbine buds. Obviously the ones in here are purple. I wonder where I put the white ones…

Dancer and Wally. See the difference in colour? Dancer is going lighter and lighter as she loses her old coat.

The family… you can just see Mishca and Barney under the table. They stay out of the way when the horses are in the yard.

Wally, in front of the house.

So now you know why I’ll never have a nice yard. Horses and nice yards don’t go hand in hand. I think I prefer relaxing weekends with horses in the yard to a perfect garden.

z