corrosion

Posted on June 11, 2012 by zefiart

The hakea is flowering! When I planted it I was told it wouldn’t grow in Fentonbury cause of the cold.

Or, if it did grow, it surely wouldn’t flower. Spectacular isn’t it?

Its been a really busy week even though we’ve had a week from work. I can’t explain it. Its just been flat out. I seem to have been out for one thing or another almost every single day, grooming dogs which were either pre-booked or spur of the moment bookings. Looking after animals and Wayne and the house of course.

Somehow, through all that, I managed to do a bit of my own creative stuff so I have a few small projects to share over the next few days when I get a chance to photograph them.

This is where I ask your opinion, oh my few friends and readers, what should I do with the stuff I’m making? Should I sell it on etsy.com or should I try to sell it locally through a shop in town?

Or keep it?

Ok, keeping everything is out of the question. There’s only so much room in our home and I’m actually thinking of what I can get rid of to streamline our lives somewhat.

Some stuff I am tempted to keep and some of it I’m sure I’ll end up keeping cause I won’t be able to part with it. However, a lot of the items I’ve been working on were made with selling in mind. When I make something for a specific purpose for our home, that’s when I’ll keep it.

Or at least that’s the plan.

I’ve been collecting stuff from tip shops and wherever for a while now with the plan to use them to create stuff for our home and to sell. Some of the bits and pieces I’ve collected will be hard for me to part with, but part with them I must.

I already have an etsy shop which I plan to update and revamp – not a big deal given I’ve never really used it!

Anyway, your thoughts on this serious matter are welcome at any time as I share the various projects…

Meanwhile, I just thought I’d give you a quick update at how things are at Wind Dancer Farm.

Wayne is better. Well, he was better till last night. I think he was so much better compared to how he had been that he overdid it and is now back to being really sore.

The antibiotics for his chest seem to have done a great job and he feels a lot better for them. Here’s to avoiding pneumonia! However he’s back to not being comfortable in any position and pacing. sigh.

The dogs are all well and happy though Mischa and Barney were not too pleased I cornered them and gave them a bath the other day. I also gave Montana and Romeo a much needed clip and wash so right now all the canines in the family are soft and sweet smelling. (Not that the poodles ever smell bad!)

Yesterday morning we did something we rarely do any more. Used to be (back when Wayne was trying to win me over) we’d lie in bed with the dogs in the morning and just ‘be’. I love that time. Since we moved in together and the bank has tied us together, Wayne has felt secure enough to banish the poodles from the bedroom.

Hmph.

Interesting… notice how the poodles are on MY side of the bed?

But yesterday morning while he was bringing coffee in bed I let Montana and Romeo in and they joined us on the bed. I can’t even begin to express how much I love having them on the bed with us. Cosy. Warm. Secure. Its like everything I love is right there with me.

We’ve also been social this last week. I picked Merrill up from the airport and we had a lovely lunch at a swish restaurant in Salamanca. I visited Ginny and Richard and the lovely Harvey and got to meet his new girlfriend, Tess the kelpie. We were invited to a BBQ at a friend’s house down the road and I scored a leather cowboy hat out of that. 🙂 Chris came up to visit and has been staying over the last few days. Yesterday I made gluhwein (Ginny and Richard were doing Christmas in June, so why not join in?) and Merrill came over and we ate cheese and crackers and watched dvds and laughed loads.

In fact, maybe that’s why Wayne is sore again. Too much laughing over the last few days.

Chris has a new nickname for Wayne. Over the years Chris has had a growing list of names for Wayne, but this time I think he hit on one that even Wayne had to admit was a gem.

Corrosion.

And its not cause Wayne loves metal and rusty objects…

Its cause he’s like corrosion: he slowly eats through everything.

ROFLOL!!!

You gotta admit, as far as nicknames go, this one’s a keeper!

burn baby burn

Posted on June 7, 2012 by zefiart

Fire does not seem to be our friend lately. Sure, it keeps us warm, and we need it. But we sure don’t need flames in the kitchen.

Yesterday Wayne was feeling better so he cooked dinner. We were having chicken schnitzel with dutch mashed potato (bacon and sauerkraut). What we had instead was the mash with schnitzel a la charred paper towel.

I was sitting in the office when I heard a plate break and heard Wayne swear. I did not get up straight away. I finished what I was doing first. That was my first mistake.

You have to understand – Wayne will swear at the top of his lungs over the smallest thing: he dropped a fork, he tipped over a cup of coffee, he hit the space bar on the keyboard when he meant to hit enter… When we first moved in together I’d run every time I heard him yell out cause I was sure he’d amputated a leg or decapitated one of the dogs.

Eventually I began to just roll my eyes and call out ‘Are you ok?’ thinking that if he was actually lying in a pool of his own blood he’d somehow manage to ask for help.

Thus yesterday when I heard the plate break and the expletives, I thought ‘just another day in the life’ and stayed seated.

I was actually saying ‘You really are trying to give me a heartatta-‘ as I walked into the kitchen. There he was, flames leaping up towards the ceiling, Wayne dancing around with tongs in his hand trying to pick up pieces of burning paper towel, trying to rescue the schnitzel.

Seems Wayne thought that putting a dinner plate on the stove and turning on the hotplate would keep the cooked schnitzels warm as he fried the others.

Seems the plate had other ideas – exploding into shards (which were so hot some of them stuck to the vinyl floor) and igniting the oil soaked paper towel.

Well.. alls well that ends well. No injuries and the schnitzels were ‘mostly’ still edible. The dogs didn’t mind the charred paper taste.

The frying pan has since been re-cycled into a chickenfood bowl.

Then, the other night I was doing some craft work, trying my hand at making burlap flowers. For those who dont know, that involves using a hot glue gun.

I love my hot glue gun. But the other night it sure didn’t love me.

First I cut a strip of burlap about 2-3 inches wide. Then I folded, twisted and glued as I worked my way round to form a flower. I used a circle of felt at the bottom to hold it all together and I glued part of that to my finger, giving myself 3rd degree burns in the process.

I got a full night’s worth of self pity out of that one.

The flowers turned out nice. They are waiting for the right project to make themselves useful. Not sure I want to make any more though! Not without flame retardent gloves.

get well soon wayne

Posted on June 5, 2012 by zefiart

Sometimes our clients are so sweet. This is a get well card one of them made for Wayne last week. She was very concerned when he wasn’t at work. Love the ‘sore’ spots all over him.

I gotta tell you, this having to do it all on my own really sucks. Luckily we have the week off or I think I’d be going crazy.

In the morning I have to stoke the fire, feed the horses, remove rugs if its going to be warm enough or sunny. Feed the chickens and ducks (in 4 separate areas since we’ve had to segregate), collect eggs. Then cook breakfast. Then groom dogs if there are any to groom that day, do any washing or tidying that needs doing. Run errands that need doing… I have to bring up more firewood for the day and keep an eye on the fire to make sure it doesn’t go out. I have dishes to wash, including the 5 cups Wayne used to have coffee during the day). I have to cook dinner, feed the dogs, feed the horses, lock up the free range chickens, rug horses if they’ve been unrugged. Then in my spare time I catch up with emails and might get time to work on some of my projects.

As I said, this having to do it all on my own sucks.

Yesterday I went to get chaff on my own. Have you any idea how heavy those big bags are? I had to lever and grunt them up into the ute, almost broke my back doing it. I think I dislocated a thumb as well… Luckily for me my timing was great – I arrived home at the same time as Phil (he’s been chopping wood up the back of our property) was leaving so I did the helpless female act and got him to move the bags into the horse feed room for me.

I had to buy hay and horse pellets. I used my brain instead of my muscles for that one – I called a friend and asked him to deliver it for us. I dread having to buy another bucket of molasses…

I tried to chop wood for the fire yesterday. I selected a nice piece with a big crack in the middle. All it needed was a well-aimed wack and it would split in two like a watermelon.

I hit that sucker 5 times, in a different spot each time!

The last time I hit it I wedged the axe. Unbelievable.

I’ve been shown how to chop wood. At least how to split wood that’s already got some kind of weak spots. But I’ve always used a block buster and for the most part I managed. Wayne somehow ‘misplaced’ my block buster however so I had to use the axe.

Never again.

I can’t wait for Wayne to get better.

A work in progress

Posted on December 31, 2011 by zefiart

Wayne’s been working flat out on the stable for the last few days. I think I’ll take you for a small stroll through the history of the stable thus far.

This is what it looked like when we first saw the farm. It was an old shed, housing a tractor and many bits and pieces of rusty engine parts, broken plowing implements, trucks, boat bits, drums of oil and a truck parked next to it. The roof was being held in place by spit and a collection of old tractor wheel hubs and besser blocks.

Before we moved in the previous owner took away everything he wanted to keep. Most of the truck parts, boats and tractors went. All that was left was a falling down shed and a whole lot of rubbish. Really. A ton of rubbish that we are still coming to terms with.

So Wayne started looking at it, considering how to go about converting it into a stable for 2 horses. We only had Wally at the time but were planning to get a horse for me. He found that the roof needed replacing entirely, that the low ceiling on one end of the shed was too low for horses, and that one post wasn’t holding up the wall let alone the roof. It wasn’t even in the ground.

Slowly, over the next few months, Wayne started to rip the old shed apart. He dug holes and put in posts to hold up a new roof for the ‘extension’… only to find the irrigation pipes. Twice. Seems like every single hole that Wayne dug for a few weeks had a pipe going through it. I think we spent more on mending pipes than on anything else during that period.

One weekend our friend Chris came up and together the guys put the first half of the roof on. By then we’d already had Ben join our family so the two bays were perfect for the two boys. Of course, now we also have Dancer which means that the work is far from finished. We need another bay, so Wayne is considering a ‘lean-to’ bay added to the side of the current structure.

I suggest he builds another, similar structure at a right angle to the one we have now – another 2 bays…. Cause you never know when you may need another stable… 🙂