new year, new resolutions?

Posted on January 1, 2015 by zefiart

Its been a quiet day ~~in Lake Wobegon~~ at Wind Dancer Farm. I know its the beginning of a new year and all that, but really, its just another day for us.

I got up this morning and brushcut the lawn since our mower is broken (great). And soon I’ll be going outside to attempt more house painting despite the wind. My resolution is to finish painting the house before I need to start re-painting it.

I spent the last couple of days painting my decorative brackets, figuring out how to attach them to the porch posts and pre-drilling them. They’re now ready to go up. If my right arm can manage it, I’ll put them up today. I own a very heavy drill and have a dodgey elbow and wrist…

It’ll be nice to have the porch finished. Wayne got annoyed with all my junk on the porch a few weeks ago and did a huge clean up. It looks great now (or will once I finish painting and can pick up drop sheets, ladders and paint buckets), but my workshop is full of the crap I had ‘resting’ on the porch.

At least the front of the house is almost looking gorgeous. The porch facing the back of the house (though its technically the front of the house cause that’s where the front door is… go figure) doesn’t yet have a roof over it and thus no posts to fix brackets to. I haven’t even painted it. Seems silly to paint the rails on that side since I’m planning to redo that part of the porch in the future.

The distant future…

You know what they say? Time flies when you’re having fun. I’ve been resting, relaxing, reading, socializing and trying to get a few things done while I’m on holidays. Hopefully I can cross a few things off my To Do list before I get back to work. And do some creative stuff to share as well!

Hope everyone has a great 2015!

step by step, we’re getting there

Posted on December 7, 2014 by zefiart

Our home may not be beautiful and neat, but one thing I can say for it… it has character. Like the side of the garage where some previous owner thought ‘what the hell, you can’t see this side from the gate’ and stopped painting it blue. And all the rusty bits of metal leaned up against the corner to stop the dogs from excavating all my plants in pursuit of some critter burrowed under the shed.

The foxgloves Ginny gave me are so tall I’ve had to stake them, and the lobelia and alyssum are looking great…

I hadn’t posted for a few days as I haven’t really had much to share. I’ve been busy with work and haven’t put any time into doing anything creative worth sharing. However, things are slowly moving along. I’ve had my trusty helper come out and do some of the heavy lifting for me so things are coming together in the yard.

For one thing, he’s put a brick border along the footpath to stop the blue metal (gravel) from falling onto the path and then into the ‘lawn’.

(I use the word loosely.)

I love the neat new look. Maybe it needs a brick border on the other side too?

You can see the tyre wall is coming along too.

Another view of the tyre wall from the garage to the front gate and our wonky wood shed. We figure about 3 more loads of tyres and we’re onto the next phase: soil and pinebark. I’ve already got some plants in the tyres down the front end, I need a whole lot more to fill the whole wall.

I’ve had my trusty helper put carpet down along the path between the house and driveway retaining wall. That area has always been a problem. Some of it has blue metal and the rest had weeds… almost impossible to mow with all the gravel mixed into the grass. This way no more weeds and I can buy more gravel to put on top of the carpet. You can’t really see it in the pic but there’s another brick border to hold in the gravel at the far end of the walkway.

We put carpet skirts around the trees we planted in the paddock as well. I told Wayne I was over weeds and planned to carpet the entire yard. He was not impressed.

We also put up a bit more wire for the potato vine and sweet peas to grow up. The garden is beginning to look really nice.

Well… except for the weeds where the lawn should be and the bare patches where I poisoned weeds…

I got a pleasant surprise the other day. This plant grew in one of the garden beds and I had no idea what it was. I wasn’t even sure if it was a weed or not. But since I didn’t recognise it as a weed I let it grow and voila! Its a delphinium!

I’d bought delphinium seeds a couple of years ago and not a single one grew. I think I tossed the soil from the empty pots in this area and look what grew!

I’m loving the way gardens can surprise you like that. This is a new thing for me. Mostly things I put in the garden surprise me by disappearing.

Meanwhile we had to do an emergency operation on the hardenbergia and azalea corner… another critter living behind them I guess, cause I came home to find dirty dogs and the plants almost ripped out. Its a pity cause both of them had just started to take off.

When I bought the azalea Patrice was all ‘oh, you’ll kill it’ and I was on track to prove her wrong. Hopefully no permanent damage was done.

A rickety cage made of a dog pen side, some old trellis, bits of wood and tied together with hay bale twine… add the tyre wall… a bit white trashy huh?

Oh well.

I’ll just call it the ‘Make Do’ culture. I’m recycling and using what I have on hand.

And I have a LOT of hay bale twine…

the conditions i’m forced to work in

Posted on November 26, 2014 by zefiart

This afternoon I went into the casita to have another look at the office desk I’m working on for Wayne. This is what I was greeted with:

Little Chipmunk peered out around the corner at me.

I was disturbing little chubby’s dinner.

Here’s a preview of the desk I’m working on from one angle…

…or from another…

Chipmunk looked at me suspiciously. He wanted to be sure I wasn’t going to turn on another sander like I did yesterday.

Gave him indigestion all night.

When he was assured there were no power tools lurking, he went back to burying his head in the bucket.

Whaaaa?

Can’t a little horse eat in peace around here?

Well, frankly, no. Its my workshop, not your dining room. Horses are supposed to eat in the yard. Or the stable.

Or the yard.

Outside!

Its all Wayne’s fault. When he discovered that Chipmunk had discovered he could jump up the step and come in through the bottom half of the dutch door to the casita, he began letting him in while he prepared horse feeds, which lead to Chippy dining indoors.

It works great.

Most of the time.

There was that one time when the wind blew the bottom door shut and Chipmunk was stuck in there all night.

…There was poop everywhere.

Including on the legs of the desk I’m working on.

On the legs.

Seriously.

How did he even get it up there?

homestead news

Posted on November 21, 2014 by zefiart

Summer is on its way down under and the grass is growing at lightening speed (except for all the bald patches on our ‘lawn’ where I poisoned all the weeds). The vegetable patch is starting to produce stuff.

Strawberries actually. Only strawberries. This is my first bowl from the garden. They’re the sweetest tastiest strawberries I’ve ever had!

Last weekend I lay straw around the strawberry plants to stop them growing on the ground and keep them slightly above slug dining level. And Matthew and I made a frame and put up bird netting. We used scrap wood which we cut up as stakes, then tied some thin old moulding (which had been left in the yard by the previous owner) to create a cage. We used hay bale twine to tie it all together.

Very pretty. In a redneck kind of way.

Then we put flat head nails down the side of the garden box so we can hook the net down tight.

A good job I think. Today’s strawberry crop was less chewed on than the odd strawberry I’d been picking lately.

This morning while I groomed, Matthew came around again to do a bit more work on the tyre wall and I got him to move the poor abused pussy willows to a better spot. Here they are at the side of the casita, to the left of the vegetable garden. Five of the seven I’d originally had.

Those poor trees have had the roughest time in their short lives. Firstly, they were just sticks I cut off the trees I had in Fentonbury before I moved here. Pussy willows will grow from sticks. I’d originally put them in the ground just below the dam.

Our dam is spring fed and it leaks. I wanted something to take up some of that water.

We put some electric fence up around them to keep the horses out and they grew for a while.

Then we had to move the electricity to another fence (you know, we play games with it, some days this fence is on, some days that one’s on… it amuses us), the horses got in and gave them a haircut.

We put the fence back on and they grew again.

Then we needed to dam shored up so we dug them out and moved them to a spot on the far side of the back paddock, near the creek. Plenty of moisture there too.

We put up posts and tied electric fence wire around it to keep the horses out. They looked like they died for a while, but then they came back. The trees, not the horses.

The horses realised the fence wasn’t on and they gave them another haircut.

We gave up. They were just sticks with roughly chewed ends for a long time. Then this spring they got new growth.

The other day I was thinking how I want more trees in the yard but we don’t actually have anywhere to put them, and it dawned on me that I could plant trees outside the vegetable garden, outside our yard… and that I could still enjoy them there.

Best of both worlds. The trees won’t stop the sun on the vegie patch, only in the late afternoon. They’ll give us a bit of a screen from the road and the house opposite us way down there. And once they’re grown enough they’ll also provide a bit of a wind break and give the horses a bit more shelter.

So today Matthew dug them up and planted them for the third time.

Third time lucky don’t they say?

We put up another fake electric fence with lots of wire and stakes and even angled posts to keep it strong.

Fingers crossed this time.

where have you been?

Posted on November 14, 2014 by zefiart

No, not you. Me. I’m guessing you’ve been there, waiting desperately for my next post and worrying that I’ve been abducted by aliens or swallowed by the mud in our back paddock.

Well, I’m here and I’m fine.

Which is more than can be said for poor Clarice. I had a friend over helping me with the embankment yesterday and he left the gate open and Clarice came into the houseyard…. a death sentence for any creature. I was in the grooming room and didn’t see or hear a thing.

I was so sad. I held her a while and apologised to her, then buried her out the back.

The poor rooster is beside himself. He’s never been alone. We’re picking up some new girls for him tomorrow, but he was so close to Clarice.

Other than that…

My dogs will ignore ducks, geese, chooks, almost anything when they’re out in their paddock, but the minute one of them step into the house yard they’re history.

Sigh. Here are the culprits.

Montana and Romeo. At least Romeo. He was the one with blood on his mouth.

Barney is not the culprit. I’m pretty sure he was innocent in all this. But he’ll support his buddy whenever he can.

When I’m not responsible for the death of creatures, I’m planning to get some good karma by doing wildlife rescue. I did the training on Sunday and am now on the list of volunteers who get texts when there’s an animal needing help. Bonorong runs a volunteer rescue service and successfully get to about 90% of emergency calls. They do an amazing job. Now I’m one of them.

Of course, you can only do what you can do, when you can. So far all the notices that have gone out are about animals too far for me to be able to help, or I’ve been at work. But one day my new knowledge will help me do a better job with injured or sick wildlife than I’ve been able to do so far.

Here are a couple of cuties at the sanctuary on Sunday. Sugar gliders. Not much chance I’ll be called to rescue any of these, but possums, wallabies, birds, bandicoots are possibilities…

NOT these:

No thanks!

In fact, I’m not looking forward to possums either though we were reassured that they’re easier than wallabies.

I have my doubts. I’ve seen the claws on those guys!

the newest additions to our family

Posted on October 3, 2014 by zefiart

Say welcome to the newest additions to Wind Dancer Farm.

Gobbler is the one with the big tail, for obvious reasons. He’s the noisy one. The other one only makes tiny little whimpering noises so far.

We have no idea if the smaller one is a young male or a female. Does anyone know? Can’t name mini-me till we know if its a girl or boy.

These guys have been living in the shrubby land between us and the neighbours. We’ve seen and heard them over the last few months but lately they’ve been coming down to our fenceline daily and we’ve been tossing them some feed. So today we let them in. They look quite content.

The dogs aren’t sure what to make of them.

We rather enjoy a new bird call among all the others.

Its funny. We started with the ducks we inherited. Now we get visiting ducks of different breeds, a family of plovers who breed on our land every year, native hens that live here, our dwindling population of chickens (one chook and one rooster at the moment but we’re getting a whole lot from friends who no longer want theirs). We added 3 geese last Christmas and now we have a happy family of six.

And today we added two turkeys.

Anyone who visits us here can’t get any sleep at night cause of all the noise. We’re used to it and love it.

We started with one horse. Now we have four.

All these mouths to feed, all these chores to do.

And we love it.

We also have a huntsman spider living in the letterbox. I’m thinking his name is Harry. He’s welcome to live there now that I know he’s there and he doesn’t surprise me when I put my hand in to get the mail.

At least Harry fends for himself.

sag drag and fall

Posted on September 28, 2014 by zefiart

(as opposed to flip flop and fly)

I have no idea what’s wrong with me.

I can’t seem to find the energy to do anything. Or the desire to try to find the energy.

Yesterday I did get one paint of topcoat on the woodwork in the tiny hallway (4 door frames) and the window in the bathroom. But I was seriously dragging my feet as I did it and then I forgot to wash the brushes cause I got sidetracked feeding dogs and feeding and rugging horses…

I did 4 loads of washing, groomed two dogs, cleaning the living room and tried an alternate furniture arrangement (it sucked) and sprayed all the weeds I could using one full load of the backpack sprayer. Then it rained and all my good work went down the drain.

I didn’t even bother trying to get the clothes in off the line.

Ok, when I list the things I did yesterday it doesn’t sound like I was lazy, but trust me… I was. This is not normal behaviour for me. I get up in the morning and I start doing stuff, starting with feeding animals, then moving on to whatever I have in my mind for the day… usually changing them as I go cause I get distracted and sidelined. Like weeding. I see a huge weed and grab the weeder, then, before I know it, half an hour has gone by.

Normally, I’d be painting in the hallway, cleaning or organising things in the house, then I’d find a project I want to do and get onto that. Somewhere along the line I still manage to finish the cleaning and organising jobs I start and do a second coat of paint.

Right now I’m finding I really have to push myself to get off my butt.

Then, instead of getting online and posting on the blog or catching up with all the emails in my inbox, I watch tv like a couch potato.

Wayne says its cause I need to rest.

I say its cause I’m feeling a bit down when things don’t work out. Like the living room re-arrangement. Or the waste of weed spraying.

This morning I gave myself permission to be lazy. I got up, fed animals, pooperscooped the yard, did some weeding (see? all it takes is a walk across what passes as a lawn and I can’t help myself), put up some wire trellis for the sweet peas which didn’t hear that they were supposed to die in winter and are trying to crawl up the porch rails. I also put a trellis up for the jasmine which I want to encourage to grow up the side of the casita.

Its blowing a gale out there and I am trying to convince myself to do another coat on the woodwork (do I really need to? Its just a tiny hallway. Will anyone notice?) or something else productive. Like sew a liner into the large laundry basket I got. Or clean up the wire shelf thingy I got for the office. Oh and tidy the office. Again. And clean the kitchen. And bathroom. And bedroom.

Or maybe just pick one of those and do that.

Right now I just don’t really care to do anything.

However, just so this isn’t an entirely boring whining post, here’s a little something I did to the kitchen wall last week during one of those short bursts of inspiration and energy. I put my two antique food covers and a grain sieve I bought in Greece (you’ll recognise this one Zef) on the wall above the cupboard in the kitchen.

I’ve had these for a few years now but never had anywhere to put them. Now they have a spot and when I need them I can just use the new stepladder to get them down.

Yes, a new stepladder. I realised that the 60s stool/stepladder I have is probably not as strong as it should be for me to climb up to reach high places… I bought a folding stepladder which is slim enough to fit in the gap between the pantry and the wall in our tiny entry way. Its already come in really handy. I’ve used it to organise the pantry last weekend and while painting in the hallway.

Here are some photos of the hallway with the newly painted walls (which should really have had a third coat but I ran out of paint and its only a tiny hallway anyway, who will notice?

I decided to hang some of my fruit labels above the doorways to cheer the place up a bit. This is above the office door.

Above the bathroom and kitchen doors where I need to put a nice light fitting. Love my Tasmanian fruit label with a poodle on it! Ironically I bought it on ebay from the USA many years ago.

Last, the living room door and the spare room door (on the right).

I know have a blank wall on the left where I’m considering putting some hooks for our bags so they don’t sit on the floor or any available surface in the kitchen.

Here’s a look at the ugly, but now organised, pantry in our squishy entry.

When I was doing this last week I made a small shelf out of some leftover bamboo flooring to double the space for the small containers.

I think I know what my problem is… power tool withdrawal. I need to make something. I felt energised when I made the stupid little shelf last week. But I can’t make anything till I clean out the casita so I can actually get to the power tools. And find anything else I need.

Maybe I’ll have more energy tomorrow.

spring is in the air

Posted on September 26, 2014 by zefiart

This time of year I get a bug… the gardening bug. I just can’t help myself. Soon as the weather starts to turn nice I start buying plants. Or growing seeds. Or taking cuttings.

Things I probably should have done earlier in the year…

For the last month or so I’ve had a friend helping me to sort out the garden and even the driveway. I’ve been putting succulents in every kind of container I can find, like these old sieves, and a small watering can. They’ll look spectacular when they grow and fill out.

And how about these caddies I made out of old baking tins and stuff? I took them to a market, they didn’t sell, so I thought hey, why not use them as planters? They look much better now!

And of course there’s the collection on our front step. I got the old rooster cheap cause he was chipped, I put tiny succulents in tin cans, a Twinings tin, some bonsai pots, a coffee pot and of course, the wonderful ammo box.

I just love succulents. I tossed these little guys in a horrible, dry, rocky spot beside the garage where even weeds hestitated to grow. They’re looking wonderful with a few rusty bits around them.

I sure love my galvanised buckets.

The vegetable garden is starting to take shape. We now have one full bed of strawberries and one and a half of raspberries. The plan is to have 2 full beds of raspberries.

Other plants are taking off and flowering. I love my hardenbergia. Its going to make that little corner between two sheds look pretty and not neglected. I got a new azalea as well… hope that likes it there and I don’t just kill it like I do so many things…

If you’re wondering why the pots… well that area gets really wet in winter, so by cutting the bottom off the pot and putting the plant in above the ground I’m working on the theory that the plants won’t drown.

I got a valencia orange tree for my birthday. I’ve put it in a cheap pot for now and have planted a ton of pansies around it and another pot for some pretty colour.

And my gorgeous ornamental current is bushing up and smelling divine.

With M’s help I’ve put in some new cottage garden plants like foxgloves, my lupins are coming back and the columbines are close to blooming. We pulled out some plants which I didn’t like or didn’t like where I’d put them and relocated them. Most of them seem to be coping with the change.

We dug up some daffodils and snow drops from the bottom paddock and relocated them to the driveway. Yeah, wrong time of year for that, but the idea is to eventually have them blooming all along the driveway, not just in the bottom paddock.

I bought some gazanias and we went and dug up more from the road side where they grow wild. I figure anything that can grow wild should manage fine in my driveway.

We also got tons of african daisies to put along the embankment in the yard. That area needs some work before we can plant anything there, but that’s fine. One day I want an embankment full of pink and white daisies.

Life is looking good in the garden right now.

we have goslings!

Posted on September 23, 2014 by zefiart

For the last few weeks Anabelle (our goose) has been sitting on a nest. We had no idea how many eggs she had as she wouldn’t let us near her. And the boys, Hank and Jethro, were really protective of her.

Yesterday Wayne came back from feeding the ducks and told me we had goslings!

This morning I went out myself, to see them. There are three little guys. There are three eggs as well.

The boys and Anabelle circled the little guys and tried to hide them from me. I hope they do as good a job with the crows and hawks. At least the goslings are bigger than the baby ducks are when they first hatch.

Hank and Anabelle told me in no uncertain terms that the babies were theirs and I had to keep my distance.

A very muddy Chipmunk kept an eye on me in case I dropped some grain that he could scoff up.

Isn’t the little brat a disgrace? He hates being brushed. I think I’ll corner him and brush him anyway… and look at that tummy!

an outdoor firebox

Posted on September 10, 2014 by zefiart

This last weekend I did a little work in the garden.

Actually, I’ve been doing a little work in the garden for a couple of weeks now. The emphasis is on little… I’ve had a friend helping me and he’s been doing the heavy lifting. I’ve had him help me move some plants, put in new plants and prepare the vegetable patch for planting.

We have a cement slab in our yard which used to hold a water tank many years before we bought the place. Its just a useless concrete slab in between the house and the Hill Hoist (Australian icon, aka clothes line) which tends to collect ‘stuff’. You know the stuff I mean, the kind of stuff you think “I can’t be bothered taking that back to the right shed now, I’ll just leave it here…”

When we first moved here I asked Wayne to build a trellis there to block the view of the clothes line and water tanks. I had visions that the clematis and banksia roses I planted in front of it covering the trellis and providing a gorgeous screen.

Here are a couple of photos of the trellis from two years ago. First a view of from the clothes line towards the house.

Looking towards the corner of the casita – you can see the clothes line and one of the water tanks.

And looking back towards the house from the other side. The plants are more than double in size since then, but still nowhere near the gorgeous screen I envisaged.

Here are some pics taken on the weekend of the same area. In this one you can see the clothesline behind the trellis. You’ll also see the copper artwork I distressed to get the green patina. Its now garden art.

This spot is great for sitting and relaxing in the afternoons, once the sun heads down behind the trellis. You look over the middle paddock towards the hill, the dam and stable, back up the valley behind the house, and all the front yard. So, when Wayne decided to get rid of the big wood stove he had in the garage and asked if I wanted it as a garden ornament, I jumped at it. Its perfect for my little outdoor relaxing area.

What would an outdoor post from me be without horses and a gratuitous poodle in the shot?

The wood stove is heavy and very rusty. Just gorgeous. Wayne removed the door and side panels so you can see the rusty metal sides in all their glory. I put some potting mix in the box itself and put in some succulents. They’ll get full morning sun there but shade in the afternoon. I added some of my favourite pots: a once red bucket, a once red biscuit tin and an old jam pan. They’re filled with succulents as well. Only succulents will survive that position in pots in summer as it gets full sun almost all day long.