z

They say that if you do good things, good things will happen to you. I’ve always been amazed by how this works… All my life I’ve had good things happen to me in the most unexpected ways. Then again, I do good things for others too.

Its never a quid pro quo arrangement. I don’t do something good for someone who’s done something good for me. For instance, I give things away to people who need them, I rarely sell things I no longer need. Then, when I need something, someone else will give me something to help me out.

Its really quite cool how that works.

Many years ago, I lived in Melbourne and used to dance rock’n’roll about 4-5 times a week, going to pubs to follow bands. One of the most popular places to go on a Sunday afternoon to watch a band and dance had changed hands and was no longer doing rockabilly on Sundays. I missed it. So, when I bumped into an old classmate from art school who he told me his family had bought the pub, I instantly asked him to consider bringing back rockabilly. I gave him the phone numbers of the bands I knew, I recommended good bands which would draw a crowd and gave him advice on how to run it.

A few weeks later, rockabilly was back on the menu on Sunday afternoons.

It never occured to me to ask for anything in return. I gave my advice cause I wanted somewhere to dance again on a Sunday (selfish!), but also to help out a friend who said that their Sundays were quiet. He was happy, I was happy. I went there every Sunday and paid a cover charge just like everyone else. Until another friend of mine pointed out to the owner that he owed the Sunday success to me. From that point on I got in for free (a saving of $5), but I already had what I wanted. I felt good.

I asked a friend of mine at the time if she could give me the phone number of another band she knew well, so I could pass that on and they could be booked to play on the occasional Sunday. She wanted to know what was in it for her. Getting the band a gig and having somewhere to go to enjoy their music wasn’t enough for her. She wanted a spotters fee.

I never understood that mentality. When you do something for someone, you do it cause you want to, otherwise don’t do it at all. A friend will help you paint a room or move house cause that’s what friends do. Sure, I’ve offered to pay friends to do jobs for me, but in most cases its cause I wanted more help than they were able to give me on their own terms. When I was getting my house in Melbourne ready to sell, a good friend helped me repaint it. We didn’t get enough done on the weekend so I paid her to stay a couple of extra days. She was a student and needed the earnings from her job to make ends meet. I couldn’t ask her to miss work for nothing in return.

When I broke my ankle a few years ago and was laid up in my house, in a new state and knew only one neighbour, I got the most unexpected gift. Someone I’d only ever heard of from a discussion group called the local store and sent them some money for my groceries. I’m amazed that someone would do that for a stranger.

People can be so surprising. Especially when you don’t expect it.

On the other hand, I’m also a great believer in asking. I figure there’s no point in being shy or afraid to ask. The worst that can happen is you get a no. My ego can take that.

Yesterday when I went to pick up the work van I noticed a trailer load of rough timber boxes on the back of a trailer behind the business next door to work. There was a man working in the garden. I asked if the boxes were going to be thrown out, and if so, could I have them. He asked if I wanted them as planter boxes cause that’s what he’d thought of using them for, offered me some of them, then said I may as well take them all (9) and save him carting them around. I now have a stack of boxes in my drive waiting for a new home and plants!

Wayne was like ‘What’s that? More stuff!’ and this morning he was ‘I like those boxes, I may steal some…’

But the best was a phone call I received yesterday afternoon. On Sunday, when I picked up Merrill to take her to the airport, she pointed out a stack of underlay and carpet in the neighbour’s carport. The house has recently sold and they’re obviously rennovating and the old carpet is in the carport, most likely to go to the tip. She suggested I take it for the casita. I said I couldn’t go into someone’s yard without permission to take something which may or may not be destined for the tip. Different if its on the nature strip. Then its first come best dressed. For all I knew the guy had another use for it. So I went in and left a note on the stuff.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a man who was so thrilled that I left a note. He said he thought it was nice of me and cool to find the note, and that I’m welcome to take as much of it as I want. He was planning to take it to the tip on Saturday. He also asked me to stop by and introduce myself if he’s there next time I see someone in the house.

I made his day and that makes me feel nice. Plus I get new (old) carpet and underlay for the studio area of the casita and the grooming room! 🙂 Win win.

Well, the pre Christmas stuff won’t get done by me sitting here writing blogs. Better get off my butt and get started.

z

 

Christmas is going to be busy here. We’re having it here to celebrate the first year on the farm. We’ve decided to forgo tradition and make it a grazing day: cold ham, cold turkey, cold chicken, salads, dips, cheese, crackers, lots to drink and lots of sweets. And all day to consume them!

Hopefully the day will be good to us, but despite the weather bureau’s long term forecast about a hot day with afternoon showers, I’m not optimistic. Ever since I’ve lived in Tasmania Christmas day has been COLD.

So I’m planning to set up the gazebo for an outside setting, and bring in trestles and a door to set up an inside table as well. Better safe than sorry I say.

I’m also planning to wash and clip dogs. Can’t have grimy dogs around here at Christmas! Barney is quite happily going through his days, completely unaware that his fuzzy face is soon going to shaved off and the accumulation of grime and smelliness is about to washed off. Mischa’s too. Well, she wont be clipped, but she’ll be washed. Her whites will be white again!

My two will go from a greyish white to pure white again. And I’ll be able to see their gorgeous faces again. Its been too long since they were last done. And they love it. They love being farm dogs! In fact, thats one of the best things about living here instead of Fentonbury. In Fentonbury they were locked up all day when I was at work, here they get to spend the days in the yard and they love it.

Ben is gorgeous. He’s definitely my horse, comes to the fence to say hello and get a face rub and comes to me all the time. I love it. Then Wally comes over and pushes him away in case I have carrots.

Wally meanwhile has been scoffing down his food as quick as he can, then rushing over to where Wayne feeds the ducks and chooks so he can clean up the wheat and layer pellets. With the amount of chickenfeed he’s getting, its a miracle he isn’t laying eggs!

Dancer is being a real girl., playing one boy off the other. Poor Ben is the one getting picked on I think. Maybe I made a mistake encouraging Wayne to get her… Poor Benjamin… I may separate him a while. We haven’t had time to work with him at all lately. I’m really hoping we can get back to it soon. I’m eager to ride him.

z

 

As you know, I have put my house in Fentonbury on the market. Its been a big decision for me cause I love that house, I love the position and the area. I love the yard and the openess. But home is here now, with Wayne and the dogs, the horses, the chickens, the ducks and the grass. So its time to let go of the past and move forward in this next chapter of my life.

Fentonbury holds so many memories, I thought I’d share some of them with you.

I bought the house in Fentonbury in 2003 and surprised almost everyone I knew. I’d been living in Melbourne for over 20 years but dreaming of living in the country and threatening to pick up and move to Tasmania one day. I’d never been to Tasmania so I came down for a weekend, saw 3 houses and made an offer on the third. I went back to Melbourne, handed in my resignation at work, put my house on the market, set 4 open days and an auction and I was gone.

The house on Gully Road was my first country home and I lived there alone for a long time. I knew nothing about living in the country and had to learn about the sounds wallabies made when they thumped through the yard in the dark. Its where I learned to stock a pantry when the supermarket isn’t just down the road. Its where I learned that poodles are real dogs that can (and will) kill small animals. Its where I had my first litter, and my second, third and fourth. Its where Montana was born, Bonnard and Romeo. Its where I buried the one puppy I lost and planted a tree over its grave. Its where Scooter met his new family and where Pagan met Louise and chose to go live with her.

Its where Billy was living when he started losing his hair and was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and where his immune system started to lose the fight and started the cycle that ended in him leaving me. 

The house in Gully Road was a mess when I bought it – the previous owner had not loved it, had never unpacked and had cats who left messes. She’d lost her keys and broken windows to get in. I fumigated it, I stripped dirty carpets, repainted walls, put up dado rails and timber lining on walls. I put in a new bathroom floor and a new bathroom suite. I updated the kitchen and put a rail around the deck and a ramp to replace the rickety steps. I built a garage and moved the clothes line to the back yard. I got rid of rabbit hutches and bantam cages and cubby houses and old vegie patches. I put up new fences and gates and planted trees. I got the roof painted – it was half pale blue and half unpainted.

Its where I learned to chop wood and to light a wood heater and keep it going all night. I bought my first lawnmower and my first brushcutter (a big REAL brushcutter, not some pansy one) and my ride on mower. I bought firewood by the truckload. I learned to drive a tractor and pick hops and pack cherries. I got my first pair of blundstone boots, rain gear and fluoro safety clothes.

The house in Fentonbury wasn’t the first house I’d rennovated and made home, but it was the one I was in the longest (so far). It was home for me and my family (my poodles) for a long time, and I loved it.

Here is Billy, standing on the ramp… Billy was my baby, my shadow. Billy is in almost all the photos I’ve taken of the yard, I couldn’t go anywhere without him following me. This photo was taken not long before we moved, the house was freshly painted and Wayne and I were already looking for a larger property.

  

 

The living room had a grimy carpet, not improved by years of muddy pawprints. The living room is an addition to the house and didn’t match the old part so I got timber lining and dado rails put on to give it more character. I replaced the old carpet with good quality vinyl flooring, easy to clean and practical. I spend many nights curled up on the couch watching TV with poodles draped all over me in that room.

The grooming room was the back porch. I hired a local handyman to help me enclose it using decking and windows and a door I bought second hand. I got a plumber to put in a hot and cold water tap for my hydrobath and ran it into the same drain as the kitchen sink. This photo was taken after I’d packed up the hydrobath and grooming tables. The sink replaced the dog bath, making it more a gardening room than a grooming room. It wasn’t the biggest grooming room in the world but it was big enough for me to groom 3 poodles for the show ring. I spent many hours brushing and drying hair in there…

 The hallway… so wide I actually put my desk in there and used it as an office for quite a while. I had the lining and dado extended into the hallway to give it more character, and I added the decorative corner thingies where the roofline is lower. Why is the roofline lower you ask? It used to be where the house ended but a previous owner enclosed it and added the office/fourth bedroom. I love that wide hallway.

The guest room… the room where I totally stuffed up my colour choices and gave up. I thought the green would be a good colour but it just didn’t work. Maybe if I hadn’t given up and finished it, painting the trims antique white, it would have looked better. Maybe just changing curtains and putting in another light fitting… As it is I didn’t finish it. This is where Bonnard was born. I put the whelping box in the nook beside the built-in wardrobe and slept in that room for the first two weeks of his life.

The fourth bedroom, the one I used as my studio and sometimes as my office. I never got around to painting the trims white but I did paint the walls. I painted the window box which used to hold a cushion where Pagan would sit and watch birds on the trees outside. Its where Scooter would lie to sleep in the sun and, later, where Montana would lie resting her chin on the windowsill.

My bedroom… I loved the old fashioned swirl carpet which reminded me of the houses I lived in as a kid. I whelped my second litter in there, next to my bed. This is the room I slept in when I’d broken my ankle, I had the TV moved in there so I didn’t have to go up a step into the living room and so I could look outside to the gate. This room was full of light, cheerful and peaceful.

The bathroom was a mess when I bought the house. It had different colours of corregate iron (colourbond) on the walls, a clawfoot tub and a sagging floor. I removed the clawfoot tub and replaced it with a bigger new tub which fit against the wall. I replaced the floor with a new, non-sagging one. I had mini-orb put on the walls to give it a more modern look. I put in a hand rail cause, having had a broken ankle, I know how important it is to have something to hang on to. I replaced the old sliding door with a solid timber shed door which I sanded and painted. I added timber lining and a dado rail, and I adapted an old bookcase as a cupboard to hold towels and to give the toilet some privacy.

Best of all, I love the kitchen… When I bought it, it was all pine. Dark and gloomy despite having a skylight. I painted the kitchen walls antique white. I put doors on the 2 cupboards which didn’t have doors. I moved the breakfast bar up so it was bar stool height. I put up 2 restored bathroom cabinets as spice cabinets, I put up my Tony Curtis film poster and my collections of old bits and pieces. I love the old ceramic double sink with its depth… and I changed the old tap to a more practical gooseneck. It wasn’t the country kitchen with a table in the middle which I still dream of, but its a spacious and very practical kitchen. Pretty too…

 All in all, its a great house. I really hope someone finds it as pretty as I do,buys it and is happy there. I’ve done a lot to improve it over the years I lived there but there’s still some things to be done. There’s plenty of opportunity for someone to move in and make further improvements. Lets not forget the green room which is crying out for another colour. Carpets could be lifted to show off floorboards, thats something I had planned to do but never go around to.

Whatever, its a great house and has a great yard. I’m sure someone will fall in love with it the way I did. I just hope someone falls in love with it soon! The tenants in there now are great, they’re looking after the garden better than I ever did myself, but I would like to not have to worry about it. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a landlord. I think I’d much rather move forward and concentrate on making this house my home in every way.

So, send good vibes and send the right person our way. I’m sure they will be as happy as I was in that house.

z