It's been a while

It's been a while since I've posted. Not because nothing has happened, but because I've spent most of my spare time on FarmTown, cropping and harvesting and building one hell of a farm.

But to recount what has happened in the last few weeks of our lives:

Waitressing:
A few weeks ago, a colleague mentioned that she had had 48 RSVPs to her husband's birthday party (a sit down dinner), and was wondering how she was going to serve the dinner as well as play hostess. I volunteered Caitlin and Ebony (her friend) and myself to act as waiters.

We arrive at the house the appointed night.... and the girls' jaws hit the ground! The house was gorgeous, the sort of house you expect to see in an Australian period drama. It was stone and huge, you walk in the front door and there is a large foyer area, a large dining room (which comfortably seats 50 people) on one side, a 'cloakroom' on the other side, three rooms which make up the kitchen area, a large lounge room... all with their own fireplaces. The ceilings were about 15 foot high. As Sara said "when you buy a property, you just have to take the house that's on it... and we got lucky". I imagine that it was the original property in the area, dating back to the 1880s.

The girls did a good job with waitressing, serving pre dinner snacks, followed by preparing and serving the dinner and then dessert. We also had a fair amount of help from Sara's 15yo son, Harry. Absolutely lovely genuine young man, who seemed to like being in the company of two young ladies, rather than outside with his father's friends. (And at the end of the night, he asked Ebony if he could have her phone number, how sweet!)

Chooks:
I finally finished doing the new fencing on the chook pen, and we got ourselves six more chooks. Hopefully these ones will last! The fence is higher, the wings are clipped but still at least one of them as flown out. Still, they seem to want to stay together more than they want freedom, and I try to put them out on the grass in a makeshift wire cage for a few hours a day... so maybe they won't go near the dogs!!! And one of them has started to lay. Jemima insists it is her chook that is laying (goodness knows which one it is!)



Winter:
The weather has turned cold now, with the onset of winter. The first day of winter was rainy, as was the second and third and fourth. At last the water tanks are enjoying the rain. The dogs are enjoying the mud, and tramping it inside the house. I've given up trying to keep the laundry tiles clean, as long as they get done at least once a week I'm happy. Between the dogs, mud, grass that never dries during the day and dust from the fires, it is very difficult to keep the house clean. Add to that the various illnesses the household has undergone (we've had at least one person ill at any given time since Mim's birthday), it has not been a relaxing few weeks.

Mum's Visit:
The highlight has been Mum's visit last weekend. The girls were soooo excited to see Nana again, and Mim slept in the spare bed with her every night. The weather was not at its best, it was cold and grey two days, cold and windy one day, and on her last day the sun started shining at long last. We did a trip to Casterton one day, and some yard work another... but apart from that, we spent most of the time inside, just chilling (in both senses of the word).

Mum started helping me prune the plum trees. I looked on the ABC gardening website and got specific instructions for pruning plum trees. I carefully selected the branches to get rid of to maximise light and minimise the height of the tree. Two of the branches were a bit too thick to manually cut with my pruning saw, so I made the mistake of asking Michael to fire up the chainsaw. BIG MISTAKE. My plum tree is now 3 foot high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Michael is grinning. He then attacked the pear tree. It is now one foot high. Luckily he hasn't touched any other trees..... yet.

Kindy:
I had a parent/teacher interview with Mim's Kindy teacher yesterday. Mim is well adjusted, enjoys 'reading' books, interacts well with other children, and is a delight to have at Kindy. I didn't expect any different!

Dogs:
My electric dog collar arrived yesterday as well. As soon as I've finished posting, I'm going to go and try it out on Jess (I've had requests from people to try it out on Mim and Michael as well). Our fencing guy should arrive in the next week or so to redo our house yard fence, that will help with the dogs as well, allowing them to run around the yard without having to be chained up. Of course, Sarah will be able to jump the fence, being a Kelpie/Bluie cross, but Jess can't - and she's the problem dog!