Caitlin with pups (4 weeks)

We decided to go and meet Bonnies puppies so Caitlin, Cliff and I headed over there on Saturday 3rd October.  Although 9 puppies had been born we discovered one had been put to sleep (the largest female) because she had a cleff palate and couldn’t feed properly.  So that leaves just 4 females and there are two people choosing before us.  We contacted the owner, Mark, the following week when the pups were 5 weeks and he advised that the first person having a female had already chosen their pup and they will advise as soon as it is our turn.  Hopefully that will be sometime during this week.

I asked Mark about the big difference in size of the puppies…. a couple are large, several are medium sized and then there are 2 very small ones.  He said that Bonnie had been mated on 3 occasions and therefore conception had occured over a 5 day period and that the smaller pups were last conceived.  Mark said that the smaller pups will catch up in size in their first year.

Richie

Today, after many, many years of procrastinating we took the plunge and bought a tractor!  Richie is a Shimbaura Tractor that was originally used in Japan and has been imported as a 2nd hand machine.  They get a good looking over and service to make sure all is ok before they are sold.  Richie has only done 298 hours work to now.  It seems crazy that Japan only allows cars and other vehicles (and obviously tractors) to have a short working life before off loading them to elsewhere in the world (I guess to spread the polution!).

Anyway…… we found Tractorama after speaking to our Piesse Brook neighbour who had bought a very handsome tractor there some months prior.  We’d previously looked at bobcats (way too expensive), dingos (too small and light for the work we need done), articulated vehicles (very expensive) and tractors before (usually ones leaking oil and in bad repair).  The tractors we saw all looked almost new but had not had paint touch ups or anything.  We narrowed it down to 3 we liked that were in our price range and that Cliff could sit in without his knees painfully banging against metal as he drove it.

Richie (named so as Shimbaura is similar to “Richie Sambora” of Bon Jovi fame….. don’t know why that came to mind but it did at the time and I can accept that Cliff thinks it’s totally stupid and a name not befitting a tractor any way) will be delivered to his new home in two weeks time.  We are looking forward to many years of happy sand moving, stump pulling out, rock shuffling, trench digging and diggin in of reticulation!  It’s gotta beat doing all that by hand as we’ve done for the last 6 1/2 years! or hiring machines.

Left side looking up the hill

As it was the (Queen’s birthday)

Looking down to the backLooking down to the back

long weekend we decided to head up to the “farm” to do some maintenance.  We’d stayed there the weekend before and had taken up bedding, towels and other essentials which meant all we needed to take was clothes and some food.

Every time I stay there for the night… window open, fresh air blowing in, dark night sky, stars and silence (other than the dulcet tones of varioius species of frogs) I am reminded at just how magical this place is and how much I have missed it in the past 18 months I haven’t lived there.

Saturday morning Cliff jumped on our newly serviced lawnmower to mow the main grass area while the blades were brand new (before I got my hands on them!).  I decided to use the mattock to get out a few rocks (that are large enough to ruin mower blades)

A momentus occasion - Mitch whipper snipping

that were firmly embedded in the

Cliff on the whipper snipper

grass so they were impossible to see when mowing.  I then took on the task of digging up the roots and chopping out the two stagnent mango trees.  The first only a metre tall has not grown in the 6 1/2 years we’ve had the block.  I chopped a branch to test the wood and found it very soft.  I only had to dig around the root ball and down a foot to be able to chop through enough of the main roots I could push the tree over and remove it.  The second tree was about 7 foot tall but had never fruited or look anything much.  Due to its size it was much harder to dig out but I managed to use the mattock to clear beside each of the big roots and was able to chop through them and after pushing the tree in each direction snapped through enough roots to remove the tree also.

Kookaburra - and spot the two willy wagtails

At midday Cliff & I headed down to

Peaceful place

M&D Smiths to watch the footy grandfinal between Geelong and St Kilda.  We both wanted St Kilda to win but sadly they never rose to the occasion and Geelong were the better side on the day and took the cup.  St Kilda ended the season with only 2 losses all year and about 12 points clear of the 2nd side (Geelong).  After the game we headed back up to Piesse Brook to continue on the mowing.

On Sunday Cliff started the whipper snipping.  Mitchell met us up the farm (after driving himself there for the first time) and did a spot of whipper snipping.  I thought I’d take a photo to commemorate the momentus occasion that one of our children actually picked up a gardening implement and used it (even if it was just for 1/2 hour)… not one whinge was even had (a double miracle).

Mahli exhausted after a long weekend

I mowed the bottom grass area and then started ont he left paddock.  Our friendly kookaburras headed over and perched on low branches for a good view of any mice or large insects we may have been disturbing.  They have become so tame they are not the least bit scared of us.  They sit in the tree and allow us to get to only a foot or two away to take a photo and they just look at us and cock their heads blinking.  They swoop down in front of the mower or whipper snipper with seemingly no fear we are going to hit them.  They are not the least bit concerned about Mahli either!

On Monday we decided to sleep in and read for a while before heading out to finish off the bottom paddock before cleaning off the mower and putting everything back in our superbly clean shed (cleaned last weekend!).

Next Saturday we have the tree Fritz coming over to quote on trimming the dead wood off the willows and trimming a couple of the branches off the trees on the verge which Western Power have been flagging for years!

Ingredients - Mushroom soup

Our

Cream of mushroom soup with sauteed mushroom garnish

home grown mushrooms became mushroom soup tonight.   I sliced the mushrooms and set aside 1/4 of them.  Dice two potatoes, one sliced leek, dice 1/2 small red chilli and several garlic cloves.  Add all ingredients to hot wok with olive oil and cook for a few minutes, add knob of butter and cook for further 5 minutes then add water to just cover and simmer for 10 minutes until all veges are soft.  Set aside into a bowl and then cream with food processor.  Put the set aside mushrooms in hot pan with olive oil and diced parsley and sautee until brown.  Plate the soup, add a sploosh of cream and top with the sauteed mushrooms and a parlsley sprig.  Eat with crusty bread.  Delicious!

First Mushroom Crop

Watching mushrooms grow has been amazing.  Mushrooms literally grow before your very eyes.  Even checking them at a 2 hour interval you could easily see their growth.  By day 6 they were just about ready to harvest but we waited until Sunday afternoon to do it.  By then the buttons had mostly opened up.  The first crop weighs a little under a kilo so already the yield value is greater than the purchase price of the mushroom farm.  Growing mushrooms is great fun… you can grow them inside (I grew mine in the bathroom - under the towel rack!), they don’t get attacked by bugs, they grow very fast.  I find I can be a little impatient waiting for veges to grow enough to harvest so the mushroom experience has been great!

Mushrooms (10 + 3 days)

Growing mushrooms at home is just the easiest thing.  You buy a box from the plant nursery which has a thick layer of peet moss at the bottom that has already been inpregnated with mushroom spore.  There is a separate plastic bag containing moist, rich soil which you add water to until you can squeeze drops out through your fingers.  You spread out the wet soil (but don’t press it down).  Then you close over the plastic cover and re-close the box and leave it for 10 days in a non-drafty spot.  I’ve been keeping the box in the bathroom and check the progress each day.  On day 12 there were tiny little button mushrooms showing.  By day 5 they had increased five fold (photo).  Their growth is astouding…. you check in the morning and you can SEE the growth they’ve made during that day when you check them at night.  I imagine we’ll be eating these in a few days.

Fence destroyed by strong winds

Finally after 5 dry months we had our first wet week of 2009.  This didn’t come in the form of a mere drizzle but hit with 120km winds, storm clouds and very heavy downpours.  We certainly needed the rain badly.  Our small dam at our Piesse Brook property had been completely dry for the past few weeks which is a first in the 6 years we’ve had it.  Of course the road drains, house gutters and ground couldn’t not keep up with the deluge so there was quite a bit of flooding around.  By far the biggest damage however, was done by the wind.  An area near us (Riverton) bore the brunt of the storm and the news showed homes without roofs, huge trees flattened as well as one poor sole who lost both of their cars and their home to a massive gum tree which pulverised the lot.  We however suffered our first major storm damage at our new home, exactly one year after moving in.  During the night on Thursday 21st May, well at 3am on Friday 22nd to be exact, squawling winds hit our place.  There was lots of banging and crashing, which we discovered in the morning, was our side fence being smashed to pieces.  This fence is the divider between us an the neighbour on our left. (which is actually the RIGHT side on the top photo as I’ve take the photo from the back fence looking down to the front of our property with OUR house on the left!)

We contacted our insurance company who sent out their assessor this morning.

32m of (ex)fence

They will pay 1/2 of the 32 metres of fencing that needs to be replaced (our neighbours insurance company needs to pay 50% also).  We are hoping our neighbour will agree to replace the hardiflex (cement panel) fence with colourbond instead as this will match the other 2 sides of fence and not only look beter then the grey cement but will be far stronger as it has a cemented in downpost both sides of every panel.

We were very greatful that our guinea pigs were not in their wire cage on the grass up in the back corner because the fence fell in that direction (to the right looking at this photo towards the back fence) and would have squished them flat!

We we also glad we didn’t have Mahli (JR) as she would have no doubt done a runner with the fence down before we woke up!

We’ve had some nice cold nights in the past week that have been brought with this weather front.  Last night was a chilly 5 degrees… lovely!  Nothing nicer than a chilly night, with the windows open snuggled up with someone you love and your fluffy doona!

GP Allergy

In my younger years I didn’t seem to be allergic to anything.  Not food, nor animals, or plants of any kind… but now, in my (early) 40’s I seem to be picking up an allergy a year.  My recent, and unfortunate, allergy is an allergy to guinea pig fur.  Now I guess this would not affect ‘normal’ people in as much as they wouldn’t care if they were allergic or not to guinea pigs… but I, as a guinea pig owner find this allergy very frustrating, and painful.

I had guinea pigs as a child and into my teens.  My kids had guinea pigs when they were young and I was in my 20’s and in my early thirties I still had guinea pigs as personal pets.  Then I went about 5 years not having any guinea pigs until we bought Larry & Guy four years ago… and that is when the guinea pig allergy started.  At first I’d just get a ‘prickly’ feeling and occasionally a mild redness on the skin where the guinea pig and been laying against.

Then last year I began getting fast and nasty reactions almost immediately on touching a guinea pig.  Nowadays though the allergy has stepped up.  The photo shows my reaction from a split-second touch of GP fur against the skin on the inside of my forearm.  It immediately was extremely itchy, red and welts, similar to blisters showed within 30 seconds.  The nastiest response I get is if the GP brushes against the skin on my face where the resulting rash is just awful and very painful.  The rashes here also last a lot longer too. So….it seems that the allergy is escalating

My “evil” son M said that would “love to rub a guinea pig all over me to see just how bad the rash could get!

Mowing & Whipper Snipping

The problem with having a 3 acre property in addition to a house you live in somewhere else - is the maintenance.  There is nothing that Cliff and I hate more than whipper snipping.  It is exhausting, hot, boring, and hard work.  Mowing however is not too bad at all on a ride-on mower…. in fact it is kind of fun!  We only had one good whipper snipper, a 4hp, Honda 4 stroke with handle bars and a full harness which made it much less strain on your back and shoulders.  So being the man, poor Cliff got to do the whipper snipping while I, being ‘not the man’, got to sit on the mower and mow for hours on end.  The time went fast listening to music with my ear muffs on, plastered in sun cream, a hat and long sleeves to stop sun burn.

3 acres is a lot to mow and whipper snip.  We started earlier in the week for 3 hours on the first day.  The 2nd day we thought, this is crazy that only one of us can whipper snip and it is the ‘not fun’ job…. so we headed of to the mower place where we bought our whipper snipper and mower a few years ago.  When we explained that we wanted a second whipper snipper the guy looked at us like we were a little crazy and then said “don’t buy a new one I’ve got one exactly the same as yours traded in second hand”.  It seemed a good deal to us at a 1/4 of the price of a new one!

We had a days rest and then on day 3 headed back for anothers 3 hours.  Again I mowed and Cliff whipper snipped.  The following day we rested and on the 3rd day we headed back again and this time we both whipper snipped.  It has been so hot this week (between 36 and 40 degrees C) and each time we’d have to give up by 1pm because it was just too hot.  Cliff ended up with sun stroke (not feeling too well from the sun) a couple of times and the day I whipper snipped I was really sick by midday.  Even two hours after showing and heading home I still felt very rough.

This morning Cliff headed off on his own and did the last 3 hours of whipper snipping.  So the whole property now has nice short grass and is no fire risk this summer.  Although we do not reticulate the grass, 3/4 of the property is still green and therefore grows fast.  Our rain water tanks are doing a great job trickle watering our 50 newly planted gum trees down the side and across the back of the property.  We are ‘willing them’ to grow fast so that in 4 years when we build a house and move back there we will be surrounded by nice high trees.

Motorbike Frog

Several months ago we booked a swimming pool renovator to re-plaster and tile our cement swimming pool as ours is old and in bad repair.  But the months and weeks have dragged on and he has not turned up so over this time our pool had become a cesspool.  On the weekend I rang him and said “just give it to me straight - are we going to have our pool done by Christmas?”.  As the answer was “no” we decided to get our swimming pool back to normal so we can actually swim in it.  Cliff bombed it with chlorine to kill off the pond scum. The pool was so green that you couldn’t even see the sides of the pool.  He also put the hose in the pool to top up the water level so he could vacuum it.  About half an hour later an unhappy frog was clinging to the hose.  This is the first time we’d seen a frog at this house and we weren’t aware there were any around.  It was a motorbike frog (scientific name: Litoria Moorei), which is a local, still prolific, breed of frog.  They are beautiful, quite large (about 10cm long by 5cm wide) and their back legs are big.  They have lovely fingers that, if you place a stick near them, they will grab onto it just like a human hand.  We scooped out the frog with the pool net so it couldn’t get away from us in the over-chlorinated pool (as chlorine would no doubt be toxic in a short space of time with such porous skin) and placed it in a damp spot in the garden.  The next day when I walked past our fish pond (which has 12 large goldfish and koi in it) there was the frog bobbing about.  He seemed totally at home and looked much happier than he had the day before.