Harvest!!!!!!!!!!

"Sunnyside, thought I might start your paddock in 20 mins" crackled over the UHF radio in the kitchen. With these words came a rush of excitement so adrenaline filled that you want to dance around the room, singing .... finally, finally harvest time has come. For 24 hours I could actually understand why farmers keep at it year after year through drought & hard times. Why they work 17 hour days during harvest. Finally it was time.....

Today the twins & I walked down to the back paddock to see the "big twakter" as they call it - the header at work.

Our neighbour (who was harvesting for us) was brave (or silly) enough to invite us all along for a ride. Jud was happy to climb on up & enjoyed riding the whole time on N's knee. Eli was another story... he clung to me with a vice grip & buried his face in my jeans - for most of the ride.

I've never been in a header before, but it was amazing!!! ( I think farming could become quite addictive!) Being up so high gives a great view of everything & the machine is working right in front of you, so you can clearly see what is going on! (I did however decline the offer of driving it.... I still wanted our fences standing at the end of the day!!!)

This pic is from inside the header cabin:

Here is the front of the header that cuts the grain & then transports it into the back for sorting the chaff from the grains. The chaff is blown at the back & the grain is then stored in a bin on the header itself. (If you are a farmer - don't laugh at this very uneducated description! - I know all the parts have fancy dancy names - just don't know those names!!!LOL) This is then offloaded into a truck to be transported for sale or storage. We chose to store ours in one of our silos for now.

Praise God that we got a harvest this year!!

Who is that knocking on my front door...

Last evening ...look who came visiting....

It's Whitey!!!!!

(OK he really couldn't knock, but now I have the Wiggles song in my head!!)

We have a little fence problem - literally a little fence - part of our houseyard fence is now short enough for him to climb over (yes cows are notorious at going over fences). So now he can visit whenever he decides the grass is greener....

Honest blog!

I was given this award by Jennifer at The Miles Family Adventures - thanks very much!
The rules are:

"When you receive the prize, you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in their content or design. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing that they were prized with 'Honest Weblog'. List [if you can and/or dare] at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!"

Well 10 honest things about me:

* I have always wanted to live on a farm as far back as I can remember - thankfully I married a man with similar dreams!

* I would love to live self-sufficiently. Soon we'll have our own meat, but I would love to have a fertile (& large) enough garden to cater almost completely to our culinary needs all year around (I would, of course, have to buy in tropical fruits still).


(These are our grapes as of today- we should get a good crop!!)


* I never, ever, ever thought I would have twins - there aren't any on my side for at least 5 generations (thus making fraternal impossible without medical intervention) & identical twins are so rare (1 in 250 or so) that I never considered it.


* I've changed my favourite season from summer (up North) to spring (since we moved down here!)

(This is today - as you can see everything has died off for summer - this is normal for this part of the world!)

* I am going to experiment with preserving some cherries this afternoon & blanching & freezing carrots (that I bought for 79c/kg) - this is how I used to keep my excess of broccoli from my winter garden up north.



* I've been struggling to come up with posts over the last few weeks, so I took my camera with us to the bus stop this morning & then the twins & I went for a walk & I think I have enough pics for at least 3 posts now! (OK I took over 100 pics!! - can you tell I enjoy photography??)

(This is our crop - golden & almost ready for harvest!!)

* I haven't really started Christmas shopping. I have a couple of presents, but the bulk I haven't even thought about (Sigh).




* I am so proud of Dave as he's been working on a particular project at work since we moved here (designed & built it) & yesterday was it's first run & it went well!!!! YAY - well done Dave!!!



* I'm tired. I don't know why - I went to bed at 9:30pm last night, but I could go & have a sleep right now (of course I won't, as soon as I've published this post I'm going to hang out the washing & then get into the kitchen - I'll have to put on some boppy music to get me motivated - actually I'll have an iced coffee right now - be back in a minute! - sorry babbling again)
* (Back with iced coffee - one sip & I'm feeling better already - that's a bad thing isn't it!) OK number 10 - I'm addicted to iced coffee's now, but I never drank any coffee until I had the twins - that's when my caffeine addiction started!!





Now I'm meant to pass it on. I know a lot of blogs I read have already been given this award, so if you're on my blogroll ( or want to be on my blogroll) & haven't been given it, consider it passed onto you!!!

Young!

Yesterday Dave had the day off work, so we decided to have a bit of fun & take off to Young for the day!

No, it wasn't because one of the Australian Idol finalists is from there (although you sure can't forget that - almost every shop has a sign up "Go Luke" & at every roundabout are signs - I even read in the newspaper that the people at the newsagent call up every hour to put in a vote for him).

(Photo from the Australian Idol website)

It was because it is now cherry season & we wanted to go & pick our own cherries!!! YUM!!! We've gone picking cherries there a few years ago & it was such a fun experience we decided that we would fit it in before harvest starts here (for us anyway).

We had such great fun - they drop you off in the middle of their cherry orchard & you can pick & eat to your heart's content - I would highly recommend it as a fun family activity ! (Unfortunately I forgot the SD card for the camera - it was sitting in the computer.)

5 1/2 kgs later & we are done!!!

Now I just need to work out what to do with all these cherries - although we are enjoying eating them in large quantities !!!! (Bet you wish you were here mum!!!!)

We were all completely exhausted because we always try & fill too much into a day at a city, but we had such a fun time!

(This is Ellie's 'tired' face - I told her to look tired (which she was just before this pic) & this is what we ended up with!!!)

Homemade kitchen cleaner!

For around 6 months I've been making my own kitchen cleaner. Once upon a time I used to buy a bottle of kitchen cleaner once a fortnight, but it was getting quite expensive, besides the fact that I worry what's in it, so I thought I'd do some research into making my own. I found this website & it's where I got the initial recipe from, however she makes such a large amount & I only needed one spray bottle at a time, so I experimented until I was happy with the combination of ingrediants for just one bottle. I now keep the ingrediants in my cleaning cupboard, so whenever I run out I can just make up another bottle - it doesn't even take a minute to make!!!!
I use:

I make it in the spray bottle.




* First I put in a drop of ammonia (cloudy ammonia was all I could find at woolies - it seems to work fine) - initially I tried using much more of this & it was taking the skin off my hand (OOPS)- one drop is definitely enough.



* I then add the rubbing alcohol & I know this isn't exact, but I use about 5 squeezes of the bottle - this gets the liquid level to about 1cm in the bottle. (The alcohol also adds an anti-bacterial element).



* Put in one drop of washing up detergent - I always use morning fresh because it is quite concentrated (& that's the one I like with washing up, so it's in the house).



* To this you add about 4 drops of your favourite essential oil - I was using lavender, but since that bottle ran out (yes, I just need to get some more), recently I've been using orange.



* I also add a couple of drops of food colouring - just so it looks nice in the bottle & my kids don't think it's a water squirty for their hair!



* Fill the bottle with water - it's as easy as that - I just use cold water from the tap.
This is so much more economical than store bought (imagine how much you pay for something that is mainly water) & I have found it just as effective!!

A walk down memory lane...

This is a meme I saw a while ago on Christine's blog (she just tagged everyone). I remember at the time thinking it would be fun to do & one thing led to the other & I haven't yet done it, but today's the day. Let me give you a little glimpse into my life preblogging:

15 years ago....

I was only 14 years of age. I've been trying to remember anything interesting from that year, but really it's all a blur. I know I officially met Dave a year later. I know I worked hard at school - I was in grade 9; I thought I was too fat; my baby sisters were only 1 & 3; I was only allowed to shave my legs & get my ears pierced for my 14th birthday (yes mum, it has scarred me!!LOL)! but really not a particularly memorable year.


10 years ago....
I was 19 years old. In my second year of uni studying radiography. In October that year Dave & I got engaged, so at this point in the year, I would have been planning our engagement party! We were engaged for 13 months & got married the next Dec. We were Sunday school teachers at my church & youth group leaders at his. Life was busy & fun!


5 years ago....
I was 24. Zai was 16 months old & I was loving motherhood. I was also 5 months pregnant with Ellie (this photo is from a few months before) - not a difficult pregnancy, but it was a VERY HOT summer that year - I used to lie in Zai's paddling pool eating ice, just trying to get cool. I had gone back to work 2 days a week- because of shift work & Dave's shifts Zai either stayed at home with Dave when he had a day off, went to Liss's house or went to Grandma's when I had daytime shifts. We had sold our house near the beach in the July & bought our MH home in August, so I was probably still setting that up.


3 years ago....
Age: 26. Pregnant again- this time with the twins. A very difficult pregnancy - & I was VERY sick. There was no hiding this pregnancy - by 12 weeks I was in maternity clothes ( I had found out I was having twins at 9 weeks). I think motherhood & pregnancy consumed my life at that point. (This pic actually taken in Dec that year.)



1 year ago...
We were packing up our home getting ready to move down here. At this point, I think our MH house was just sold (it sold in 2 days) so I would have begun the dreaded packing of boxes. We didn't have somewhere to live down here, but signed a contract in late Nov on this farm.


Yesterday...

(No I didn't change into a chicken - I actually took this pic today, but I don't think my chickens would have changed too drastically in one day!!)

I worked in the school canteen for the day. Mothers are asked to work in there once a term & since Dave had yesterday off work & could take the 3 younger children, I did my shift. It was also the sign up for swimming club in the afternoon & Zai had fun with that. It's amazing how much they lose their swimming skills over winter, but he should be back to swimming properly soon!


Today..
My day is very quiet. Zai is at school, Ellie at preschool (Tuesday is her preschool day) & Eli & Jud are asleep - they came & asked for dummy's & put themselves down for an early rest time - they must be tired. My diary is empty except for tonight where I have a preschool meeting planned - since it is our last one, we have to bring dessert, so I must make something to take this afternoon. The farmyard is quiet - we've just had a teasing of rain (it's not enough to say it's actually raining - just spitting for a few minutes). All animals & children accounted for!

Bits n' pieces!

On Monday I did a very silly mummy thing. You see I had made egg & bacon pie for dinner & Zai asked to use the left over puff pastry to make a pastry motorbike. I of course gave it to him, but when he came & asked to use some food colouring, I let him use it as well... of course I said only one drop, but I just gave him the whole pack - without thinking. Fast forward 10 mins & I walk over to find Eli & Jud happily occupied like this:

We put them straight into a bath for an hour, but Eli only lost the blue tinge to his leg yesterday.... & Jud looked like he had a massive multi-coloured bruise on his leg for a couple of days. Thankfully I didn't have any pressing commitments this week!!

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I made apple jam on Wednesday. I meant to get pictures of the whole cooking process, but I forgot (shame, it would have made a lovely post) ...I love making jam, it feels so homely. I imagine my great grandmothers doing the same thing years ago!

I'll pretend the angled photo is for artistic effect & not because of poor photographer technique!!
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This morning I heard Jud crying that kind of cry that makes you drop everything & run. He had fallen & hit his face & was bleeding what looked like tears of blood from his eye. Because of the location & the fact that I couldn't stop the bleeding on the cut, I decided I needed a second opinion on what to do about it, so up to the emergency dept of our local hospital ... it's such a small hospital, it's rare that they have anyone else there, so they are usually glad to help out if you're unsure about what to do. We tried a steri-strip, but he wouldn't tolerate that.

It looks much better now, although it took about 3 hours for the bleeding to stop - yes we tried compression, but Jud would only allow that for a few minutes at a time. (That's betadine down the side).

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Ellie just wanted me to include this picture - she's being a superhero!

Hope you have a lovely weekend!