Wednesday 27 January 2016

A full year down the track. !!!

Long time no see...... and I apologize, there just are not enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want to do and  something has to give.
The two weeks after Christmas was an absolute whirlwind, the tiling on the kitchen floor was finally completed, and then we taped up and got the walls  and door and window trims all painted, unfortunately we still have the ceiling to go, as I had ran out of ceiling white, but I hope to complete it soon.
Hubby then got busy and installed my new dishwasher (which is total heaven to have again. and also installed my great new gas stove.
On the 5th January we celebrated one whole year here of retirement at the farm., One whole year of madness, mess and hard work. Thought I would show a couple of comparison photos of the changes.
The old kitchen , before we knocked out that   gorgeous old fireplace that unfortunately leaked like a sieve  and removed the  fuel stove that was so  worn out it few to pieces as we removed it,  ending the possibilities of using it  outside at a later point.
The new kitchen, all  bright and shiny, I just love it so much.
The old bright green loungeroom and  floral axminster carpet( lovely in its day but  not what we needed now.
we have had an influx of pests and feral animals,  firsly we have had a huge amount of  spiders, but now that the tiling is finished and meets up against the new screen doors, they seem to have slowed.
Last week we had a couple of scorpions( our next door neighbour was bitten on the foot by one in his own loungeroom, and was very painful he assured us.
Next we had a sneaky fox hanging around the chicken coop for a couple of days, so hubby quickly disposed of him before he got himself a free feed.
 And lastly  one night after mopping the floors I walked back through the house only to find this  small stripey snake curled up on the loungeroom floor,
After  a quick capture and some googeling , hubby decided to relocate him to the forest across the road right away from our house.
We had a huge two weeks looking after our grandchildren, while mum had a  vacation in Vietnam with an old friend  and dad had to work ,one 5 years and  the other 16 months.
We had fun in between the hard work, but we were absolutly exhausted by the end of the 2 weeks.

We loved the  chickens and Turkeys,

Loved the pony at the neighbours that she got to ride,
And we were"Lucky" enough to have a poddy calf for a week to  bottle feed.She named him "Tim Tam."
My Daughter bought me home this beautiful little container, I adore it.
Hubby built a new rough shade  area  on the western side of our house where we will hopefully put up a verandah over winter, we set up a small swimming pool for the kids  under there while they were here, as we had 5 days of temperatures above 40 deg C.
We picked  our small crop of peaches early as the flying fox bats were starting to feast on them, but I can't blame them as they were delicious. We are  also being inundated with zuchinnis and cucumbers and gem squash from the garden, which has been lovely, and we also picked our first rockmelon.
We are deperate for rain still here, scoring 20 mm last week, but it barely wet the ground and today while Dubbo  not far away scored a huge 87 mm we only managed 11mm.
Hubby got in and scarified up a small area, hoping that we would get decent rain and then plant seed  after that, but not sure if there will be  enough moisture , with luck we may get another shower over night.
Another job that had to be done was the  removal of an old cockies wire gate and replacement  with a proper metal gate..we recycled a surplus one  that we had removed a few years ago from an unused gateway. The sheep had been pushing through  the old wire gate  and getting into the chicken coop , as we leave the door open for them to free range during the day and  getting their fill of  the  grain and layer pellets.The old blue girl supervised the whole job.
Our building  and  work on the house will be on hold for a while now while hubby moves on with some badly need farm repairs..
I will try to  catch up and do another post in the next few days to keep up with all that we have been doing here.
Take care, until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane.

15 comments:

  1. Wow Jane, you both have been so busy. The place looks great. I do hope you will get that much needed rain.
    Take care,
    Mel

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    1. Thanks Mel,
      It has been a crazy year, but life is starting to feel more normal now and it really feels like home, just some more sorting and downsizing some of the " stuff" I have ( so much when combining two homes.
      Cheers
      Jane

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  2. We are gasping for rain here in Spain too. It is winter here and it should rain but it hasn't so far.
    You both have been working so hard! And what a difference! I think I joined you when you took the old stove out. I love the before and after photos. Your kitchen looks great.
    All that 'wild life' in the house is not my cup of tea. I don't like snakes and scorpions, but then who does. It's good that your hubby re-locates the snake back into the wild.
    I hope you get rain soon.
    Greetings,
    Lisca

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    1. Hi Lisca,
      No the wild life certainly does not apeal to me either, snakes in the house especially...they are protected to a certain degree here so that's why they are relocated if possible and as he was small it was manageable.
      I am really pleased with how the new kitchen is, I love to cook so it is wonderful to work in now.
      I hope you get rain as well, it just changes everything, makes it all so much more pleasant , and a lot less work trying to keep everything alive, fingers crossed for us both. :-) :-)
      Cheers
      Jane.

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  3. My goodness, you have been so busy. I love your kitchen now and the floors are beautiful. You'll be busy with your garden soon I'm sure. Glad you found a little time to blog and look forward to the next post.

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    1. Thanks Janice,
      Has been a crazy time, but we will get there.
      Sorry I have been a little slack on the blogging and replies, but I will try and keep up.
      Cheers
      Jane

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  4. Hello Jane great work indeed on your kitchen. Shame you missed all the rain. We are in the Hunter Valley and have had an unusually very wet January with 356mm thus far. Were out at Merriwa and Ulan over the weekend and the countryside looked very lush indeed for middle of summer. Let's hope you get at least some storm rain soon. Di

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    1. Hi Diane,
      We finally did get some rain and the place is finally starting to green up a bit, but a ways to go yet.
      We moved here from Newcastle, the Hunter Valley is a wonderful area to live.
      Sorry I haven't replied earlier, just not enough hours in the day at the moment.
      Cheers
      Jane.

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  5. Hello Jane great work indeed on your kitchen. Shame you missed all the rain. We are in the Hunter Valley and have had an unusually very wet January with 356mm thus far. Were out at Merriwa and Ulan over the weekend and the countryside looked very lush indeed for middle of summer. Let's hope you get at least some storm rain soon. Di

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  6. your house & gardens are looking wonderful!
    hope you get much needed rain your way

    thanx for sharing

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    1. Hi Selina, we finally did get some of that much needed rain. We had a good storm a couple of days ago and we scored a lovely 35 mm in all, it was beautiful.
      I apologize for the delay in answering, and I hope to try and keep up a little better in the future,
      Cheers
      Jane.

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  7. What great grandparents you are. I occasionally look after young ones and its exhausting. They are lucky to have so much to do on the farm, most of which is free.

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    1. Oh Lynda, they are exhausting, but wonderful and they keep fairly busy here wandering around and helping Brian... Which frees me up to get on with house stuff.
      When were were nearer them it was just a day here and there, but now it comes in longer blocks, but two weeks was just too long, won't do that again..
      Thanks for poping by again, sorry I have been slow on the replies...
      Cheers
      Jane.

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  8. So nice to see it all coming together, it is impossible to sort and allocate space when renos are taking place.
    I know how you feel with the kitchen all done,it is such a relief to be organized and get stuck into some production when everything is just the way you want.
    So lovely for the little ones to spend time with you at the farm, my nieces still talk about their visits when they were young and they have their own kids now.

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    1. Hi Margaret, it is good now it is sorting out and we are really settling into the new spaces that we have created. Canning and preserving has become much easier and the cleanup is quicker and I am LOVING having a dishwasher again...had said to Brian " we won't worry about a dishwasher", but he insisted and I am soo glad he did. We had a lovely time with the kids , but as I just mentioned up above, two weeks is just too long for everyone, just a week would have been better and I think we will stick to that next time.
      Take care
      Cheers
      Jane.

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