Storms

Last night I went outside at about 7.30pm. In the north and east the skies were rumbling and there was a brilliant lightning display! I will admit that I was quietly happy it was over there and not here.
At about 9.30pm we could hear a storm rolling in from the west. We whizzed around disconnecting everything plugged into electricity...just incase. The rain began just after 10pm. Along with it came a fresh breeze, most welcome as it'd been very muggy and still prior to that. It's so nice to sit quietly and enjoy the sound of the rain on the roof and the smell of air that is just so fresh and clean.
This morning we measured 21.75mm (87pts)...not much compared to falls around our district. The creek that crosses the road on the way to town is on its way up and not doubt the river in town will be soon too.



This afternoon we watch this storm build up and wonder if it will cross the hills. Not hard to tell that it's summer when we receive most of our rain.....

PS This storm disappeared to the south.

School Resumes

Schools opened their doors in Queensland for all students yesterday.I now have a big Year 3 boy in the schoolroom. His teacher is new to the central west as well as distance education. We actually started school last week, as all going well, we'll be away next week.


The new C2C National curriculum begins this year too and this has seen many changes for classrooms across the country. For distance education, we have gone more digital. A laptop and USB stick now play a very important role in our schoolroom. We have received our first unit of work (now 5 weeks work instead of 2), but apparently that will soon stop and we'll only have the mistick. How things change!

There has been more rain over the weekend and today began heavily clouded, then clear sky and now more storms are rolling in from the west. Listening to the ABC, there are enormous amounts of rain in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast and some suburbs are preparing for evacuation. Hopefully nothing like last summer's rain will be experienced in the south east of our lovely state. Living on the land, we never take the rain for granted and NEVER wish it away. Out here, you can never have too much AND you never know when it will rain again.

Thanks for looking,

A little gift

I made this hairclip board as part of a baby gift for a precious little girl. She may be only 10 days old but she has a head full of long black hair.

Hair clips and bands tends to get lost easily or tangled in a big mess in a drawer so I made this board not only to be useful but pretty enough to hang on the wall. To hold little head bands, the rows with the bows open up under the bow (there's velcro holding the ends together) and then the band can be threaded on and then the ribbon closed.



So what do you think? Do you like it? I had lots of fun creating it and being the mother of four boys, it was lovely doing something girly.

Thanks for looking,

Another Storm

We were watching a good storm build up this afternoon. Martin was in the process of trucking home 10 bulls and when he arrived back in town for his second load, I told him to stay there.







We measured 130pts, 184pts at Koondoo (our neighbour to the south) and 80pts at Mt Calder (our neighbour to the west).

After last weekend's heat, it will be a welcome boost to the paddocks.

Thanks for looking,

Voucher Holder

Tonight we are going out to dinner to celebrate a friend's 30th birthday. We couldn't go empty handed so I have organized a voucher for him and made this holder to pop it in.

As you may have guessed Luke is very keen on horses.....





Thanks for looking,

My Garden

Today I thought I'd share a few photos of my garden, while it's freshly mown and manicured. Most of it is less than 12 months old. We may as well start the tour at the front gate....

This is the only garden outside the fence. Martin found these big rocks down near our house dam. He suggested planting 3 bougainvilleas there and I decided to add 3 palms as well. Unfortunately the cattle pulled out 2 of the palms, but as soon as it cools off a bit, they'll be replaced. We found the old gate where there used to be a set of yards.










This is my beautiful sandstone fountain...I call her Anastassia....Anna for short. She is totally gorgeous. Water dribbles from the cane basket she's holding. In the pond are several goldfish.

The south side is my tricky area of the garden. In winter this area cops the full brunt of the frosts and doesn't get any sun at all. In summer it gets sun all day...what a contrast! Consequently I've decided to have potted plants out there so I can easily change for them for each season. That tree you can see is the only one my in-laws ever planted when they lived in this house.

























And finally, our front patio area:




Our garden has come a long way in the last 3 years...and one of those was a drought year. We have also planted about 30 trees, whether they be shade trees for fruit trees. I have plans for more.......

I hope you enjoyed your little tour.

Thank you for looking and take care,

Ready for school

Yesterday Nathan painted some new canvases to hang in our schoolroom. He's really not into art and painting but was very keen to paint these.

Would you have picked this as being a spitfire? I certainly didn't but should have realized the red dots were the bullets being fired from the guns. I love the way he has painted the fumes coming from the back of the jet.


This pirate has just fired a sot from his pistol. (I will be only too happy when this almost 8 year old gets over his fascination with guns and all things involved with shooting....it's amazing how a stick with a bend in one end can become a gun or a pistol!)


I love his underwater scene and I think it was a great touch to add the hull of a boat and the anchor and chain.

This is our schoolroom, clean and neat and tidy for the 2012 school year. We commence the new C2C National curriculum this year and it has brought about many changes in distance education. However all teachers, home tutors and students are in the same situation so we'll all be learning together.

Check these out!

Gail from Greatest View is making these totally gorgeous fabric flowers...aren't they just stunning! They are a sneak peak for her first bi-monthly product release.

Would you like to win a $25 voucher to spend at the release? Gail's going to give three away and to be in the running, she needs our help to spread the word!

Become a follower of her blog and post the details of the giveaway on your blog or facebook. Or both for two entries :) Be sure to include the picture above and link back to the brand new Greatest View blog. Leave a comment on her post to let her know!

Entries close 9pm January 31st and Gail will announce the winners shortly after.

Over the coming couple of weeks until the next release, she' ll be introducing us to the design team, providing a little more information about Greatest View and starting from the 28th January shewill countdown each day until the first release for 2012 on February 1st.

So HOT!!

The heat we have been experiencing the last few days has been terrible but it was nothing like last Saturday. On that day it was 43 C in the waterbag in the shade AND to top it off we didn't have any electricity from 8.10am to 6.05pm!! At one stage Nathan became very distressed, not helped by the fact that he had a temperature. He was sent off for a cool shower and then we found some shade in the garden to relax in and enjoy a cold drink. Thank goodness for the little generator we have to. It alternated between running the coldroom and freezers in the butcher shop and then the fridge and freezer in the house.

Sunday saw it very hot again but late afternoon showers cooled it down for a bit and then it became very muggy.

Bright and early Monday morning our new garden/storage shed arrived....a 40ft shipping container painted both inside and out. Nev did very well to back in and avoid running over any of my fruit trees.

He was very worried about Martin pulling the container off the truck and was much happier when the doors were opened so they couldn't be damaged.


On the ground......


and in place. It's backed right up to the coldroom to shelter the back of it from the western sun and make it more efficient in the summer months.
Martin is also cutting another door into it up near the coldroom. I will use a small section for a garden shed...I'd like to see the wind blow this one away!....and the rest will be for storage to replace the old shed that blew away and also to store our sheep chemicals in.

That afternoon, I went into the school room, closed the door, turned the aircon on washed the walls and ceiling and had a big clean out in the cupboards, giving away a box full of craft stuff that was excess to our needs now that Nathan is in Year 3.

I had been spending alot of time in the garden doing all the garden edges, composting, fertilizing and mulching all the beds and whipper-snipping around the fence and all the trees. Thank goodness I had finished before the heat was cranked up. It's looking really lovely and not too heat stressed at all.

Thanks for looking and have a lovely day.

Bend Hole

On New Year's Day friends came out for the day and we had a lovely time socializing and relaxing.

We took them down to our favourite waterhole. It's a magical spot, and I'm sure you can see why.







Nathan is always fascinated by the stone crossing built by the Chinese. When there is not so much grass, you can really see the full extent of their work...they must have carted rocks for miles!

Usually we hear lots of birds when we're here, but not on this day. There was probably still too much bite in the sun for them.

Thanks for looking,