Easter Treats and flowers

I have been busy making little boxes of Easter treats for staff at our school. If Nathan had his way, I'd have made one for every staff member!

I made up a template for these little boxes



and this bigger one.
They were very well received at school. I know many of the staff keep them and one in particular has a little collection of our handmade Easter boxes, thank you and Christmas Day cards near her desk at school.

Our roses around the fishpond have been flowering like crazy lately and I couldn't resist cutting some and bringing them inside. their perfume was so intoxicating!


I was very excited to discover my Strelitizia flowering recently. I have been keeping a very close eye on it after discovering a big bud.

Busy, busy, busy...

We have finished school for the term and now I have visitors and a party to prepare for.

I have wanted Martin to make an arbor for over the front gate for ages...since mid 2011. I couldn't take photos at times as I was needed to clean away the soil as the digger dug the hole. hold posts etc.

Posts are in:

and level.
Inserts cut to fit the roof

and the roof goes on


Oops that post is not quite straight. Easy to sort out!

and screwed in place.


Now we just need to add a ridge cap. All the arbor is made from recycled materials....except fro the ridge cap. I wanted to use an old length but I was told and looked too disgusting! I think it has character. The new piece is too pristine, shiny and lacks character. I wonder what reaction I'd get if I roughed it up a little??

We even had have a solar powered light in the arbor and with its LED bulbs, it throws an amazing amount of light.

I shall share a photo of the arbor when it's complete......stay posted!

My Beautiful Sister

My sister Wendy had her head shaved on Friday night and she raised over $7 000 for the Leukemia Foundation. Doesn't she look beautiful?
Wend, you are such an inspiration and am so proud to have you as my sister. I love you very much.




If you would still like to donate to her fundraising it's not too late. Just drop in here.

World's Greatest Shave

My beautiful sister Wendy is participating in the Leukemia Foundation's World's Greatest Shave.

"A little boy from our town has been having treatment for leukemia since he was diagnosed end of last year. If he can be brave and cope with the lengthy treatment program, then surely I can be brave enough to shave.
My fundraising link is here.

This Friday night (March 23) Wendy will lose her lovely locks. I urge you to support Wend and help her raise badly needed funds. Too many people have lost their lives to these terrible disease.

A busy month

Where are the weeks going? I can hardly believe it's almost the end of March.

Queensland introduced the new C2C National curriculum this year, we have had a much bigger workload with school. A lot more is expected from the children, right from the beginning of the schooling. We found unit 1 of year 3 HUGE and being caught in Brisbane for longer didn't help. Slowly but surely we have clawed our way through the work and by the end of unit 1, we weren't too far behind. Roll in unit 2...so much easier at the start (or maybe we had just got used to the workload and have developed a good routine that works well for us) and we are cruising along and actually a little ahead! It feels so good.

It's almost 2 weeks since someone in this family celebrated a 'significant' birthday. I'm not telling who, but if you know our family, then you'll know who. (The colour of the icing gives it away doesn't it?)

We are having a party at Easter, so I've been spending as much time in the garden as I possibly can, which really is bugger all during the week. I spent this whole last weekend out there and boy did I need it. Gardening is terrific therapy. Yes I should have done the ironing, sucked up the spiders with the vacuum and mopped the floors as well as the rest of the housework but I needed to be outside. What great therapy gardening is! Work is also progressing on the arbor Martin is making for over the front gate. It's all made from recycled products. I will tell you more about it when it's finished and in place.

Last Thursday Martin bought 110 PTIC (preg. tested in calf) heifers at the local sale yards
.



One calved in the sale yards the morning of the sale. He, his mum and two other heifers close to calving all shared one half of a deck on the track that brought them out. We nicknamed him Baa and his mum Ma.


At first we thought we'd need to feed him as his Ma doesn't have much milk, but we found him feeding from her and then looking better and more active so we left them be. She's incredibly quiet and wasn't at all worried or stressed when we went near her or the calf. In fact, at one stage, Nathan was patting them both.

One the weekend, Alastair did all the cooking for the wedding of one of his workmates. This was his first big cooking project by himself. I spoke with him on Sunday morning and he was on a high, a little hungover, but on a high all the same. All had gone well and he'd received great compliments...what more could a chef want! We are so proud of him. Well done Alastair.

Thanks you looking,