Eye troubles

 Caramels baby has an infection in one eye. Michaela woke up a few mornings ago to find the hair completely covering the eye. We bathed it in warm water which was not received to well. The baby guinea pig squirmed and squealed in distaste. His eye appeared blue and I worried that he was  going blind. Michaela persevered and cleaned his eye daily for a few days and this morning his eye is fine. The cloudy blue in the centre is replaced now with a bright clear eye. I think we caught the infection in time. It could have been a stray hair or it could have been a piece of wood shaving dust but at least whatever it was, its gone now.  I think this baby is a boy!

A morning run down

It’s early.  The alarm goes off and I slowly open my eyes.   Mornings are cold these days and outside is dark still. The house is still so quiet; Mr Rooster hasn’t risen yet with his welcoming crows for the day.  I have lots to do before tomorrow. The chores are waiting but before I can start my day, there is a family to tend too.  There’s my wonderful husband and son to see off with lunch and snacks for the day. I close the door as I see the Ute pull off, it’s not nearly as cold as it becomes once the sun comes up. This puzzles me as the sun should warm us up, yet as it rises the temperature drops and then it’s time to start a morning fire.  I pile in the firewood onto the dry brittle pinecones. They make wonderful fires starters. I’m grateful every winter for the number of pine trees we have on our property.  They make the job of indoor fire making a breeze. The house is still so silent and all I can hear is the tapping of the keys on the computer as I type what’s on my heart. I started sewing the cushion covers yesterday for the two single chairs I have waiting on the patio for me. It took longer than expected but I’m eager to get back to it this morning.  Maybe, just maybe, I might be able to finish one today in between the weekly shopping, gift buying, a house that needs vacuuming, washing to be hung, laundry to be sorted and packed away,  animals to be fed and watered and wood to be chopped.

Good morning Mr Rooster, cock-a- doodle do,  he calls out!

Escaped cow!

Last Wednesday night I made my usual house call to the cattle and to pay the feed money to the owners of Sabbath. Carlos told us that the day before one of the girls found a break in the electric fence and escaped. It was fun and games but Carlos said she went back without a fuss and all was right as rain again. He says she’s placid. Sabbath watched on chewing his cud, not too phased by the commotion. I'm sure glad it happened there and not here at home.  

Bees

Yesterday I met an apiarist or honey farmer/beekeepers as they are also called.  Apis in Latin means bee. Steve runs his apiary making income from the production of honey and breeding of queen bees. I approached him to find out if he was interested in placing a few hives on our property.  Too me it was a win-win situation. I get to watch an experienced beekeeper on my own property, no cost attached.  In return for the use of my land, he pays me in free honey produced from the bees. Johnny is safe from being stung and I get to learn and watch how the bees are managed. All the perks minus the hard work. What more can I ask for.

It broke!

The chaff cutter is broken. During the process of motorising it, the old machine gave up the ghost. So I guess I'll won't be using him this winter season until Johnny can fix the poor thing.  It really is old.

This past weekend I formed a herb garden. Now that I have a dehydrator, I never have to buy another packet or bottle of herbs from the supermarket.  I started the garden a few days ago in my head. I have a number of old tyres lying around the garden.  It occurred to me one day how they would make lovely gardens for herbs. My one concern was the possibility of the rubber leaching into the soil and affecting the plants. After researching this point heavily, I could not find substantial proof that it would be harmful in anyway and decided that I would go ahead with my tyre herb garden. Along with the help of the farm stay guests I had at the time, I collected the aged chicken manure waiting for such a time as this, moved the wheelbarrow over to collect some ordinary soil and then mixed the two together in the barrow. After the soil/manure mix was deposited in the tyres I added a bag or two of organic garden potting mix.  In went the parsley, sage, basil and rosemary. A final layer of sugarcane mulch completed the little gardens and after a drink of Seasol we stood back and smiled. The gardens were alive.    

Surprise, surprise

Last Sunday was an early morning for me. The farm stay guests had a bus to catch and there was a deadline to meet. They were travelling on to catch a ferry to Moreton Island. Driving in the early morning mist was beautiful.  The mist covered the countryside like a thick blanket. The tips of the trees just breaking through the cover. Exhausted but content, I arrived back home to a cosy house, everybody was either rising or outside doing something. Michaela was cleaning Caramel’s cage and all of a sudden I heard shrieks of delight coming from her.   Two babies were born overnight. One caramel colour just like Mum and one white and grey. They appear to be females to my untrained eye but will have to make sure as Guinea Pigs multiply rather fast and I do not want any further unplanned pregnancies. We had no idea she was already pregnant when we bought her from the supply store.  For now I guess we will be thinking up names for the two littlest additions to Pine Haven. What a surprise to come home too.

A plan

A lot of times when I want to do things I have missing links and that hinders my progress.   I have the passion and drive, I can definitely grow chillies successfully and I can and have experimented with drying them out and I know how to put them to good use fresh and dry.  The part in-between is the part I have difficulty with.  How do you use the produce to bring in an income no matter how small?  Where do you start and how does the process work, well today was a step in the right direction.

Today I found a contact totally by acident.  Another farm stay lady that grows and sells her limes.  She’s friendly and helpful and I’m planning on learning allot from her. I think this time next year, if all goes according to plan, I will be selling my chillies to the market. She is going to look around for a contact at the market for them. Can I grow that many chillies, can I package them all and do the deliveries on my own too? Am I thinking too big? All these doubts plague my thoughts, but I’m going to give it my best shot. If it doesn’t work out well hey I gave it a go.

Precious memories

I have albums from long ago holding precious photos of a time gone by. Now that most of the people in these photo’s are gone and I am here today only with the albums as proof of bygone memories, I treasure these old albums. But I find myself wondering will these memories live on in my children and in their children’s memories. Will they look at these photos some day and wonder who these people are. Facts and stories that have been lost in time. Teach your children folks about the past, lock in the stories that passed us by. Record the special moments and days in detail for if we fail to do this, all will be lost. In Dad’s house I found an old box with dozens of photos. Photos of people I’d never met.  Photos of places I know no stories about. They meant something to the two people who brought me into this world but the love they had for their memories got lost along the way. To me it was just a box with photos of people I knew nothing about. 

Chaff cutting.

There was a soft cold wind blowing. The sun was setting and everybody had been fed and bunkered down for the night.  The cows stared on at us as we unbound the bale of hay we had bought. It was a good time to cut some of it up into chaff for the girls.  Johnny oiled the teeth and we wiped away the cobwebs that had collected over the summer.   We placed a big box at the bottom of the big wheel so the machine could spit out the chaff on the other side. Around and around she went, working and chewing through the hay. Johnny’s breathing rate increasing as he worked his upper arm muscles.  Me on the other side, feeding the mouth of the machine as it moved the hay faster and faster.  Boy a motorised cutter would have been ideal.   Exhausted after about 15 minutes, Johnny stood back to regain some energy and breath.  Perhaps we could hook it up to the tractor he says. Well I think that’s an excellent idea….

Our old chaff cutter

The story about how we found our very old chaff cutter is worth mentioning here as it really is ancient!

Our girls are fussy things! They probably spoilt and that’s where the problem begins. We’ve been looking out for a chaff cutter for ages but they don’t seem to be available in our little corner of the globe. So when we saw the advert up at the local IGA, we were delighted. A chaff cutter was to be a good addition to the farm machinery collection. So after setting up a time to view the machine, we eagerly drove to the property where it was. A very friendly old man with a big bushy beard greeted us at the gate and directed us to the back shed where he proceeded to show us three difference chaff cutters that he had done up.  All three of them came from England.   Knowing what we now know, I wish we had bought the motorised one.  It would have been much easier on the arms. We looked at all three and decided to go with the least expensive one. It was of course a manual one. How hard could it be to push some hay through the blade while you turned the big wheel? Right! I sure know now and while we are grinding that wheel, I wish for a motor to help carry the hard load. The chaff cutter comes out to play in winter as there is more than enough lush green grass to go around in summer that he becomes obsolete. Last night we thought it time to put it back to use. But more on that next time.

Workout world

Winter is here for sure. The grass grows no more and the cows are not satisfied with the humble grain pellets I offer. It’s time to bring out the big guns and start using the chaff cutter again. Time for the muscles in the upper arms to get a workout again. I sure wish that old chaff cutter had a silly motor on it. How much easier it would be. There are seasons in farming that are much more manual than others and winter is one of those. Apart from the chaff cutting there is always wood to be chopped - a job that uses a lot of energy. These chores are manual, make no mistake about that. Farming is manual labour but its a labour of love. The cows will appreciate the extra chaff and corn to warm them up and everybody in the house will appreciate the roaring fire that will be going from the chopped wood and they will be warmed too.

Roof renovations

This passed long weekend was filled with chores around the garden and Johnny’s got stuck into the roof renovations yet again. Everything takes ten times longer than what you think when you are renovating. Its very frustrating! This is especially true for us when the renovations are done in between a very pressured job, which happens to be from Monday to Saturday. If I can offer any small piece of advice from my experience with this house, it is that one must add on much more extra time to allow for the unforseen when planning a time line. However, as long as it has taken us, I can now say the end is here, well at least for the Reno part. The roof repairs are done, the new boards are up in place, the new capping is on. The silicon has filled every existing hole and the job looks good. Painting, mmm well we haven’t even got to that part yet. In the process, the telephone cable must have been disturbed and there was no dial tone for two days. After searching high and low the telephone cable was found and re-connected. The telephone is back in business.

The maple leaves

It’s been a busy few days here at Pine Haven. The winter winds have blown a fair bit of the leaves off the trees and the carpet of rich yellow and brown colour litter the ground and garden beds. I both love and hate this windy season of the year. The colour of the maple tree is just incredible, but once the leaves litter the ground for a few days, they get in everywhere. If the front security gate is accidentally left open they all rush in as if invited inside. I find myself constantly sweeping them out. The blower becomes my constant friend as it makes life a little easier to manage the verandas and patio. We’ve been battling with our blower for many months now. I tried all sorts of things to get it going. I even had a friend who is an excellent mechanic look at it. It would go for a while and then fizzle out yet again. So we called it quits with the blower today. We changed brands, which is something I’m not in favour of doing. I have my brands which are tried and tested, but we seemed to get a lemon with this blower. Stihl is a very well-known brand but we decided to go with a Husqvarna today instead. Hopefully it will stand the test of time. There isn’t a more valuable piece of equipment for me this time of year.

Dreams

Eco-tourism is a little bit of what I do. To share what I fell in love with when we moved to the country. To share new experiences with people that get very little exposure, or if any at all, of what living in the country really is all about. It has many benefits. When you know you are getting guests to stay, you are compelled to clean up that area that you’ve been putting off for a while now. You work a little harder on the garden beds and the house stays in order to prepare for the guests. You get a few projects off the ground, ones that you can include your guests in. You spend some extra time planning and cooking home-style meals for them. I’ve still got a way to go before I live out all the dreams I have for our little eco-tourism business, but in the meantime I’m taking one step closer and gaining more experience in the field with each new family or set of students that come my way. One day in the future we will have the external accommodation, the craft shop where I showcase the produce from the garden and all things country homemade, the horse ride trail, the four wheeler track, the tour up the mountain, the tea garden, the children’s playground and the list goes on. Some I can do now and some I can’t but the aim is to get there eventually. As long as you can dream it, you can achieve it.

Home made chilli powder

My homemade chilli powder! I need to design a logo - any ideas anyone?

A fear of heights.

Sometimes life throws you opportunities to stretch yourself. Sunday I found myself facing one of these opportunities. You see, I have a very real fear of heights. When I was little, I would go with my folks to visit a family friend who lived on the 33rd floor of a building. The corridors were far too narrow for my liking and I would panic if I got too close to the balcony. I mean it’s this bad folks…. my legs shake when I’m going up the stairs to slide down the Mammoth Falls at Wet and Wild, a local theme park so you can just imagine what was going through my mind while I was climbing up a ladder onto our roof. The fact was I really wanted to see some progress on the new boards that were going up on the façade of the roof. The renovations of our old farmhouse are going painfully slow and without my help to hold the boards in place there would be no progress. I climbed up slowly and steadily but stopped on the last rung of the ladder. My legs were frozen and I could not move. Johnny stood on the patio below laughing his head off at me. All the encouragement could not make me budge. I shouted down to him that he would have to get the fire brigade to take me down as I had no idea how I’d get down if getting up was this difficult. Finally I told myself, “Come on Tracy how difficult could this be?”. I stretched my left leg out around the ladder, leaned forward and took the step that put me on the rooftop. I had done it! I had conquered my fear of heights. Going back down wasn’t as bad as going up surprisingly and on the ground I stood back and smiled at the new boards we had put up. The light at the end of the tunnel was showing at last. A little more and we would finish the roof restoration.

The doorbell...

The house is exceptionally quiet. It has to be for its early hours of the morning. It’s the first day of winter and it’s been raining consistently for hours. I was sound asleep on this cold wintery night and all of a sudden in the dark, I’m ripped from my sleep. Awake, though hardly coherent, I lay in bed for a few seconds wondering what woke me and then I realise the doorbell had gone off. I glare at the bedside clock, its 2 am. Who or what could be at my front door at this time of the morning? While I’m considering my options, the doorbell chimes twice more. Thoughts of all sorts fly through my head. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and my feet search for my warm slippers somewhere on the floor. As I made my way across the bedroom in the darkness, I collided with the partially closed door. I let out a scream of pain waking Johnny up. Standing in the hallway I yelled out “who’s there?” Silence. I cautiously open the door and am greeted with a blast of cold air and rain in my face. There is no-one there. I close the door again and decide that the cold finger of winter wind must have set off the doorbell. I sink back into bed and listen to the falling rain outside for a few seconds. The rainwater tanks will be filling up with all this water, which is good as our supply was down to half and we needed some to see us through the dry months ahead. I drift off back to slumber land……

Recycled treasures

I so love to find a reason and a home for forgotten material items. I find great pleasure in recycling old clothes, chairs and odd and sods into something usable. It’s no surprise then why garage sales and markets are my thing too. This week I have dedicated my time to sewing and restoring an old two seater couch for the patio. Yesterday morning I hauled out my old sewing machine which has been my friend for many years. Sure the plastic is going yellow from age but it still works like a bomb. She’s served me well over the years. I tried to remember when I bought it but can’t. Suffice to say it was many moons ago. In fact it might have been just before I had my son, so I guess that makes it 19 years old! I haven’t sewed in ages and was looking forward to a morning of relaxation. I had cut out a PJ pattern for a doll from a pair of flannel pyjamas awhile back, which needed to be sewn. They had passed their human used by date and either would land up in the bin or get recycled into two different items. A hot water bottle cover and a dolls set of clothing. The afternoon rolled around and I got stuck into the two seater wooden frame. Sanding it down was messy but necessary. I decided to varnish it instead of paint it white. I’ve still got two more single chairs to get to and two cushion covers to sew which I will get around to doing too. The couch frame shined up like a new penny.

I have plans for a newsletter! I have never done that before but the time is now. My office job is opening up so many doors for new things. The future looks exciting…..