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…..