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Pip has been pretty much hiding under the doona in our bed all day, clearly not as thrilled as I am with ALL my family here together for the first time.

And oh what a feral day weather wise!! haha – typical!!

Michelle and her family drove off the ferry this morning early, and Mum and Dad went to pick up Rosemary and Emma off the plane at Devonport.

Just so fabulous to have them all here! The kids are excited (They have collected the eggs already) and are keen to go everywhere and collect rocks (sensible kids!)

Big bacon & egg brunch with fresh baked bread and home made sauces!!

We ducked down to the beach despite the weather just to get a bit of a taste as all my family come from landlocked areas. They need as much beach time as possible before leaving!

Then it was on to Ruby’s for a quick hello – she was home alone “Minding her own business” as everyone else was down setting up the hall.

Naturally the smartest thing to do is to drag her out in the rain to give her a birthday present.

Rosemary & Emma didn’t have time to hand-make anything but I suggested we pick up a trailer-load of super dooper compost – a mix of a special one and mushroom and she could give her that… we even put a ribbon on the trailer!!

Ruby was pretty thrilled and Rosemary took glee in telling Ruby it would now be up to me to dig it all into her garden!! 🙂

Michelle & family have made an amazing guest book for people to sign at the party tomorrow. I will get some photos soon!

And Ruby loved her shawl!! She wasn’t fazed at all by the flowers and presents coming in (haha – after all that fuss)

People have made a truck-load of food that she now can have on hand for the constant stream of people dropping in!

The new extra fridge stocked up as well!

Anyway – The big party day tomorrow! I best be off to bed! Crazy busy over here, but its totally fabulous!

Thank-you for all the lovely messages you have sent to Ruby. I will look forward to a quiet afternoon with her to read out every single one!

Cheers!

 

Isn’t she gorgeous??

Oh Ruby has been having the most wonderful day!!

I told her there was a bunch of messages coming from all over, and mentioned a few of you and how we were going to sit down in a week or so and have fun reading them out! She chuckled a lot and is looking forward to that!

But wow – people coming and going, tea, coffee, cake & PRESENTS and she is lapping it all up like a queen!!! It was wonderful! I am still grinning!

Ruby looked so beautiful in her suit and she doesn’t seem worn out in the slightest!!

I don’t have time to do proper blogging – still got a wee bit more to attend to in the kitchen before bed and then an early morning to greet my sisters and their families!! Yay!

Just thought you would like to see the birthday photo in case you miss it on facebook!

Have a lovely day everyone!

Cheers!

Fathers Day here in Australia – so despite various sniffles, we got out, and drove up to Stanley, which is about a 45 minute drive, west of home.

We enjoyed a really lovely lunch in the town, but the main idea of going out to Stanley was to take the baptism font that my parents bought from the Rocky Cape Presbyterian Church, to donate it to the property at Highfield House.

Someone had bought the church where the font originally was given to and converted into a home. Families who had donated items to that church, had the chance to buy them back. A lot of the church furniture was purchased by Highfield, my mother discovered later.

We believe that the first baby baptised in the Highfield House church was my Great Great Grandmother, so it seemed fitting that the font my Pop had donated all those years ago was moved to another place where we had strong family ties.

The lady, Sue, that met us at Highfield was really lovely and was really happy to receive the font. She showed us around a bit and let us go all over the house without charging us an entry fee! (yay)

Highfield was built around 1832-35 as a residence for Edward Curr, chief agent of the Van Diemen’s Land Company.

For those of you that don’t realise, Tasmania was first known as Van Dieman’s Land. The name was changed to Tasmania in 1856.

The Van Diemen’s Land Company had been formed by a group of London-based businessmen. Their proposal was to establish a successful wool growing venture on the island to supply the needs of the British textile industry.

Unfortunately the venture into growing fine merino wool in the area wasn’t a success… it was a tough and unforgiving land, and the sheep never thrived.

The house is quite grand – although built by convicts (pretty much slave labour) much has gone into restoring and upkeep of the property and is open to the public to wander through and experience it.

The sign on the kitchen door made me chuckle tho

Sue pointed out the rounded bricks by the doorway that was created simply by over a hundred years of people brushing by!

What’s a main bedroom without an ensuite??

Our kind of people – digging in the foundations and keeping all the broken crockery!

Scattered though out the house are remnants of times gone by and amazing furniture, maps and photos.

It was great to finally get out and do something with my parents today!

Hope your day is great!

Cheers

I am totally tech challenged!

I have never tried to use Jeffs tablet before to do anything fancy like post a blog when I am not sitting at home in front of my PC.  I tried to log on several times and it kept telling me ‘wrong password’. Then I searched more then somehow got to my admin page?? I tell you – totally clueless!!

The trip started in our usual fashion – awkwardly…

I am usually the one that does all booking & sorting of trips but because this was Jeffs conference, he organised it all. We reached fancy b&b and nobody was there. Happily we had Mums mobile and called number and dragged some lady out to let us in…. although just before she arrived I noted that we were at Highview House not Hillview House where we were meant to be!!

Not too embarrassing!! I totally blamed the Canadian. Lol.

Mind you, she probably took one look at my farm boots that I forgot to clean and thought “How the hell did they mistake my fancy B&B for the local grungy backpackers??”

We drove off as fast as dignity allowed!

Jeff is enjoying his conference- getting lots of new information in that nursing brain of his! I am enjoying some nice weather – yay – and walking a lot.

Cataract Gorge is the big tourist destination. I totally enjoyed my walk around it yesterday – for 3 hours! Even managed a few snaps on this tablet so I had something to show you!

This part of the walk was a lot less slogging uphill than the first bit I did. I am sure I lost an inch off my bottom – haha- wishful thinking!

During the recent flood – the waters reached the underside of the suspension bridge!

I found a nice place to sit and met a few friendly peacocks

Anyway – Jeff kindly told me about the existence of a  massive Spotlight shop yarn) so I am off to check it out!

Hope your week has been amazing!

Cheers!

It was another quiet day – the weather wasn’t very inspiring. I did get up rather early to scrape up the last embers of the fire and get it going again so when Jeff got home and my folk got up, the place would be nice and warm. (I need to tally up my wife points I reckon)

Poor Mum managed to get the flu and is a bit miserable! And disappointed she hasn’t been able to see Ruby of course! She doesn’t want to risk passing on her bug! She was a little better today, and it was probably a good thing to sit in the warmth of the fire and relax.

It was lovely just chatting and catching up – and in a historical moment – I started teaching her how to crochet those shawls I have been making!!! (My sisters are going to die laughing when they hear about this!)(The Tree-Climbing, Horse Riding, Tomboy teaching crochet) 😀

I got out to water the seedlings and seeds – the lettuce is looking so happy, but nothing else is poking its head through the soil yet, so I am a bit disappointed!

There are a number of really healthy looking little self seeded silverbeet seedlings that have popped up in the raised garden bed (Chard)

Soon they must be transplanted to a suitable place. I want this whole raised garden bed for basil – I have plan to learn to make pesto this upcoming season!

I have started a couple of trays of wheat to grow for the chickens. I did a small amount of this before the weather turned into winter and they were thrilled with their wheat sprouts!

I guess they will be a bit slow while the weather is cold, but hoping they will be ready in about a week to feed out to the chooks!

I have several patches of iris – I have high hopes to see a lot of colour in a few weeks!

And its lovely to bring a little bit of almost-spring inside

Jeff and I are off to Launceston tomorrow – he has a conference via the hospital that he was interested in going to. We so rarely get away, I thought I would go too and spend some time wandering around! (its about 2 hours from here)

So – until Saturday I suspect you will just have to chat among yourselves as I have no idea if I am going to be able to work Jeff’s tablet to blog while we are away!

Yes – I am technologically challenged. (we don’t own a mobile (cell) phone of any sorts either)  Generally when we go away we totally unplug. Its nice!

I am feeling a bit bad we are abandoning my parents so soon after they arrive – although my Mum insists its better we are not near her while she recovers!!

I don’t think Pip is going to be pleased. I am hoping he will try to behave himself, eat, not sulk and NOT HISS at parents! He has been pretty good so far… But it is so embarrassing when he behaves like a spoiled brat!! (Lucky we didn’t have kids huh?? haha)

Enjoy the rest of your week!!

Cheers!!

And I haven’t even got a photo of my parents today to share!! They were a bit travel worn so it was a lovely lazy catching up day as we haven’t seen them for a year and a half!!

It was fun giving them the updated tour in real life of what has been happening around the place.

I am pleased to report that my Mum was very impressed with how nice the house looked!! (She failed to pass off her tidy organisational skills to me, so its nice to impress when it comes to the house!! 🙂 )

It was even superbly sunny today!! Go figure!

I vied for some extra ‘wife points’ by going out in the frosty morning to let the chickens out. Usually thats Jeff’s job as he comes in off night shift.

I must admit to getting very few hours sleep last night (totally my own fault so no sympathy needed)

So – I am going to tuck Pip up into his bed (he woke me 5 times through my minimal sleep time last night – precious!!) and go hit the hay!

Hope your day was fabulous!

Cheers!

Well… yesterdays weather was appalling – so along with boring housework there was nothing to share that was interesting.

Today, I still had a long list of tasks so I figured the best thing to do was to go for a walk! (Which is why I am still up at 1am)

I got Shirley to go with me, as she loves walks. Shirley is a friend of Ruby’s and although nearly 80, is so sprightly and keen! She makes a great walking partner!

We decided to walk around the river track to see how far we could get and what flood damage there was.

This was quite stern:

We ignored it and continued. I told Shirley if anyone went crook at us I was telling them it was her idea!

We walked quite a way before starting to find where the track got tricky

It was at this point it just got too boggy and mucky to continue on – plus I wanted to bring Shirley home in one piece!!

So, having seen what we wanted to, plan B was to double back and go down to Fossil Bluff and enjoy a walk on the beach for a while.

I finally coerced Shirley into getting a selfie with me!

So – apart from trying to channel my inner housekeeping skills (poorly) I started a new facebook page for beginner gardeners.  I have been part of a page for “Family on a Budget” which is mostly recipes, but I post up garden photos to tell people if they are serious about saving money – grow food!

Well… a lady asked for some beginner gardening advice… which I messaged her about. Then someone else said “Me too” so I messaged that someone else…. then it spiralled a bit out of control and I had several messages on the go at once, and thought maybe I should just do a page!! Since it is spring here and most people are just getting going in their gardens, it seemed a logical move.

The page got about 70 members within two days – but I am not scared! haha.

THEN… A Japanese friend of ours, Yusuke, sent me a message to ask if we were interested in taking paid Japanese homestay guests via a company his friend is associated with.

Oh yes.. yes I am! So I wrote two word docs, complete with photos (of course) to try to explain how fabulous we think this area is!  Its actually quite difficult to choose images – you know – thinning it down to less than 1000!! haha. I tried to be not over the top.

I am now waiting to see if they like us or not! 🙂

Today I may have also rashly promised to photograph a wedding in Texas next year too. So my savings goals are rather significant as I have also promised to take my parents to Japan next year – also meeting my Canadian in-laws in Japan as well so we will do a double tour!!

All I can say is I hope my vegetable garden grows well and I sell enough to finance my jet-setting lifestyle!!!!!

OK – time for me to abandon this blog and do some dishes, bake some bread and be ready to wake early to greet the parents – Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed at about 7am. (yeah – that’ll be me!)(not)(OK I will be up, but I am a sorry sight early on)

Cheers!

Hello!

Friday is done and dusted – dusted being operative word as I was submerged in house work while Jeff mowed lawns here and next door.

I think I might need to write a list of things left to do before Monday morning!!  Mum said they will get off the boat and traditionally go straight to Ruby’s for a morning cuppa because in Ruby’s words “They won’t be awake yet!!!”

Huh!! I am SURE I would make the effort to get up early to welcome my parents in!!! 😀

But – lets be honest… I can’t deny Ruby the fun of early morning guests and a teeny bit more of a sleep in for me isn’t a bad thing.

Dad has simply requested a fresh baked loaf of bread and some plum jam when they arrive!  So easy to please!

Have a fantastic weekend everyone… I will try to do something more interesting than housework to blog about, but I am making no rash promises!

Cheers!

Today I was lured away from my crochet and a comfy spot with Pip by the fire with promises of rock hunting!

We just drove down one of the local roads (Calder Rd… Calder River & am am dreaming of Calder River Agate)

We even saw blue sky once!!

Actually, Jeff’s main ambition was to get into one of the pine forests and hack away at tree stumps looking for ‘fat wood’, which, if you are like me and hadn’t heard of that, is the resin soaked wood that isn’t good for any structural purposes, but it burns like a demon! (awesome fire starting material)

With Jeff in his manly element, I looked for photo opportunities and the river so I could look for rocks

I got to a sub river that was running over the ground before the real river – definitely no rock hunting here!!!

Still – I found some cool things – like this land jellyfish.

I found a few of these – totally no clue what they are. But the husband/wife conversation goes like this

Husband: Don’t touch it! (Still suffering from the ‘not ambergris incident’)

Wife: Ooookaay

Husband: You touched it didn’t you!!??

Wife: I couldn’t help it

Husband: Don’t come complaining to me if you break out in a rash….

🙂 He is so sweet!

I also found the weirdest fungi yet… a ball that emerges from a petal-like arrangement!

I was keen to walk down to the bridge, so Jeff chucked all his fat wood into the car and we wandered down

Luckily this bridge held up to the flooding… one not so far away ended up in a farmers paddock…. the sheer force of the water and whole trees smashing into it did the trick!

Clearly we are not the only creatures using the under-the-bridge-not-quite-a-path way…

We ended up fossicking by the roadside… I suspect a lot of the gravel has come in from the local quarries. I found a couple of really nice pieces of agate that I have high-tumbling hopes for!! (Photos at later date)

Oh – just to give you an idea of the height of the flood waters… have a look and see where the grassy debris is caught in the trees above Jeff’s head!!! Insane!!

By this time we were pretty soggy and getting slightly cold, so it was time to bail out, go to Ruby’s for a cuppa, then get home and get the fire roaring!

We did make one final stop on the way home as I had spotted this old shed that was surrounded by the beginnings of spring!

Hope your weekends are brilliant!

Cheers!