Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt

Hi there!
If I have done this correctly, this post should go out as I am flying across the waters to Texas! (You know – if I don’t miss any planes)
When we travel, we pretty much unplug from the world of the internet and enjoy things as we go – and save all the stories for when we get back. On occasions we might use an internet cafe, but its never a priority.

So you won’t hear all the travel news until I am back in Tasmania.
I thought I would try to add a few posts that would appear while I was gone (if I do it correctly) just so you didn’t miss me too much! haha

Anyway – I am taking you back five and a half years – when we first packed up our lives in Canberra and took the boat down to Tassie

(By the way – I was between cameras at this point. My beautiful faithful film camera had died and I wasn’t quite ready to get my first digital SLR, so all of these snaps are on a little point and shoot!)

The trip over was a lot of fun! A cousin arranged for us to take the working Toll Boat over instead of the usual tourist Spirit of Tasmania. At the time it worked out a crazy amount cheaper, plus we got to watch everything being loaded (Such a precision art!) and ate with the 10 other passengers at a table together like a big family!

Goodbye Melbourne

Good morning Tasmania!

We dropped by Ruby and Margies on the way to our new home because they had the keys.
The start of realising the more relaxing nature of a small country town. Margie & Ruby pop into the real estate agent and try to describe that Ruby is the wife of my great uncle and its perfectly fine for them to hand us the keys to their new house!!
No worries!

Our containers of household goods wasn’t due in for a day or so, but we had brought along the essentials and precious items with us (and Pip)

The garden greeted us in full bloom! It was so beautiful and we were so excited to move into our first home.

We have amazing family around here. On our first day, one of our cousins dropped off a load a wood so we would have a start and not spend the night chilly!

Our first night was spent on a blow up mattress on the floor of the lounge room in front of the fire!
Life doesn’t get much better than that!

First morning coffee in the new home

I wasted no time. The house got the basic kitchen things unpacked then I was into the very over grown garden to make space for some tomatoes and potatoes! Very important!

Most of the weeds you can see were actually self sown parsnip!! Pity its not a vegetable we actually liked!!

The garden layout was very different then! But a garden is an evolving thing and I love changing things around and working on new styles!

Yes – thats bubble wrap. Made good seedling protectors

We immediately noticed the wind was a bit of a trial – and started taking steps to reduce the stress on the seedlings

It’s fantastic knowing farmers! Before I got onto the seaweed mulch, a massive bale of pea straw was the thing for mulching!

Eventually the plants grew out of their need for bubblewrap protectors and thrived on their own

Somehow I bought zucchinis that grew like balls!

Jeff was a happy husband when he bought a ride on mower! He still loves using it!

Goodbye grass daisies

Of course we took time to get out and about in our new surrounds

I had forgotten about all these massive 11 armed sea stars washed up on Sisters Beach when we first went there!

With luck this won’t be the only post you will get in the three weeks I am away – but I won’t make rash promises!! (You know, because I am still not packed!!!!)

Cheers

Wow – it was wild and woolly out there today!
The rain fell relentlessly most of the day. The wind blew it in the back door and we ended up with a few leaks that we hadn’t come across before!

The whole veranda was saturated – the wheelbarrow filled with water making our firewood a bit soggy!
I put it all next to the fire to dry out and brought up a new load which we stored inside.

The view was mostly blocked today

Pretty spooky and cool

I went out and emptied over 200mm of water (and one spider) out of the rain gauge. (Nearly 8 inches) and while I was standing there I saw a mini cyclone go mad in the paddock behind us.
I didn’t have my camera on me (I am precious about letting it drown) but this is the tree that it tossed about like a twig:

See the lack of foliage at the top and the broken bits?
Well… as I watched, the wind spun an amazing amount of tree-debris way up in the air – probably twice the height of the trees:

Aaaaand flung it in my direction!!
It was fabulous to watch. I saw the whole little mini cyclone then move up the paddock, over our chook shed, through our big trees and on to the next property.
The power was amazing.

Our yard is sodden but the man-ferns are loving it!

Back inside, I decided to totally repack. (Again)

I had decided on the big normal suitcase and a smaller pack for my checked stuff.
Jeff really wanted his backpack left behind and the big suitcase was pretty heavy.
So…

Back to my backpack and dufflebag!!

The red backpack will be carry on – and will have all my camera gear and a few toiletries
A shoulder bag with some lollies, documents, notebook, purse & book etc completes my packing mission.
The only thing left to add is my hiking pants and toiletries.
With two whole days to spare!!
Awesome!

Hope your weekends are just as productive!

Cheers!

This post is mainly for showing off to my mother that I actually picked up a needle and thread.
Happily I didn’t need to go shopping for new jeans. (All my old ones worn in the nether regions which is really annoying as they are so comfy)
I found this pair that had the seat of the pants in tact but no button.
Because I am so organised, I found my needle and thread set straight away and got onto it.
(Hopefully my Mum is not having a nice relaxing cuppa as she reads this because she’ll probably snort it the wrong way!!)

AND – It didn’t just stop at the button! I like my jeans with pretty bits about the cuffs – I bought two different types of ribbon in Japan for this. This one was the easier one to get off the old pair and on to the new.
I would like to point out the needle and thread in this photo specifically.

No stapler. No glue. No double sided tape! (Although I am probably going to lose major points for using Navy Blue thread!! hee hee)

My mother is a dressmaker and also teaches sewing. (And an amazing one at that!!) When I was 15 she found some of my much loved but falling apart underwear carefully stapled together. I think it was clear then I was never going to be much of a sewer!!

I am the Queen of Unfinished Jobs
Seems one glove or bootee of a set is all I can manage to sew together. I seem to lose momentum after the second glove is knitted!!

Never mind.

In other news…

I would like to mention that when one does not own a mobile phone, its a drama and a half changing a pin number on a bank card!!
I found my international money cards but since it has been a couple of years or so since we used them I had no idea the pin number! Online help was no help. So I ducked into the bank and got them to sort it out. Mind you… several phone calls later with comments like “Who doesn’t own a mobile phone these days??” we finally got it worked out so I can actually put some money on them to take with me! It was a learning curve for the bank manager. He hadn’t come across that problem before!!
In cheering news, my bags are 95% packed and sorted!
I have four full days before I travel!! Reckon we can fit a hike in there somewhere??

Cheers!

 

I finally have pretty much finished the book of house hold hints, budget & recipes for the Texan bride and groom – despite Pip’s ‘help’

It was a cool gloomy day, so I was perfectly happy to stay inside in front of the fire with my snoopervisor.

At times there was little interest shown…

And it all became too exhausting

Every time I looked over he had adopted an new ‘relaxed cat’ position

Anyway – its one of the larger things I can cross off my list now!

I did get outside long enough to pick a bowl of beautifully ripe tomatoes from one of the self seeded plants in the pallet-fence garden that I hadn’t looked at for a while.
Was a great addition to dinner tonight!

Cheers!

Hello!
It was another superb autumn day out there!
I just worked my way through a list of stuff – and happily crossed quite a few off it!

I gave my boots another polish and a little bit more glue – they are looking a lot less homeless-like. (and I am really liking the purple!)

Speaking of purple – I cooked another batch of pickled beetroot. I can’t believe how much of the stuff I have eaten this season!!

Apart from misc. housework  (having a fire is wonderful but oh-so-messy!) I got into the garden in a small way.

I want to ‘bed down’ the patches that I won’t be using to save on weeding in spring.

There is a really nice big potato plant in there too – leaving that to see what happens. It looks pretty happy!

All weeded and seaweeded too!

The Portulaca had well and truly had it, so it was time to pull them up. I grabbed a few more seeds as I went

These were such a pleasure in the garden and bloomed for so long. I am really hoping I can grow my own from the seed next season. I would love to have a lot more of these around

By that time it was getting on in the afternoon. I had arranged to meet Fiona at the Sisters Beach turnoff and go for a walk together.

Such a great day to be outside! Its still hard to get a sense of this very steep little intense part of the walk via the photo! Its a testing one that’s for sure!
I didn’t get the camera out much this walk – we were racing the sun as I forgot my head torch. The sun is disappearing at about 5 – 5.30pm at the moment.
But I did get this:

Time for bed I think.
Tomorrow is a whole new list to work on!

Cheers

I know it’s not Tuesday – but the weather was lovely, so after finishing a few things around home I slipped down to Ruby’s for a couple of hours to tackle another part of her garden.

Ruby was also taking advantage of the sun with a few clothes on the line! She tried some weeding but said she was a bit wobbly and nearly fell into a garden plot, so decided she was safer in her chair soaking up some rays.

This is a plot that Ruby has planted several rows of bulbs. I thought it would be a good place to concentrate on today

It was fiddly work actually… I couldn’t dig because I didn’t want to disturb the bulbs, but the ground was soft enough to pull them out fairly easily – just so many tiny ones so it took time. The main thing was to get most out before they could flower and spread more seed.

Surprisingly, even though we are not yet in winter, a good number of the bulbs are showing green!! The seasons have been so topsy turvy I wonder how this year will go and what will bloom when!

I did some other random weeding around and picked up a few more potatoes

Still the occasional beautiful rose will show its face in Ruby’s garden! They are such a pleasure!

Of course after all the rummaging about in the dirt, its time for a cuppa and some cake – a few other visitors (Fiona, Shirley & of course Margie) were there as well so it was a fun afternoon for us all.

Hope your weeks starts brilliantly!

Cheers

Hello and how are your weekends starting off??
So far I have only wasted about 3 hours sleeping. I will state again that morning is not my forte, and 5am should only be used for emergencies!
But… I got up and coffeed myself into consciousness and ended up awake enough to set up our sale down at Margies.

We set the gazebo up on the lawn by the driveway with attractive goods – Margies knitwear, nice crockery, Jeff’s arrowhead jewellry, and some of my jams/sauces etc.

Of course, the advertised 8am start is ignored by the frantic, desperate, habitual Garage Sale Lurkers, who turned up at 6.45am!!!
Of course not even half the stuff was set up or ready – but I said if they had money they could come in!! Actually those early birds bought enough stuff that made it worth the inconvenience of trying to manage customers against actually getting properly set up!

Our layout worked really well – first past the nice stuff under the gazebo & Jeff who was greeting people and keeping an eye on what was happening at the front. (In between reading the magazines he bought off Fiona!)

Funny thing – see that cushion he has parked his bum on? Well… Ruby walked all the way down her rather long driveway and out the front and back into the driveway of Margies home carting this cushion for Jeff so the poor dear ‘didn’t get hemorrhoids tonight!’ Ahhhhh nurses! What would we do without them??!!

Anyway, back to layout. People were basically funneled down the drive and did a nice loop, walking past every part of the sale and back out.

Having a combined sale is a good idea. We had 4 households joining in. At times it was a little complicated sorting out sales when a person might buy several things from each of us – but we managed!
It also meant more people to watch all areas and deal with multiple customers/questions at once.
And for the customers, it means greater variety. I remember giving up on going to garage sales in Canberra where you would travel substantial distances to go to a ‘Garage Sale’ that would consist on one card table with a few things on it!!

I had baked a banana cake, Ruby supplied scones and Margie had the coffee going. Its a lot easier to take a tea break at a garage sale than at the markets!! (The loo is closer too!!)

We were so lucky with the weather. Considering the rain we had yesterday and a good portion of last night! Sunshine brought the people in!
Everyone sold a good amount of stuff – and I am really happy to report that Jeff & I got close to $500!!! Couldn’t believe it! (Actually I shouldn’t be that proud. Bottom line is that we have too much crap!)
That is really going to help out in the Texas-Spending-Money-Dept!

I don’t wear a watch but I was thinking at one point.. must be getting close to 3pm… should I start packing?
er – when you get up unusually early you misjudge time a fair bit. It was 11.30am!!

Eventually it was after 3pm and things had really quietened down so we packed up to leave Margie in peace. It was nice not having so much to have to pack back into boxes!

Mission accomplished!

Cheers