work stops for a horse race

November 6 2013

All work stopped yesterday for the Melbourne cup. We had a BBQ in the ruins with some friends and family.  I probably drank my whole alcohol ration for a week, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day. The weather was perfect and the company the best. It is even hotter today and we are back to work. I am making a feta cheese and have done some much needed weeding. We have friends from the UK coming to stay and a school camp the following week so there is a lot to do. It always seems to go from being too wet to weed straight to hard dry conditions. Consequently weeding work is erratic at best.

We have been eating the first of the snow peas and the last of the lettuces, which are trying to bolt. We ate the first of the new broccoli last week and the broad beans are now plump. The tomatoes are rushing up but the cucumbers and basil are struggling to get going. This hot weather should help them. I need extra space to grow the zucchinis and pumpkins but that involves more work.

We have faverolles eggs in the incubator and have to remember to turn them night and morning. The incubator stays at a very stable temperature in the back cellar but some of the eggs might be too old or not fertile so we are not counting on chickens yet. I am weaning the third set of goat kids today. We have boys of all colours but only two girls this year. I think I have found a sale for four of the kids to a home where they will be pets and blackberry eaters. Mostly male kids go for meat so it is great when some can look forward to a longer life.

I have not seen my daughter for a few days because her restaurant has been very busy and she has been hard at work. It is very much the high season for her with the racing carnival on and Xmas parties starting soon! She also has her daughter starting school part time to get ready for next year. This starting slowly for a few hours is good for the kids but a pain for their parents who never seem to stop driving them around.

A friend brought over the research DVD that was made about trauma after the fires. We were pretty worried about this as we endured hours of interviews and might have said just about anything! Luckily the girl who made the film was very kind on us all and it was not as embarrassing as we feared. It was pretty sobering though because it questioned the sensibleness about living in these fire prone hills. Basically, no one is really accepting the danger that is part of the natural cycle of this type of forest. At least we had built a house to cope.

November 3. 2013-

November started with a taste of summer weather. Yesterday we had blue skies all day, and my grandkids and their friend got hot enough to enjoy leaping off the boat into the dam and making mud slides.  We are not at all worried about wet muddy children, everyone is thrilled to see them having old fashioned fun rather than fiddling with screens.

I have completed the curtain making and have even sewed covers for the sofa and chairs in the solar hall room. I had just draped fabric over the seats before which looked OK if no one sat on them for long. Edd has also made all the doors and today Stevo came over to help him hang them. The blokes only got one door hung but we did a lot of catching up and relaxing, after all it is Sunday.

Now the big challenge is the shower. We can have showers in the donga again now that it is empty, but we do have to do our own one here. The blokes put up the architrave around the doors in the mudroom too so I now have no excuse to avoid doing the rest of the tiling.