a wet week for school camp

November 7 2017

Today we have a bank holiday for Melbourne cup.   We have not been invited to share this occasion with anyone, but we are rather glad of the time to be quiet.   Last week we had a school camp and keeping up with a farm full of teenagers is exhausting even though the students were absolutely wonderful. 

It was very cold and rained all week but all the set tasks were completed willingly and the students even managed to stay cheerful and enjoy themselves.   Sometimes we had to do wet weather activities instead of the morning work, but this meant that I got all the lemons harvested and the juice frozen.  Another group used the wood splitter in the shed to tackle all the logs that were too large to burn and I found some wool workers who learnt how to use the weaving looms.

For main tasks we had the old water tank painted, the cellar cleaned out and the blackberries cut down around the old woodshed and cactus garden.  One lad found an old pigeon medal that will be a good keep sake for Josh from the time we kept pigeons. The goats were thrilled because they love eating blackberry leaves but could not reach them.   The goats actually worked side by side with the students which looked amusing.

The weather was sad because it had been so nice the week before.  Edd had worked hard to get the pool clean and blue too. We had spent the week getting ready for the camp and tiling the dairy floor.  Most of the floor is made of large white tiles but we had buckets of tiles made in the sheltered workshop in Lilydale that had some how survived the fires and we have used them as well.

At the weekend we went in to Melbourne because our daughter in law’s, brother’s partner asked workers and family to a party to celebrate their work winning a Nobel peace prize.  It is the first one to go to Australia so getting it was a big thing and we felt privileged to be included.   The party was not large but very friendly.  Edd and I went in and out on the train.  Parking is so hard in the city but we only use the train occasionally because mostly we go in to buy supplies that need transport.

This week I have started to prepare for the next group of students who arrive for a week’s camp on Monday.  The forecast is for hot weather so we will get a whole new set of problems.  Edd had better get working on that pool again!  I am doing a whole new set of paper work and trying to make sure we have the right equipment and materials at hand.