very busy week

                                                   The soil goes in for Toby's garden

                                                   The splash back is half completed

The students pack up to go home

September 17, 2018

It seems amazingly quiet this afternoon.  The sun is shining, the sheep are peacefully grazing around the house, and there is no wind to shake the creamy wattle blossom. Edd has gone off to buy a ton of oats and I have spent the morning mowing the grass which has now began to grow fast. 

We did not have any time for farm activities at the week end because Sunday was open house day for sustainable homes and Saturday was the only day we had to get ready after the fur and feather school camp left on Friday.  We have been unbelievably lucky with the weather.  All week when the camp was here the days were warm and sunny and the rain held off.  We got some well needed rain on Saturday, but Sunday was fine and the afternoon sunny. Better still it was cold outside, so all the visitors could experience how warm and cosy it was in the house.

I had thought that after having big crowds last year it might be quieter this time, but I was wrong. We got even larger numbers, nearly 200 people walked through the house on Guided tours conducted by Al.  He is the best one for this because he designed the house and can answer every ones’ questions . Pip and baby P manned the front desk and booked everyone in and Edd kept a perpetual tour orbiting the place on the outside.  This left me to deal with people waiting to join the next group and to take quick tours for people in a hurry.

We were all totally busy all day, but the feedback was very positive.  I had worked hard to try and get as much of the splash back in the kitchen done as possible and I got to the stage when I had done half the grouting.  The school students had helped by moving composted material around the new paving Andrew did in Toby’s garden.  This covered up the bare clay and did wonders for how things looked so the west end of the house looked really finished compared with how it was last year.  It is a bit odd having so many strangers looking at the house, but they were all very polite and as before at the end of the day you could not tell that anyone had been there!

We felt pretty run over though.  Al and Pip set off down to Ocean Grove and Ben, Indi and I were just discussing how we could get out of any cooking or further work when Bo phoned up and invited us all to supper at her place.  At this stage no-one cared what they ate as long as someone else did the work. Bo set up a sound system and got everyone in turn to choose a song.  By some miracle of modern technology even the most obscure songs were found and payed whilst we ate.  It took all the stress away as we had to work out what song we would choose next and what memories it brought back.  I think we are all benefitting from Bo’s music therapy training already, and she still has a few weeks of the course to complete before she qualifies.

The other good news is that the buck kid we brought is now getting better. When he first arrived, he dashed around so much that he eventually sailed out of his pen and landed hard enough to get a compression fracture.  I could not find the actual injury site, so we had to take him for X-rays at the vets.  He is now confined to a small area with his leg strapped up, but he is finally taking milk well and looking happier.  The horses are looking better too.  The students led them up from the paddock every day last week for grooming and attention.