Trying times

Some days you feel like life is just out to getcha!

The Princess and Little Man have been at each other's throats more than they seem to be.  

They seem to have developed an amazing sense of entitlement that I can't recall instilling in them.  Ever.  

The Princess is not a morning person at all, neither am I, but I dread to see how she will be when she is a teenager if her performance from this morning is anything to go by!

Little Man is very argumentative with everyone right now.

They are 10 and 8 respectively.  Heaven help me if I plan to get through the teen years in one piece if this is an indication of what is yet to come!

I'm struggling to find the joys of motherhood right now.  I know they are there and there are lots of them, but honestly, there are days where I find it very hard to even like them.  What a terrible thing to say, I know, but true. 

They are just so competitive, especially with each other, that it becomes very frustrating and I seem to feel like I'm a referee than a mum.

On another note, we have a new puppy.  

We lost one of our dogs to a snake bite a few weeks ago.  It was very upsetting for the children and us.  

We almost lost my Rosie one morning to strangulation from her collar.  The red dog and the white dog were playing and the white dog's lower jaw got twisted up in the red dog's collar. We are lucky we got to her when we did as I was able to resuscitate and revive her.  The vet said we had literally a minute left and she's very lucky to be alive.  

Thank goodness The Princess went to check on them when she didn't get a response to calling them.  If we had have left already for school the thought of what we would have come home to is too horrible to bear.  

Now the dogs don't wear collars and we will only put them on when we are out and they need to be on a leash.   

Anyway, the new puppy is like having a newborn in the house.  It's been a blur of eat, sleep, wee.  He's been banished to sleeping in the aviary we use as a kennel with the girls because he's decided that when he wakes up around 3am he wants to play.  JUST like a baby!  My babies were sleep-through-the-night babies from around 3 months of age, so this has been a big adjustment.  

He's about 6 weeks old and very cute.  The children named him Moose.  Not my choice for a name, but they chose it to rhyme with Zeus, our dog we lost to a snakebite.  

Today, I'm grateful for my home and family (even if it's been driving me nuts).  

I'm grateful for antihistamine tablets because I've had bad sinus for most of the week.  

I'm grateful for 3 days of work for the week.  

I'm grateful that I'm alive even if sometimes I think I'm not.

Oh, unhappy day

Yesterday afternoon, sometime between 3.30pm and 5.30pm we lost all our lovely Ladies to what we assume was an eagle or hawk.

It was pretty gruesome to come home and find bodies and feathers as well as the remains of some bodies around the yard spread over a couple of acres.  The Princess noticed the feathers and one of the bodies first, so both she and Little Man were extremely upset at the find.

It's unlikely to be the dogs as there was no sign of digging or damage to the fences surround the 11x15m chicken yard and the gate to the yard was still locked.  

All Ladies bar one have been accounted for; one was found near a termite mound already covered in meat ants.  There is no way The Groom or I can retrieve her, so it's back to the earth for her.  The rest were burnt, but we have not found a trace of Pamela except for her feathers.  Sadly, it could be possible the dogs ate her.  I'm hoping whatever bird of prey got them has taken her back to it's nest.  One of the Australorps was found out the front with her belly cut open.  

The Groom is pretty sure it would have been an eagle or hawk since they were scattered everywhere and there is no sign of the dogs having gotten into the yard.  And even if they did, they would have killed and eaten them in the yard.  Unless, a bird carried them out of the yard, dropped them and then the dogs finished them off?  That is a possibility but there was no real evidence on the dogs showing this.  One would expect them to be covered in a fair amount of blood and feathers, wouldn't they?

One thing puzzles us, though.  We found what appeared to be four Australorp bodies, yet we only had three.  I didn't look too closely at the bodies to see if one was torn in two, but The Groom was the one who had the job of collecting them and he didn't notice anything amiss.  I wonder if any of the people across the road with chickens are missing any black ones?  Then, it seems odd if they were why it would be carried over to our front paddock.

So, farewell to Coco, Pamela, Schnitzel, Parmy and Nugget.  We shall miss you.  And thank you to Coco (or was it Pamela?) for giving us your first egg on Sunday and your last egg yesterday.

xx

A day at home

Oh, what a joy it is!

I got up early, having found a small, softly snoring boy sleeping beside me.  It's always the way when The Groom is away.  Little Man crept in during the night, complaining I didn't come and wake him up so he could sleep with me.  I had tried, he just sleeps too soundly to be woken up anyway.

I let the dogs out of their aviary just as the sun was beginning to peek over the tree tops, then made my way over to the chicken yard to let the Ladies out for the day.  They took their sweet time to leave their house, so it gave me a chance to observe them for a while.  Normally they race out madly, on the lookout for any little bugs flying around.

I made lunches and breakfast for The Princess and Little Man.  I walked them down to the gate so they could catch the bus to school.

By now it's not even 7.30am so on went a load of washing, I brought in another load that was on the line since yesterday, then two more loads went out to be washed over the course of the morning.

I washed the dishes from last night and breakfast and sat down to watch the rest of Sunrise with my decaffeinated coffee and two slices of toast with crunchy peanut butter.

Once I'd finished breakfast I realised I'd forgotten to put the container of prawn heads in the fridge in the rubbish that was going to be collected today, so there was another walk down the driveway to the road.  I'd read in a Jackie French book that she gives her chickens prawn heads and they loved them.  I tried it with mine and they fought over the three I'd thrown into their yard!  But the prawns have been defrosted for a couple of days now so it's out to the bin for them.

I've dusted the buffet and tv cabinet, emptied the crumbs out of the toaster, wiped down benches and put clean light blankets over the backs of the couches.  The floor has been vacuumed and soon I shall fold washing that has piled up (we had family come to stay last week so I let it build up - silly me!).

The Princess has ballet this afternoon then straight after she finishes we head off to football training for Little Man.  Tonight is a takeaway night.  We get home late and rather close to their bedtime, so it's easier than trying to cook and rush them into having showers, eat and get to bed.  

I love days at home.  

I love the quietness and stillness of my little world.  

I enjoy listening to the calls of the birds, the gentle gruffing of the dogs as they lay, sleeping, at the back door, the soft thunk of the twigs falling onto to the roof from the overhanging trees, and the gentle hum of life going on outside.  

I'm too lazy to get in the car and drive down the highway to the closest supermarket or petrol station to get the day's paper, so I read it online earlier.  I know I need petrol, but it can wait.

I love pottering around at home.  For me, it's still a bit too much like 'someone else's' home, but over time it will feel like mine.  

It's overcast and cool, but not cold.  Despite this, it's still a shorts and t-shirt day.  It always seems to be like that in a Tropical Queensland winter.

I love my days at home.

My fledgling garden

I love my garden right now.

I don't have a lot of vegies and fruit growing yet, but I'm enjoying what I do have.

I've been picking the first batch of tomatoes - grosse lisse - for over a week now.  That is, the ones I get to before the bugs/grubs/possums get to.  I don't use sprays so the children can help themselves as they please.  The yucky ones (tomatoes, not children) just get chucked over into the chook yard for them to enjoy.   Sometimes I have to pick them before they have ripened but that's okay.  I just sit them on the kitchen window sill and wait for them to go red.  This afternoon I had a lovely tomato roll, with the tomato still warm from the sun.  It was heaven! 

We've been eating eggplant for a few weeks now.  I think everyone's getting sick of it, quietly.  I've always been able to grow eggplant and tomatoes without a problem.  Once it's in spaghetti sauce nobody even knows it's there!  

The Crystal Apple cucumbers are coming along nicely.  The first one is about a week away from being picked.  I can't wait to try it.

I've been picking basil for ages, along with the shallots and garlic chives.  

I'm lucky if I get to have one star fruit before the birds get to it, but that's okay.  That tree was here when we bought the house, along with the lemons and mandarines.  All three are in the wrong spot so we plan to sacrifice them and plant new ones later in a much more suitable spot.

I think we have about 5 or 6 types of tomatoes.  Only the grosse lisse are big enough to flower and fruit yet.  The others were only planted a couple of weeks ago.  I love tomatoes!!!!

I'm considering giving up on growing corn and trying again next year.  That crop has been a dismal failure.

My potatoes are in big black plastic pots.  The leaves have yet to flower so I don't know how long I have to wait until they are ready to harvest, but that's okay.  I can wait.

I'm preparing a new bed for passionfruit.  I've put down a heap of dynamic lifter, newspaper and some of the hay/leaves/food scraps/chook poo from the chook yard and after a couple of weeks, I'll add some soil and plant into that, then keep adding layers over time.  I'm planning to site it next to the fence at the chook yard and then adding a couple of star pickets inside the yard and cover it with wire so the vine can grow over it, and providing additional shelter and shade for the chickens.

My poor little Australorps have worms.  Well, at least one of them does.  Garlic cloves in their water hasn't helped, so it's on to the chemical treatment to hopefully rid them of them quickly.  They are all healthy and happy looking, so I'm not overly worried - yet.  I just don't like the conotations worms have - they imply dirty and unclean.  Luckily, not a single chook is laying yet so I'm not worried about the use of a chemical wormer right now.

I love my garden and would love to post pictures to share with you, but can't for some reason.  It took me almost 4 minutes just to open my blog once I signed in!

I'm so grateful that I have a husband who is willing to tolerate my 'foibles' and build me my dreams.

Not happy, Jan!

I'm a bit cranky at the moment.

It is hard to fathom that in such a country as Australia, it is hard to get a decent, reliable, speedy internet connection.

Queensland's Premier, Anna Bligh, wants to turn Townsville, where I live, into the state's "Second Capital".  That's all fine and good, but how about they get the basics right first?  Then again, our part of the country has pretty poor infrastructure when it comes to roads etc anyway.  The government is more interested in spending money on sports stadiums, toll roads, foot bridges and the like in Brisbane than doing anything up here.  

Bowen has water that looks like weak coffee; Townsville has woefully indadequate roads and public transport and our 'new' Townsville hospital has less beds than the 'old' one and we cater for a population that is spread over a distance similar to the whole size of Victoria!  It's funny that politicians are declaring Queensland to be the state to 'make or break' our next Federal Government.  It has got nothing to do with the ousting of Kevin Rudd, and more to do with the fact that this part of the world continually gets shafted when it comes to spending that is real and beneficial.  

Many of our roads, suburban roads even, get flooded for days or weeks on end every wet season.  Yet I laugh whenever I see a Federal Government "Roads to Recovery" sign dotted along our highway or arterial roads.  I can't even recall when some of them were put up as it's been so long!  

As for Telstra, what a laugh!  We've been in our new house since March and a Telstra technician came out shortly after to the section near our front fence to do some work because people in the street complained about their phone and internet connection always dropping out.  Well, the wires/cables are still sticking up out of the ground, surrounded by the lovely bright yellow fence they surround everything in.  We have about 28 houses in our street and at least four of these have Telstra fences in front of them with the cables sticking out.  Every time it rains we seem to have phone or internet problems.

I've been at the library for over half an hour trying to upload a heap of photos because our connection at home is too slow to cope with it.  So far, I've not been able to upload anything because - I don't know why.  Pages are taking way too long to even load.  And these photos have been taken in 'email' sized format so it shouldn't take long at all.

Anyway, I had lots of pics to show you from around home but I can't.  

Maybe another time.

New Additions

We have finished the chook house and yard.  Well done to The Groom!

We have two chickens at the moment.  Two Rhode Island Reds who are about point-of-lay (although their first morning here today resulted in no eggs).  They have some real character.

Coco, Little Man's chicken, is rather friendly and doesn't mind being picked up and patted.  The Princess named hers Pamela, and Pamela is the quieter and more timid of the two.  

At the moment they are hanging around the chook house and not venturing far from it.  I've got a large plastic pallet against a fence on an angle for them to hide under if they want, but they haven't gone that far over the other side of the yard yet.  

They both like grass but are not interested in the kitchen scraps yet.  Give them time and they will.

Hopefully today we will be getting some Australorps.  That's what we wanted from the start but bought the Reds just because they were the only ones available at the time.

I can't wait to post some pictures of the chickens!

Starting to think about Christmas presents...

It's not that far away when you really think about it.

It's closer than you think if you are planning to make things yourself to give as gifts.

It's all so scary.

The Princess and I were wading through multiple pages on the internet today (actually, it was originally the one site that we looked at but you know how these things happen), and came across many ideas we could use.  My Princess is very 'artistical' as she once described herself, and is always making something or drawing.  Her favourite things to draw are fairies and mermaids.  She is currently designing her own clothing range - including prices - that I think is rather lovely.  I wonder if this may one day lead to something...

Anyhoo, we came across a wonderful site called Executive Homemaker and there were so many brilliant ideas on it we soon discovered we'd spent almost 2 hours looking and clicking!  

There was also this lovely alphabet poster at Yellow Mums that I think would be lovely framed for my nieces.  Never mind the fact that I promised one of them a lavender stuffed sleep doll to one of them once we'd got settled in at the new house!  I can pick up some cheap raw timber photo frames from the discount shops and paint them in a matching color and they'd look wonderful.

I would like to try soap making so I might spend more time searching through this site for something easy and suitable for a beginner.  I think that almost everyone loves hand made soap, especially when it smells pretty.

Of course, fabric bunting is on my list of things to make, too.  I'm going to make some eventually to drape through the trees in the chicken yard once it's up and going.  Hopefully it'll help keep the eagles and hawks away, and give the chooks something pretty to look at (and maybe take their minds off trying to escape into the vegetable patch next to their yard!).

As a rule, we tend to only buy for the children in our family.  We have one niece who lives overseas and unless they are out here for a visit, we don't normally give her anything.  It is too expensive to post things to whichever country they are living in at the time.  My nephew is really boy-ish and likes trucks, but I always try to give him books if I can.  Failing that it's clothing.  Another niece is very girly and loves dolls, dress-ups, and the bunting I gave her last year went down really well.  

We don't give anything to our parents or siblings.  We rarely give each other gifts, we just buy ourselves something we want instead.  Christmas is about children we believe.

What are you doing for Christmas?

School holidays are here.

It's half way through the first week of two weeks of school holidays.

So far so good.

I deliberately didn't organise to do much this time, then again, we don't normally do heaps of things on the holidays anyway.  I try to find as many free/low cost activities as we can on holidays.  And here, there isn't that much to choose from, or places to go where we have been heaps of times anyway.

I figure that since we have so much land here for them to play on they can make the most of it.  It is also a lot further away from town than at our previous house, wherever we go should be combined with other places to save fuel.

We had friends visit yesterday and the kids were happy to show their friends around.  We had home made spaghetti for lunch, and our guests supplied the ice-cream and donut treats for afterwards.  It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon and catch up with my friend who I haven't seen all year since moving.  

I am so over tiles and renovating.  The tiles I chose at Bunnings were delivered, but when I came to collect them they were the wrong size, wrong color and were for walls not floors.  The next day I had a message from them telling me the supplier called them to tell them the tiles had been discontinued.  So I had to go back in and get a refund.  The kind lady, who was very apologetic, did call around a couple of stores looking for light blue floor tiles for me.  

So, on Monday I began my search again, and finally found light blue floor tiles I was remotely happy with, then I had to choose new listello's/feature tiles all over again to match the new floor tiles.  I made sure they checked with the supplier on availability this time.  At least the vanity/taps/accessories are safely stored here in the shed!

It is one year ago today that our beloved Murphy was put to sleep.  Also, our beloved Lily, who went missing, presumed dead, would have turned 5 today.  Little Man and The Princess are a bit mopey today, especially Little Man over Lily.  Today we will buy some bubbles and blow our wishes and thoughts up to Heaven for them and everyone else we've loved and lost.  It's what we did last year and have promised to do each anniversary.

Amazingly, since moving to this house, the children have only asked once to play video games.  More amazingly, said video game consoles are still packed away - out of sight out of mind definitely works.  I'm amazed at how many children I see these days busily being anti-social in 'public' with their DS's or PSP thingies.  When we went camping for the last long weekend ALL of the children in the other families who came with us spent most of their time in their tents playing games, only venturing out for food or marshmallows around the fire at night.  There was one girl who walked past me as we were packing up that I swear was the only time I saw her in the entire three days.  Some of the visiting children yesterday came with their DS's and I promptly told my children they were not to play them even if they were offered it.  I think that if you are around other people, then you ought to show them courtesy by putting those things away or leaving them at home or in the car at least.

My vegetable garden is coming along nicely.  I've got lots of grosse lisse tomatoes that should start to ripen shortly, and some Lebanese eggplant ready to harvest.  The wind knocked over a huge basil plant but I've got two smaller ones to pick from.  I have planted a heap of various tomato seedlings that I was given by a neighbour - black russian, beef steak, grape and cherry's I think.  The corn is doing well (better if the dogs didn't keep running through the beds or eating the rotting manure around them), and the cucumber is starting to flower.    At the gardening group get-together I was given a heap of plants - more than I can possibly need right now so they'll be shared with friends and neighbours.  I've started a food forest outside our bedroom side of the house.  I've planted a tahitian lime seedling, two brush cherries and a native peanut so far.  So many thing to do, so little time...

The chicken yard is starting to take shape.  The frame for the house is in place - it's final location was based solely on where we could get the forklift we borrowed from the neighbour to fit in between the surrounding trees.  Now the yard measures around 11x15m.  It's bigger than the backyard at our last house!  The star pickets for the fence are in, and one side of the fence has fencing wire strung along, once the rest is on then the mesh fence can get put on.  I need to strip off the old, rusting wire off the frame for the house and replace it with small bird aviary wire.  Then the old door needs to have the hinges replaced - they were rusted on and had to be rocked back and forth to break them off.  The wire frames around the little pigeon pea and native mulberry in the chicken yard need to be secured with tent pegs to prevent future chickens from pushing them over to get to the plants.  Half of the chicken yard is sheltered by young mahogany trees that are growing in there, the other half will one day be covered in bird netting if needs be.  We have a lot of birds of prey in our area and if we start raising our own chickens we will probably need it.  Later on we will look at digging a trench and filling it with rocks around the fence line to prevent the massive goanna that roams the area from helping himself to the eggs.  I can only do so much to prevent snakes getting in to the yard but hopefully meshing the chicken house with the small bird mesh and leaving the door to it closed when they're not in there, will go some way to reducing that risk.  

We had a common tree snake at our back door the other day.  The dogs alerted me to it, and at first I thought it was an olive python because I only caught a glimpse of it - trying to get three dogs in to the house while preventing two children from getting out as well as stopping a cranky snake from coming in was a bit of a feat.  I called the snake handler to come out before The Groom happened to stop in at home to pick up stuff, then The Groom caught sight of it and proclaimed it to be a yellow bellied black snake.  So, another call was made to the snake handler informing him of this, only to have him suggest that the common tree snake was often mistaken for yellow-bellied ones.  I told him I'd leave it to him to determine.  Anyhoo, he finally came out and had to dismantle the gas bottles from the wall in order to get to the poor thing where it had escaped to.  Yep, it was a common tree snake, who was rather agitated.  The man was lovely and explained the snake to us, and let the kids take pictures of it.  He checked around our house for any 'friends' and gave us plenty of advice and tips.  Embarrassingly, I didn't have any money on me to make a donation to their group.  I offered him a soft drink instead, but he declined.  He had to get back to his paying job.  Thank heaven for the internet, I say.  That's where I found his group and information on possible suspects we could have in our yard.  Hopefully the years I've spent 'educating' the children on assuming any snake they see is venomous and they should steer clear of it is going to pay off.

Well, today I'm off to collect mail from the post office.  A parcel was 'undeliverable' yesterday (despite our being home all day) so a card was left in the mail box with the regular mail telling us to go and collect it.  I shall buy some tinned tomatoes for a slow-cooked lamb shank recipe I'll be making for dinner on Friday night, probably buy a tub of ice-cream for sticky date pudding I plan to make for dessert tonight, then come home to make sultana cupcakes, chocolate biscuits and a recipe for bacon and lentil soup I found in the current edition of Women's Weekly.  It sounds yummy.

Darn those little sick 5 year olds!

I am convinced they are the ones responsible for my being sick this week.  I get to the year 1's on Tuesday with the beginnings of a throat that feels like an unopened pack of razor blades and a headache that is about to explode.  

So, I soldiered on with a classroom full of noisy 6 and 7 year olds all week and now I'm ready to fall down in a heap.  Thank heaven for anti-histamines and paracetamol!  I have them again on Monday and hopefully, with it being the last week of school next week, I'll get a chance to stay at home and catch up on the piles of washing that needs to be folded, and the floors that need vacuuming.

I'm ashamed to say that I missed the start of the State of Origin on Wednesday night.  I saw the dressing room and introduction of the Queensland players but cannot recall being awake to see N.S.W's team.  Little Man thought it was great that mummy fell asleep early because there was nobody else to tell him to go to bed.  He's normally allowed to stay up for kick-off and a little bit of the first quarter then he's got to go to bed.

We had the athletics carnival at school today and I'm completely pooped.  I'm really looking for an early bed time tonight.  The Groom has taken Little Man to his football game tonight, then in the morning I am hosting a gardening group at our house.  I can't wait to show off the beginnings of our place.  I'm making a vegetable soup to share so I'll be off to the supermarket to get vegies soon.  I'm disappointed I don't have any of my own produce yet, but I'm sure nobody will mind.  Tomorrow night we have a birthday bbq to go to, then on Sunday I'm hoping for a 'free' day.  The Princess has rehearsals for her school musical and then is off to a friend's house to play.  

Well, that's it.  I'm about to fall asleep but I have to head out for food.  Maybe I'll just get up early in the morning instead...

Today I'm grateful for a week's worth of work.  My last fortnight's pay slip looked good, and would've looked much better if it weren't for the dreaded tax, HECS and an old Austudy loan deductions.  It's been a bit of a busy 3 or so weeks with work.  Now, I'm looking forward to the school holidays!

TIred but happy

It's been a big week.

I worked on Monday, then I thought I was meant to be working on Tuesday but when I got to school I was told, no, you're not booked for today.  Someone made a muck up somewhere, but it gave me a day to myself.  I did the groceries and bought new flannel sheets for the children's beds.  Somehow they've ended up with one set each.  Don't know how that happened, but anyway.

On Wednesday I discovered that the floor tiles I had ordered for the ensuite were not able to be ordered after all.  We had the same tiles in the last house and I wanted them again for this one.  I'm really sad as I had my heart set on them.  Luckily, the border tiles for the walls had various shades on blues in them (they are those little mosaic-like tiles in a strip), so I found a similar color tile at Bunnings and ordered them instead.  They are slightly darker and more grey-ish than aqua, and aren't as glossy, but they'll have to do.  I'm sick of looking at tiles!  Now that everything is ordered for the ensuite we just have to wait for it all to arrive and then we wait for the builder/tiler/plumber etc to come in.  Later on when we've saved up more money the children's tiny bathroom will be done and then we can get the bedrooms carpeted.  

While I was at Bunnings I got a call for some more work with the same class I had on Monday.  So, this week I've been a prep teacher and it's been really fun.  At least today I didn't go home with a headache!

Tomorrow the school is having their feast day for their saint.  It's at the same school The Princess and Little Man go to, so I get paid for spending some of the day with them.  I like that!  Little Man isn't so sure, though, especially on the day I had his class for a little while while his teacher did something else.  And next week I am working all week, too.  With supply/substitute/relief teaching (call it what you will), it's often a case of feast or famine.  At the moment it's a feast and I have to make the most of it since we've got a lot of bills coming up.  I can really sympathise with The Everyday Mum right now, she is looking at going back to work.   I fall apart on the Home Front when I have a lot of work booked, but I found that at least if we are fed and clothed in clean garments, then that's all that matters.  At least with supply teaching I don't have to plan/mark/report, so that's a real blessing for me.

Well, I've got washing to hang out, dinner to warm up (I made a big stew in the slow cooker yesterday), then I've got to climb to the top shelf in the shed and get down the box with The Princess's winter clothes in it.  Hopefully I will make it up and down in one piece!  I do not like heights at all.  Then I have to start packing and preparing for the long weekend - we are going camping.  This time, though, we are taking ready-made meals (hence the stew) to heat up so we don't have to spend all of our time cooking.  Tonight I'm getting everything ready for a chicken and vegetable soup.  I will put that all in the slow cooker in the morning and then it'll be ready when I get home.  Dinner tomorrow night will be soup and toast, then the rest of it will be eaten on the weekend.  It's going to be cold inland, so sitting around a hot camp fire, eating soup and then toasting marshmallows will be lovely!  I don't drink, so marshmallows it is for me while everyone else sips warmed port.  Mmmmmmm, marshmallows....