o0o
Another big update covering close to six weeks – so its gonna be a bit of a long one.
Strap in and buckle up!
Monday
– took Noah in to get the wiring done for the maxxfan.
Sat at a cafe for two hours – read and wrote.
Did laundry.
Went to the GP and he’s arranged for me to get some bloods done.
We had a good chat.
Went for a walk to the end of our street. Felt good and strong.
Our daughter-in-law is up with our grandson so we went out to dinner with them.
Decided not to do dinner at home for now, as the grandson had a bit of a freak out at all the animals last time, so we figured it might be better to ease him back into us gently!
I took some yoghurt and muesli to have, as I’m a lil gun-shy after our last meal out and I ended up in the loo having a vomit!
Tuesday
– quick trip to the next town over to get some stuff we needed to pick up, so I took the bus for a run.
Once I got home I chopped up the cabbages and grated some carrot to make sauerkraut so there’s now two big jars fermenting on the bench.
Our GardenGuy came over and took down the old chook run and cemented in some posts to attach the new wiring to.
He’ll be back later in the week to run the wire.
Wednesday
– a gloriously beautiful sunshiny day, and it made me soooo damn happy to be out there in it!!
My faithful dog was very excited to finally get to come down and spend time in the paddock with me too.
I got to do a couple of hours in the vegie garden weeding and cleaning up the beds, and then after a stop for something to eat, I got the entire paddock mown.
Then it was in to town to collect some compost and some parcels.
Thursday
– we woke up to a lovely cold morning – but unfortunately the next part of the day didn’t start as fabulously…
My Wife went to feed the chooks after we’d had our coffee as usual, and walked through the vegie garden on the way there as she does each morning – and the ground around each of the beds was flooded with water.
I had left the irrigation on since yesterday mid-morning…
It’s the first time I’ve ever done it – and gawd I hope it will be the last!
I had put a timer on my one for on for it – as I always do – but when the timer went off I had thought it was the timer for the dog food I was cooking so went and turned that off instead.
What an idiot…
Around 9am I drove up to my friend Ls place in the bus to collect some gardening stuff that she wanted to palm off on me – and I was very pleased to have.
The bus was pretty full by the time I was ready to head home and the final score was:
~ a plant stand
~ 5 bags of compost
~ 1 bag cow poo
~ 1 bag worm castings
~ 1 bag of blood and bone
~ a couple of pot plants and
~ a wooden garden bed
Once back home I unpacked the bus and cleaned it all out, and also unpacked the plant trolley onto the nursery shelves – which I should have got done weeks ago, but which has been put off because of the rain.
Friday
– Dishes, laundry, and updating a pile of websites was the majority of today.
I did manage to get in about an hour a half of working in the veggie garden, and most of that was spent digging comfrey and cassava out of one of the beds.
I am thinking of adding another (smaller) vegie garden in a secondary location on the Farm, and having one set of beds for the winter, and one for summer – but I want to do some more pondering on that before I fully commit…
Saturday
– had an awesome morning of working in the paddock.
My Love actually wanted to do some yard work which was exciting, I love having help and to have someone to work with.
I shovelled lots of dirt and we filled a new garden bed, and then she went to the raw materials place and got some road-base, and we filled all the holes in the driveway that came about from the rain.
We noticed that the guy next door had a mini excavator in, so my Love went over there to see if he’d come over and move some dirt – and he DID!!!
Yaaaay!!
There are now – sort of – three new paddock beds to be planted out.
I say ‘sort of’ because he didn’t actually do what we asked totally, so we’ll get our usual guys back in to fix it up, when they can next get here.
Sunday
– after getting the dishes done we emptied out the ute of the remaining road-base, and kept some put away in a cart incase we need to top up the holes we filled yesterday.
Last night I messaged our usual landscaping guy, and hopefully he will be here in the next ten days or so to do the remainder of the sorting out of the soil piles that will be the next round of paddock beds.
We went for a drive to all (3) of the nurseries to see what sort of spreading and flowering plants we could find.
Once we’d taken the plants home and let the dogs out for a pee, we took the bus and went for a drive to the Lake for a burger and chips lunch.
Relaxing.
Monday
– took the bus for a spin to one of the next towns over to do some grocery shopping.
When I got home it was freezing cold and overcast – unlike where I’d just been – which was warm and sunny!
Did the laundry, made chook and dog food, menu-planned and vacuumed the house.
Caught up on “The Block” once my Wife got home.
Tuesday
– hugely busy day starting with early fasting blood tests.
Spend the majority of the day pulling everything out of the kitchen shelving, decluttering, cleaning and putting back only the necessities.
GardenGuy and his wife came and finished putting up the fencing wire that was started last week, and thankfully she’s taken the stuff I decluttered, and will go through it and then take anything that’s left over to the Op Shop.
My wife kindly bought home a Carbonara for dinner, alas it didn’t sit well with me and I ended up vomiting numerous times.
Wednesday
– did a recycles and rubbish dump run in the morning, then went and bought some chicken and picked up our new hot water system from the post office.
Spent almost two hours in the vegie garden composting, planting some starts, watering and mulching.
Later in the afternoon I did some more wiping down and decluttering.
When you’re Parentals to 7 kids – even though the youngest is now almost 30 – there is still a lot of ‘just in case’ stuff that we have, and each time we do a decluttering binge, we manage to get rid of more and more of all that sort of old stuff…
The Courier delivered the new little 12v freezer for our bus, so we’re looking forward to tasting that out.
Our current bus fridge is a dual zone one which means we can use it as a fridge and a freezer, but we only require a really small space for frozen goods, so figured it would be better in the long run to have a seperate freezer unit.
Thursday
– a trip to drop off a bag to vinnies and collect a couple of plants and some storage baskets, and then it was back home and straight into the decluttering and deep-cleaning.
I also got some tidying up done in the house-yard and enjoyed listening to an audiobook while I was working both inside and out.
Tomorrow I’ve got lunch with the ex-colleague crew.
Friday
– woke to rain again this morning, so I got the laundry and webwork done early in the day, then off to have lunch with the ex-colleagues crew.
I got a toasted ham and cheese but could only eat a 1/4 of it.
In the afternoon I made some satay and cleaned the windows in and out.
Saturday
– this week is allllllll about the cleaning!
Another rainy cold biting wind day, so it wasn’t a hard decision to work inside!
I managed to get about half an hour during squalls to prune some branches off the lillipillis outside our bedroom window.
Finished cleaning the rest of the windows in and out.
It always lets so much more light in once that thin film of slimy scum algae from the incessant rains is removed!
Attempted to install the new water heater, but we need a larger fitting for the gas bottle hose, and we went into bunnings to get one, but they don’t stock them.
No hot water today!
Sunday
– decided to go to the hardware store in the next town over to see if we could get the part for the water heater, but neither of their two hardware stores had it either. We will have to wait to go to the gas shop tomorrow and hope that they have one!
In the meantime we’ll hook back up the old heater which – whilst it isn’t making the water very hot anymore – is still waaaay better than no heat at all!
Our middle son dropped in for a quick visit this evening as he arrived up from Adelaide today.
Was lovely to be able to hug him.
Monday
– I annoyed myself when I ducked to the dump and into town around 9am, and ended up missing the bobcat guy who had come to do some work.
I saw him on the security cam and messaged him that I was on my way back, but he didn’t get the message in time.
I’d thought he wasn’t coming until the afternoon. He’s now rescheduled for Wednesday morning.
Spent some time during a break in the weather doing the mowing of the houseyard and about ⅓ of the paddock before the cold blustery rain came back in.
Mid-afternoon our son dropped over and spent a couple of hours discussing nutrition and physicality with me.
It was really interesting and not only did I learn a lot, but it gave me much to think on.
I reallllly like that kind of learning!
When my wife got home, we did a test-pack of her carry-on bag as she has a work conference in Brisbane that’s she’s flying off to on Wednesday morning, and she’ll be back on Friday.
Tuesday
– did some more planting this morning, while the laundry was on.
Got a FaceTime call from our youngest daughter and her girls while I was gardening which was a nice surprise.
Our son and daughter-in-law were coming for dinner so I had to duck in and get some cheese for their requested meal, which is fish tacos.
While I was out I collected a parcel of some new pages for my planner, and also ordered the refill of the daily calendar (week at an opening) for next year.
My friend LC came over for a cuppa and a catch-up and I always enjoy that.
Cleaned up inside the bus in the afternoon as it has been becoming a bit of a dumping ground for things that need to be in there but haven’t yet been put away properly, or don’t yet have a proper place to be.
Did some potting-up of indoor plants during the afternoon also.
Had a lovely dinner with our son, daughter-in-law and grandson.
Wednesday
– a pretty big day!
First up I needed to drop my Wife into town to her bosses home as they’ve headed down to Brisbane for the work conference.
When I got home, GardenGuy was here and had started in on the whipper-snipping and I started in on washing our sheets, as it was sheet change day.
Garden Guy will be back on Friday as he has to leave early to take one of his kids to an appointment.
Around 9:30 our regular excavator / landscaping guys arrived, and set to work out in the paddock doing all the cleanup and levelling that was still to be done; and they also filled up a garden bed for me.
While one worked the excavator, the other went and got a nice big load of wood-chip for us.
They did around 3hrs work all up, and the paddock looks bloody amazing now!
Super happy!
Around lunchtime our son came over with his father-in-law and we all went for a wander to have a look at the new earthworks.
Our son is staying overnight and will sleep in our bus, so we just spent the rest of the day hanging out and getting lots of little jobs completed.
It was a nice time…
Thursday
– Early rise and got most of the morning chores done by the time our son came in for breakfast.
Got some computer work done and our son finished making the trim to go around the fan in the bus.
Mid-afternoon I went down to the chook pen and realized one of the hens had died, so I dropped it off at the tip when I dropped our son back to his in-laws.
Quiet night enjoying being alone in silence for the first time in over 2 days – which is a lot of people-ing for me!
Friday
– the morn was spent vacuuming and mopping the floors, as well as chatting to Mr & Mrs GardenGuy who dropped in to pick up some goodies I had saved for them.
Did a bit of reading and computer work through the middle of the day, and spoke to my sister on the phone for quite a while, who is currently still overseas and is looking after her son and his family whilst he has cancer treatments.
Ducked in and got a few groceries and collected my darling Wife who had come back from the Conference, where she won a few Awards, and much acclaim.
Saturday
– took a run in the bus to coles in the next town over, and it was lovely to be driving out in the warm sunshine.
Bliss!
Managed to find an adjustable kettle-bell at Kmart, so I got it as it half the price of the one that our son recommended on Amazon, as I dont want to spend a fortune on it if it isn’t something I am going to use long-term.
Spent most of the afternoon doing some social media posts and just spending some quiet time by myself and reading a bit.
I’m still feeling pretty tapped out by my busy peopley days earlier in the week.
I have started using my new all-in-one Planner, that will hopefully be replacing my previous planner plus daybook.
I’ve got all the birthdays and other recurring date reminders already into next years calendar – which I like to get done by mid-september each year – so I’m actually even a bit ahead of myself!
Sunday
– our youngest grandsons birthday, and fathers day all rolled into one.
Our son came over this morning to help with the installing of the dash cam on the new car, and also with removing the old pallets from the pallet wall, and installing the new ones.
This also meant removing allll the plants that were in pots on the wall so we can transfer over to the new wall.
We also got one of the new small raised beds that we planted out last weekend mulched, and a vertical planter at our entry gate planted out and mulched.
Mid-afternoon we went over to our daughter-in-laws parents home to participate in cake-eating for our grandson, then back home to make a ‘last supper’ (for us) dinner for our son and his wife, as they leave to go back to their home in South Australia on Tuesday.
It was good to spend some time alone with them while we had dinner.
Monday
– did an early online grocery order for collection midafternoon.
My spending has been a little out of hand for the last few months on expenses for the house / yard and for the bus, as well as a few other big-ticket items, so its time to reign it in for a while so that I can get some saving back under my belt.
Through the morning – as well as getting some blankets washed – I emptied the gorilla trolley into the raised garden bed that we started filling last weekend, and it’s now fully topped up.
I also situated an old beaten-up metal garden bed out in the paddock away from everything, so that I can use it as a fire-pit to get rid of a collection of old fallen branches from the gums, that are currently littering the chook-pen.
It will be nice to give it a big clean-out as it’s been rather neglected of late.
(the pen surrounds, not the chickens!!)
Then it was into the big veg garden to weed, compost and mulch the raspberries and loganberries before they start wildly shooting now that spring has sprung, and the warmer weather will be here full-time before we can imagine.
Our son and daughter-in-law came over after my wife got home from work, to say their goodbyes.
Our son ended up staying for dinner.
We’ll miss them…
Tuesday
– got out into the garden and started planting out one of the new beds that the excavator laid down the other day, and the soon-to-be grove is already looking pretty exciting with four citrus trees and some tansy planted out.
We have a pile of trees in pots waiting to be planted, but at least I’ve managed to make a start…
My order from Formulite arrived today.
It will probably be my last one as they’ve increased the price, and the new price means it would be around $300 a month and I just can’t justify (or manage!) that, so I’ll be working out what I can make on my own as a low-cost alternative.
Our young friend asked me to drop her at an appointment today – so I was happy to do that and waited around in town – and did the ‘Containers for Change’ run while I was wasting time – until she was finished then dropped her home.
Wednesday
– quiet day today after yesterday big effort of fruit-tree planting.
Did some housework, unpacked and put away the Formulite supplies, vacuumed the house and dusted.
Cooked up some snags and chicken for the animals, and some meatballs for the Mrs.
Thursday
– took the bus for a drive to the next town over to go to coles and did a big buy-up of all my ‘special foods’ so I shouldn’t have to go back for a couple of weeks now I don’t think.
Friday
– did laundry.
Spent the majority of the day doing various ‘Life Admin’ jobs, including the working out of a revised budget and cancelling a couple of subscription services.
Saturday
– pulled everything out of the main freezer and went through it all and took out the old food.
Cooked the meat up for the dogs and the vegies for the chickens.
Sunday
– worked in the garden in the morning.
Catch-up tv in the afternoon.
Monday
– did an early morning grocery order, which I picked up when I went into town to have a cuppa with my Wife.
A sweet lil sorta date!
Just as I was arriving back home, the truck was dropping off the reinforcing mesh I’d ordered last week.
Looking forward to getting into chopping that up to make archways!!
Cooked up dog food, did the laundry and folding, and cleaned out our junk ‘drawer’ which is actually a big rolling under-bed tub that’s fits under our kitchen bench.
It’s much more organized now!
I also got some rosemary planted down in the big veg garden.
Dietician appointment tomorrow.
Tuesday
– shit nights sleep last night.
Down the hill to the city this morning for a mid-afternoon dietician appointment.
Went to the Northside shopping centre and tried to get some clothes, but didn’t find much – ended up with just a couple of shirts.
What I did do however – was go the the hairdresser and got my hair cut to just above my shoulders!!
Going from below my bum to above my shoulders has been a big leap that’s for sure – but hopefully now that’s it’s had a big lop, it will start to regenerate and will maybe make it back to a decent thickness in time…
The appt with the dietician went well.
She’s pleased with my progress considering how difficult I am finding it to each much, and that some foods just instantly make me throw up.
She was a little concerned that I still don’t have a surgery date for the hiatal hernia repair and gallbladder removal, but knows that the timeline for that is a total unknown unless I end up back in hospital in an emergency capacity.
Wednesday
– grocery trip, life admin, and the cavalier dog to the vet to have her steroid injection and nails cut.
Thursday
– huuuuge day!
Our cavalier dog had to unexpectedly go back to the vet today as they’d had a cancellation and she has to have some more teeth work done.
She’s now only got 4 teeth left, and on top of that her heart murmur is getting worse.
She is heading for 14 so I guess it’s to be expected…
After helping to get the dog ready for dropping off at the Vet, the morning started out with cutting the reinforcing mesh into six strips which took me a couple of hours with the angle grinder.
After that I mowed the paddock for a couple of hours and got most of it done. I’ll have to finish the rest tomorrow.
Whipper-snipped the house yard and cooked some food for the animals.
In between all that I had a visit from my friend LC, who came over for a cuppa.
We’d prearranged a week or so ago to go out with some male friends to one of the hotels for dinner. Unfortunately there was nothing on the menu – not even soup – that I could eat, so I missed out and got to watch everyone else eat instead – which was rather annoying!
Friday
– had a mid-morning coffee date at home with a lady that I used to work with, and it was really quite lovely to reconnect.
I think we’ll probably do it more often… I hope so.
Got the laundry done, and collected the pop-up bath tub I had ordered online, from the post office.
Looking forward to trying it out once the weather warms a bit more.
I also managed to finish the mowing of the paddock, and the houseyard too.
Saturday
– I had to go for a drive this morning to get some chicken breasts for the animals and for our dinners and to top up the freezer, so I decided to take the bus for a drive as I hadn’t been out in it all week.
Something very out of the ordinary for me, I decided to message friend and see if she wanted to come for a drive – and she did – so we ended up going to the next town over and going for a walk through the markets which we hadn’t known were on; and then going and having a coffee and cake at one of the cafes.
We ended up chatting for almost 2 hours, and were up to 3 hours by the time we both got home!
It was a really nice way to spend what turned out to be a beautiful sunny day.
I’ve been quite the social butterfly this week, and we’re having to duck down to the city tomorrow to see one of our sons who is doing a fly-thru again, so we’ll visit with him at the airport on his layover.
Phewww
I’ll need to take a break from all this peopling next week! lol
Sunday
– drove down to the city to meet our son at the airport, and spent 2.5 hrs with him having cuppas, drinks and snacks then back up the hill home.
Went and got some milk and a few other groceries on our way, and got home late afternoon.
Watched about an hour of tv while we settled from the trip, and then it was into a nice hot shower for each of us.
Unfortunately – the gas ran out while my poor Love was in the shower washing her hair, so it was a quick change of the gas bottle so she could get back to it, and then i got to have my lovely shower.
A quiet night with an easy dinner of soup from our homemade shelf stock.
The end of another week already!
Time goes sooo bloody fast…
Monday
– cold wet rainy miserable day!
Another Anniversary that only I remembered…
Did laundry and general post-weekend cleaning.
Quiet day.
Tuesday
– went to a nearby town in the bus with my friend L, so we could go to coles and have lunch together.
It was a nice trip, and I had half a cheese and ham toastie and bought the other half home for the chooks.
Wednesday
– worked in the garden weeding, tidying and watering.
Garden Guy came and spread some mulch in the veg garden pathways for me.
Thursday
– did an early morning grocery order for a midday pickup, and worked in the garden from mid-morning until it was ready for collection.
Cooked dog food, and poached some chicken breasts.
Did a bunch of computer / web work, and also set up a new time-management app I’ve started using and am really enjoying.
Lovely warm sunny classic Spring day!
Friday
– went into town this morning to exchange a bra that I had bought, and went to the second hand shops looking for some yard-work shirts, but only found one – which was a bit disappointing.
I just can’t afford to buy new right now, but my old shirts are for too big for me so I’ve had to donate them.
Got a FaceTime call from our youngest daughter and her girls while I was doing the dishes, and the eldest one took me for a ‘tour’ of their new house (well, her bedroom anyways lol), so that was lovely!
I then spent most of the rest of the day in the garden doing tidying and repotting.
It’s been another day of gorgeous weather.
Saturday
– my gorgeous (dog) girls 7th birthday!!
My wife brought home my puppas preferred traditional ‘birthday cake’ of a sausage roll, and she very happily scoffed it down.
I spent most of the morning tooling around getting ready for the wedding we had to go to this afternoon, and my Love had some work appointments she needed to attend to.
It poured down rain on the way there, and there were numerous showers and gale-force winds before, during and after the ceremony – but maybe that will bring them luck!
It was bloody freezing in the marquee, and there really wasn’t anything much I could eat on the menu, so that wasn’t fun…
I had taken some snack, but we’d eaten them all earlier in the evening as the dinner component was almost two hours late, and we were both super hungry.
Glad I had thought to take food with us!
We came home “early”, but by that time it’s was after 9pm and we were both done with it 😬
Sunday
– did some garden and general property tidying, watched some tele and got a few inside jobs done.
Got a few groceries when we went into town to get medications from the pharmacy.
A slow day.
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As I press publish on this, it is the day before my Birthday.
We will be going away in the bus next weekend for a couple of days, but today the cold and rain have settled back in and the sun is hiding, so its quite a dreary day.
I’m looking forward to this week being hopefully a bit more quiet and settled than the last few have been, but I’d really like the weather to be kind enough to allow me to bask in some sunshine while I pull the ever-present weeds…
Citrus trees and yarrow.
Love these flowers!