Here it is almost Easter

and again time is getting away from us... thankfully this year things are going well.

There have been a few changes happening since I last posted. I have started studying, which takes place mostly on weekends and we bought ourselves a little caravan! Here she is...


Ray and Russell are in the process of leveling what Russell dubbed "The Love Shack", removing the wheels and generally making things comfortable - no rocking for this little van.. :D Ray has stayed overnight a few times since TLS has been set up but unfortunately I haven't as yet as my study weekends have been eating into farm time, but that's how life goes. I'm loving the course, so the farm sacrifice hasn't been too difficult. Can't wait to stay this weekend though! Now that the older girls aren't staying with their dad every fortnight they will be coming along with us and sleeping in a tent overnight - I wonder how long that will last!!

Ray has designed a shower/toilet block which we will be working on this weekend. Russell dug the post holes for it after helping us set up the van and Ray put the posts in last weekend. Rails this weekend and tin soon to come and yay, somewhere to wash.

We have decided to set up a courtyard area around the van for some privacy so here I am marking the intervals for the postholes that good ole Russ dug out for me... yes I do actually do more than sit in front of the fire watching the birds!


Once the post and wire is in I'll be planting a couple of mile-a-minute vines to create a non-permanent screen to provide some shelter. We'll bring the fire pot up there from the shed and set it up on some pavers, bring the old outdoor setting up from home and set up a nice little place to spend the weekend. When the girls stay we'll set the tent up in the screened off area too. So it's taken a while but we're slowly beginning to make the place feel like somewhere easy to stay. We even have a porta-potty, much to the girl's horror!! Better than than a hole in the ground, I say.. :D

Back again after next weekend to provide an update, should be an interesting one given that we're being accompanied by two ipod-loving, myspace missing teenaged girls! I don't even think their mobiles have coverage there... now where are my earplugs??!

OK, so I've run out of witty

things to say about managing last year's hideous happenings. '08 is gone and '09 dawns fresh and new with everyone I've spoken with feeling positive about the year to come. If our fruit trees are anything to go by then all will be well. :D

We arrived on Dec 27 feeling rather nervous about how the trees would be faring after being so neglected this year by comparison to last year's mollycoddling and we were very pleasantly surprised!

Yes, there were still weeds everywhere



and Woody's sheep had made a terrible stinky mess in the shed, but we couldn't believe it when we saw Bonnie's tree and it had fresh growth on it, and our apple trees had these...





The potatoes from last year have sprouted again and we have three nectarines growing happily!




So, so far so good... mulching deeply has come up a winner!

More later... stay tuned!

Hmmmmm

What a year! So damn difficult!

We've hardly been at the farm all year due to many and varied obstacles. Hopefully it will be different next year. We've decided that we need to get a caravan as the tent has turned out to be less suitable than we thought. I don't know where the caravan is going to materialise from but the goal is to have one by this time next year.

I have some photos to post from our last trip but I don't have the gadget to get them from the camera to the computer so I'll bung em up later on.

Right, so it's now later on and I have the photos available. They were taken on 15th November and they really show what happens when the we don't get up there often enough. Everything is overgrown and the thistles that Ray so diligently slaughtered have all come back again.



We expected as much but also expected to be able to knock them down every year, which hasn't happened this year. Thus the cycle begins again. These thistles will flower, set seed and bingo, another seed bank to contend with over the next 10 years. As the saying goes, "life happens"..

Ray slashed the grass down from around the fruit trees and into the pen a little bit, but didn't have time to do the whole pen.



We weeded around the base of the trees, gave them a good drink and mulched them heavily. We've not been back since then to water them but there has been some rain around Armstrong lately so hopefully they will be ok.

We plan to head up there this weekend (27-28 Dec) so I'll update again shortly.

Merry Christmas to all, and a wonderful and peaceful 2009 for all of us!

We had another burial yesterday. Willy, our darling sweet 12 year old sheltie, had to be put to sleep last Wednesday due to old age.

We took him home to the farm yesterday and laid him beside Bonnie...

:(

Well here I am again.. updating, well, nothing!

Since my last post we have been to the farm once, on June 14th to have a look around and to plant Bonnie's tree.

All was well with the trees growing and the tomatoes having long ripened on the vine and subsequently perished. An ex workmate of Ray's has patched up the burned fences and put some sheep in the paddocks to graze so I'll be interested to see how much they keep the grass down in spring.

I'll pop back here to report more once we get up to the farm again. In the meantime, life meanders on in Gisborne.

It feels like forever

since I've been here to post an update.

Life has been extremely busy in our household as as such we haven't hit the road for FSF since we spent a few days there at Easter.

We've had Shelby's debutante ball, my grandmother's burial, illness in our immediate family and other more ordinary happenings which have kept us all very busy.

The other deciding factor at the moment is that petrol is so pricey! Thankfully the weather is cold now, and we have had some rain so the fruit trees don't need us there every fortnight to give them a drink, which is vital during the hotter months.

I'm not sure when I'll be back to post again - hopefully soon as I'm missing my patch of paradise terribly.

Stay tuned....

This weekend was

not the weekend for getting much done on the farm.. it was too damn hot. Neither of us like the heat much but this weekend it really floored us.

We couldn't get accommodation for Saturday night so we stayed home and visited my Grandpa, went to the movies in the afternoon and stayed up way too late that night watching "Gone with the Wind".. :) Ray hadn't ever seen it (I have, many many times!) and I suspect that it was only Grandpa's recommendation that convinced him that 3 1/2 hours of technicolour and overdramatisation was a good idea!! haha! We both enjoyed it...

We were supposed to get up early Sunday for our day trip to the farm. We planned to get there by 9am but when we woke at 7.45 we realised that we were not going to beat the heat and that watering was going to be a real chore.

We plan to stay Easter Saturday and Sunday so the tent had to be put up and the floor fixed as our rabbit decided that last time she and the tent were in the same vicinity she would scratch the hell out of the floor. She was very close to becoming dinner that day but she lives on - away from the tent!

So we are prepared (somewhat) for our camping trip at Easter. We are expecting visitors on Easter Saturday which is very exciting for me as we've had visitors just once so far (other than our lovely neighbours of course ) - Mum and Al came up for the day last Easter. I can't believe that was a year ago. I'm really looking forward to showing our friends where our future lies..

Oh, the tomatoes have grown beautifully in the tyre garden but haven't ripened as yet.. any suggestions as to why?