September saw us snatch a quick day trip

to get some more work done on the pen, as although I said in the last entry that it's finished, it's not. Erin was with us and was happy to be of assistance to Ray.

My monkeys.. :)

A good day's work produces good results and happy campers..

Easter 2011

What a fantastic time we all had at Easter. Most of the time it's just the two of us there so it was a rare pleasure to have Katie, Tim and burr-dog Cedric with us. There were quite a few photographs taken so I'm going to make this post mainly pictorial. 

Nothing had changed from our previous visit - no unwelcome surprises, thank goodness, but neither had the clean up fairy helped us out either.

Where were the 7 dwarves 'hi ho-ing' when we needed them?

I guess it's all about perspective.. in January we see "flood affected", at Easter it's kindling!

We don't put on the dog around here ya know!

After a bit of sleep

and some breakfast

(may I just say - DEAR GOD TIMOTHY!)

it was time for us all to get to work. These pics must have been taken the second day, as the grass is nice and short around the van.. Katie was a whiz!

Heckle and Jeckle got to work pulling down the old pen which proved to be quite a difficult and delicate task as the mesh had been buried a metre into the ground.

Tim - aka Axeman or Thor - began his quest for man hands.

The gloves soon got thrown to the ground with disdain. Yes, he threw them to the ground.

Soon, his hands were as manly as THIS...

but he didn't let Katie's insistence on having bandaids all over his hard earned wounds stop him from leaving her a message..

and not long after the photo was taken he threw the bandaids to the ground too and the spring returned to his step.

After a great deal of hard work one side of the pen eventually was cleared,

the materials were taken to the high ground on the other side of our campsite, and work on the newly designed 'modular' pen system began.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, I was getting some exercise..

getting the place looking nice,

and burning off some of that 'extra energy' I have so next time someone comes near me with a camera I don't have to shriek "god, my fat rolls" and start madly hugging myself.

Katie, on the other hand, is so thin that perhaps she should leave the mowing to me!

Evenings were always entertaining, as you can tell by the look on my face (and hers),

but Mother usually has the last word in most matters. Actually, I don't often have to say anything...

Now whilst we're having all the fun, the men were hard at work. No, really, they were!

Although Ray has designed this new system to be modular, construction is following the same process. That ground was rock hard because Russell had serious difficulty getting the digger to dig one metre down.

Success was to be had though, in the end.

The final result of our trip to Frog Song Farm was one section of our new pen finished

and some very exhausted but happy campers. Bring on Easter 2012!

PS. Almost forgot the foreman..

Cedric - aka burr dog. <3

So we've had flood, fire and drought - how's about some

theft to go with it?!

Yep, theft. Not happy Jan.

The kids and I took a day trip last Tuesday to check things out for our trip at Easter (tomorrow, yay!) and discovered that our caravans have been broken into and our power tools stolen.

Really, what more can I say?

More updates with before and after pics to follow after Easter.

Hope the Easter bunny is kind to you!

This blog seems to have become a means

of reporting on what's not happening at Frog Song Farm and to inform those who may be interested that we've had another setback. I'm tired of trying to put a cheerful spin on not so cheerful happenings and so in this post I'm not going to.

Friday at around lunchtime Ray received a call from Woody, a mate of ours who runs a few sheep on our place. Normally when he calls it's to tell us that he has some lamb for us for our freezer but I realised pretty quickly that he wasn't calling about that, and that along with thousands of other Australians we too were "flood affected."He started off by telling Ray (I could hear the conversation too) that we'd lost some fences, they'd been flattened by the force of the water and that his sheep were stranded on higher ground, cut off by the water that was still on the property. Apparently at that time the water hadn't subsided. When Ray asked Woody about the pen Woody very succinctly and in typical country style replied, "It's fucked, mate." And it is. By the time we got up there at around 4pm the water had subsided and we were faced with some very heart wrenching sights.

The log that you see up against the pen gate was originally about 8 or so metres away. I can hardly imagine the force of the water that swept through there - that log is bloody heavy! The shed survived, but the water tanks that we were using for wood storage, along with the water tank that was going to be used for water storage were all swept away and are now lingering by the creek, and our huge esky is nowhere to be found. Debris is littered all around the place, plant pots and Erin's old bike from the tip, and the old butchers cabinet that weighs a bloody ton has been picked up, dumped and smashed metres away from where it was.

We couldn't get into the pen via the gate because the log was blocking the way but no matter, we just walked over the fence that last week stood 2 metres high. The fence is leaning on the fruit trees but they appear to be alright as the poles are dug 1 metre into the ground and seem to be taking the weight of the fence successfully. I hope they don't buckle more because then we'll lose the trees too. Ray tells me that it's unlikely to happen.

The one boundary fence that we share with a neighbour was also washed away. It's the same fence that needed replacing after it was burned out in the fire that went through a few years ago. I'm hoping that things don't come in threes because I'm just not ready for a bloody tornado to come and rip the damn thing out of the ground once it's replaced again.

As we were leaving we saw our neighbour Anne who said that she's never seen anything like this happen in the 26 years that she's lived in Armstrong and that in 2 days she emptied over 200ml out of her rain gauge. In past years we'd have been lucky to get that much rain in 6 months.

Despite this event being called a "once in a lifetime/once in 100 year/once in 200 year" occurrence, we've witnessed flash flooding twice in the past 5 years and have heard stories of the previous owner also losing stock to flooding. What this means for us is a total re-think on where to go from here. We cannot replace the materials to rebuild so the next step is to salvage what we can from the original pen and re-design the whole farm plan.

Good grief

time flies!

Again, nothing to report other than a tentative plan to spend some time at FSF over Easter.

I'm also going to try to have a day trip over the current holidays - wish me luck!

It's time,

well and truly for an update, except there's really not much to tell.

We've barely been to the farm in the last twelve months due to Ray's shift roster changing (he now works day shift Saturday and Sunday) and my schooling. The last two times we have been it's poured with rain and we've gotten absolutely nothing done. The locals must love us - the rainmakers!

I'm really missing our time on the farm together. The place looks unkempt and unloved. It's pretty sad. :| The fruit trees are growing well, and Woody's sheep are happy there too I suspect but FSF is going to have to wait another 18 months at least before she's really going to start being looked after well again. Thankfully time seems to fly these days.

Plans? What plans...?

I'm beginning to think that the only thing that plans are good for is starting the fire with! In fact, I don't even bother to write them down any more..