February

Laura started training, she got picked up for a 5 hour drive to her trainers place.
Chester was not happy...

But most of all he would like some rain, the paddocks are so bare...

Two weeks in, Laura is doing great. Cattle work can be very technical.
At home I’m practicing with Chester on opening and closing gates while riding and picking up kids at the bus stop. Riding easy while his leg is taking a long time healing from his abscess.

Breakfast smoothies for a great start of the day, we’re going though our blueberries rather quickly.
It’s all great practice for a workshop I’m supposed to be running in April...

Our dragon fruit has been flowering and producing it’s first fruits. The flowers are so big and bright white, filled to the brim with bees.

The kids have counted 21 flowers!

Sophie’s riding lessons

For weeks we had been looking for a second kayak, for Tim’s birthday. However no luck, the day of his party a friend mentioned he had a couple of kayaks taking up space in his shed. He delivered us 4! We now have a whole fleet, we didn’t see much of Tim and his mates all weekend...

Also David is becoming an old hand on paddling the dam. Do you see his friend in the tree?

Cyclone Oma, so far south. It got very windy for a couple of days, but all the rain that got predicted didn’t eventuate... We really could have used it...

Birthday cake at the Full Moon gathering.

Boys are making lots of progress with athletics this year.

Sander fractured his finger with volleyball and required surgery. While his finger was getting screwed back together, we made the most of our time in Coffs on the break wall.

 And even got to see a sea turtle!

 Full Moon rising over the paddock

My garden is a sorry mess. Not having had any rain for months on end, combined with very hot and windy summer days, water is very precious. I’m hand watering my orchard, taking u many hours of my week. The permanent plants in the vegetable garden are being kept alive by a drip irrigation. But for anything else to grow, I’ll need some serious rain. We’re onto the third day of Autumn, we’re getting a little bit of drizzle during the night and the temperature has dropped a bit for now (you know you’ve gone through a hot summer when the kids are wearing jumpers as the temperature drops under 30 degrees!). It has given me enough confidence to plant out one (out of 7) garden beds. Knowing that at least I can keep the watering up, without stretching myself even thinner. 

Hopefully when the busy registration part of the soccer season is past us, I have a bit more free time again in my weeks.

I’ve been asked give a Master Class on macadamias at the upcoming Regional Masters Food Expo on the 30th of March in Yamba.
Being part of the Gate to Plate movement we have in our valley which focuses on the exquisite ingredients we’re producing locally. A fundraiser for the Gallery Foundation.
If you would be interested to Go Nuts! with me: tasting, trying and experimenting with macadamias and their wide variety of uses. You can find more info and tickets here: https://gatetoplate.com.au

November, handy man at work

How we love the view over the dam...

Many times we had talked about needing liking permanent seating here,

especially with the orchard coming along right next to it.

So for our shared birthday we bought a second hand picnic table.
A bit run down, but easily weighing 400 kilograms!
Tim and Sander took it apart, in order to transport it home.

Making a slab with mostly leftover building materials,
left Sander with a crash course tiling.

We were in doubt if we would sand it all down, until Sander tried a little bit. 

This beautiful blood wood underneath was all the encouragement needed! 

A couple more weeks of sanding and varnishing and it should be ready for many more years of love.

Adventure School Camp for Tim.

Perfect weather for the pool.
David is very proud he can now not only dive up things from the bottom, but also do front flips in the water.

Smashing my gardening goals in the veggie garden.
So dense and green!

School Captain speeches for Tim, gearing up for Year 6 soon!
Although disappointed, he was pretty happy to see that his two best mates did get the job.
Not to simmer in his disappointment, he has already taking up with the school principal about all the improvements he would still like to come to fruition at school.

Soccer AGM done for another year. So relieved that many more parents put their hands up for roles for the upcoming season, only registrations for me, with help!!! It will keep it fun and doable, last year was way too stressful, running on a bare bones committee.

With Tim and Alex both doing athletics this Summer, I’ve already let myself being roped in to coaching the U6 & U7’s. A great way to finish the week.

 Tim has gone electric.

Looking after our friends on crazy hot days. Chester was still busy shedding his winter coat, when we got hit with a 39 degree day. He perked right back up after a cool down with the hose and a snack.

The same goes for King Parrots...

 Pear blossoms!

Lots of cooking fun with the kids.
We’re back to lots of baking and making.

Aikido, for the oldest three.

A cooking workshop at the local Aboriginal Centre:
lesson 1: crocodile tacos.

Lesson 2: Native herb infused pizza bases topped with warrigal greens and more freshly picked herbs. David is very much enjoying our Monday lunches... 

Updating my labels and getting ready for Xmas orders

And a new point of sales: Farmer Lous, the local green grocer. The got me a whole shelf!

I’m pretty chuffed to be right next to the Vegemite...

 Getting ready for another Full Moon get together.
Waiting for the guests to arrive, while the pizza dough rises.

Marshmallows!

The pancake after party!

 More work on the cabin.

 The bathroom is ready

 We still have to put a finish on the inner walls

And some proper furniture.
I think a long bench would be perfect here (for sewing!)

 And extra couple of layers of oil on the outside and the colour has become a lot better.

Reminder to wear shoes when walking down to the cabin: bull ant bites are horrible!
Or “bully ants” as David call them, because they slow you down...
He needed to be carried, or go back to crawling because with his foot so swollen it was too painful to walk on it.

 Helllllo mangoes!

Boys hard at work putting in more trees into the orchard. This month we’ve added: 2 avocado trees, fig tree, brazilian cherry, coffee tree, panama berry, pomegranate and many more natives for the butterflies and bees.

Sophie turning 9.
Very happy with her dress, books, fairy wings and painting set.

Sandcastle birthday cake for her mermaid party.
For Sophie, everything is still fairies, rainbows, unicorns and everything else happy, beautiful and sparkling.

Birthday kisses from Laura.