Building Begins!!!!

 

 Well the earthworks anyway.  There was a great rejoicing as the builder started to clear the site and peg it out with the surveyor.  So I could stand in what will be my lounge room and admire the view.







Digging the foundation for the granny flat

Most exciting was watching them excavate for the girls teenage bunker under their future bedrooms.  I could spend hours in the winter sun watching men work.

Garden therapy

After a couple of stressful weeks of birthday parties and what seems like endless rain it was time to tackle the triffid like weeds in the vege garden.  It is only just starting to feel a little cooler here in Queensland so all the rain (and some neglect) has meant that a multitude of weeds have taken over.  However, it is important not to undersetimate the cathartic nature of pulling out a truly big weed!  The added bonus of clearing away the unwanted green material was the discovery of a bounty of eggplants and our first green bean harvest for the year.

So after a cleansing morning it was time for a hearty vegetable soup made with the freshly picked beans, eggplant and basil.  Stirred with my beautiful new spatula created by the talented Rebecca of Purely Decorative.

Now I'm looking forward to filling the cleared space with my winter veges!

Waiting

While I wait for the house to begin construction I am busy trawling auction houses, antique stores and ofcourse ebay to find all the pieces that I have wanted for ages but haven't had the room for.  My most recent purchase of a silky oak Wertheim piano is making me very happy, not just because Emily has started playing again and I am tinkering away but it only cost me $50!!!  It is sad that noone else wanted this lovely old piano which is still working beautifully.  I hope we can give it a loving home where it will be played often.

Now I just need to find a kitchen dresser that doesn't need to be picked up from somewhere in regional Victoria.

First Step

Well its now March and Stefano still hasn't finished drawing the house plans but he has sketches stuck all over the windows

Can you spot the difference?

He has also built a scale model of the part of the land where the house will sit, along with the shell of the house and grannyflat plus garage.  I particularly like Isabel's contribution of the trees.

Now that Uni has started for Stef  I'm going to have to become cranky project manager to ensure the plans get done before any assignments are due! He has promised me that we will be in by Christmas, but I seem to have heard that somewhere before.

Welcome to the Country

Isabel and Barney

  The latest addition to the extra curricular activities.
How can you say no to a girl on a horse?

Gess & Pokey

Keeping it Simple

Girls rummaging for strawberries in the garden

Well, school holidays are almost over and our goal to simplify our lives is about to be tested for the first time.
Thnakfully there is a school bus route to take the oldest 2 to high school and Isabel's new primary school is quite close but the requests for after school and weekend activites continues to grow.

I've never been the type of parent who seeks to organise activities for my children every day as I believe in the need for down time and creative time to amuse yourself and just enjoy the outdoors. However days just seem to fill up with sport, music lessons, self defence etc.

So now that we live further away I am determined that we are not going to spend every afternoon driving to one activity after another.  To this end I asked the children and Stefano to write out their wish lists of actvities and to rank them in order of preference.  Isabel listed only 3 but Emily has 6 and Gessica 10!!  The art of fitting in as many of these as our budget and sanity allows (and without the need for driving every day) around Stefano returning to University 1 day per week and playing oldies soccer should qualify me for any logistics job in a large company or defence force.

Clearly the art of living simply is also the art of efficient organising.  Improving this skill should come in very handy when I have to start my daily chores on the land. See very funny article on the last page of Organic Gardener Jan/Feb 2012.

Transition Home

Well we survived the first move. After weeks of very mild weather, overcast and 25 degrees, moving day was ofcourse sunny, humid and very hot. So now we are settling in to our transition home while we wait to start building in the new year.  For a rental house it is pretty good

Stefano's "movement in steel" has pride of place

as the owners bought it to live in but they can't sell their own home so have had to rent it out while they wait for the market to improve.  We are on 6 acres here and luckily we are being eased into country life as we only need to maintain around the house and they will mow the rest of it - must take him all day. However, the kids are loving the extra space.

 While Stefano and I are being kept busy regenerating the very overgrown vegetable patch.

Division of labour means that Stefano gets to dig up the weeds and I get to spread the cow poo and plant the green manure seeds.

 Merry Christmas to all our friends and family.  Here is a photo of our Christmas tree (fake European pine tree) with the fabulous Australian eucalypts in the background.  Please send us a photo of your families at Chritsmas time so we can enjoy all the different traditions and climates.

MERRY CHRISTMAS   -    GOD JUL   -   BUON NATALE