Cattle loving

This is one of my favourite photos.

It's of my youngest perched up on the catwalk at the saleyards.

They often tag along in their holidays.

My kids love being around cattle.

It may have more to do with being with their father and his love for them

When Mr MDK sent it to me I asked him about the OH and S issues. Of course.

My oldest son took these photos of our cattle the other day.

They are all looking good.

I saw this one as the wallpaper on his Ipad.

Perhaps bullie boy should have a modesty patch!

As I have always said,

my father was an agent,

I've married an agent and

I've probably given birth to agents!!

A wee bit of baking

Our children's school had its annual Spring Fair on Sunday.

It is a great carnival atmosphere that draws most townspeople to the beautiful school grounds.

Some come just for the cakes.

Some come for the plants.

Before I had children I set up a strawberry patch in our old house with plants from the plant stall.

I bake for the cake stall.

Cos baking is my thing.

This year one of my bagging and tagging helpers was at a sleepover at the school watching over the tents with his dad and friends so my contribution wasn't as big as usual, but I was able to make:

some Fudge

Here it is in my big Scanpan pots, simmering away (it takes about 5-6 hours to cook).



There were about 50 of these.

Bagged up in these great little paper stars from Alfresco Emporium.



some Coconut Ice

this lot was still warm when I delivered it to the stall,

these slabs were just divided up and bagged and tagged.

some more Coconut Ice in little love heart cases

and some big jars of Lemon Butter.

The ladies at the stall display all these little bits into lovely baskets for presentation.

4 Canadian Lumberjack cakes

4 Pineapple Coconut Syrup cakes

and 6 Chocolate Fudge cakes.

When I got there I manned the train and motorbike rides tent.

We were kept dead-set flat out busy selling tickets.

Putting on the helmet for his Harley ride.

As the train went around the fireies gave them a squirt



And the Bikies got one too.

It's a great day of *FUN*draising and makes a nice little bundle of money for our children.

Look at my naughty cat.

He likes to finish the dreggs in the bottom of a glass

His head is in a long way and the tongue is just getting to the milk.

The glass was starting to fog up.

then I caught him dipping his paw in and licking it off.

Over and over again

clever little fellow

He should stay pretty healthy.

 We have the A2 milk around here.

 Its meant to be really good for preventing allergies and heart disease.

He's sitting on the couch right next to me yawning at the moment, every now and then he just stares at me. Time to go to bed!

New flowers in the garden,

this Wisteria is on the car port and the fragrance is divine as I get in and out of the car.

Its warmed up here and I've been mowing the paddock madly.

Last night I got my first brown snake of the season.

Only a fairly small one.

Well I must be honest- the lawnmower got it!

After all I did have the deck right down.

I rode today with tall boots, long jeans, a long sleeved shirt and a shovel!

Merry, merry king of the bush is he.

This beautiful Kookaburra and its mother/mate/sister came and played outside my window at work during lunch the other day.

They had both been on the ground picking at things (probably worms?) and then this one flew up into the tree about 6 feet away from my window above the sink.

I often hear them laughing in the playground.

It's usually after all the students have gone back into class after lunch

I scrambled for my little, little camera in my bag.

I have lightened them up, it is the first time I have ever manipulated a photo- I prefer SOTC.

I squealed (quietly!) for everyone to come and have a look.

Some students were watching us watching the kookaburras out the window and then they started watching them too.

Everyone was smiling and happy that they were gracing us with their presence.

He just sat and watched the kids too. The other one flew back up into a tree across the playground.

I just looove Kookaburras.

They can kill and eat snakes.

The more the merrier I say!!

Bore Blowing

Last night Mr MDK and Itty Bitty MDK met up with our friend the water advisor and a neighbour to assist to blow out a bore. 

The windmill had been pumping out silt and rubbish.

Apparently there might have been dead frogs, leaves etc etc down the bore.

Which wear out the windmill buckets.

~It just wasn't working as well as it should.

Mr MDK hired a 300 CFM compressor from Coates Hire in town.

They attached it to a long bit of poly pipe and started to blow. 

Itty Bitty took these photos.

It was getting on in  the day so they may be a bit dark.

Most of these sorts of little jobs happen after our day jobs around here.

Blowing

Blowing

Blowing

Blown

From a different angle.

Still murky.

They kept blowing it until the water ran fairly clear.

You can see the storm rolling in that caused our power to go out for an hour or so.

Look at how nice and green the grass is all around.

Oh yes I see you in the bottom left corner enjoying a cool beverage!

I can see the 8 year old may have been in charge, keeping an eye on everything!

What a big, busy weekend

I knew it was going to be big.

It included Father's day,

packing for a week long excursion,

visiting the local markets and heaps of gardening.

I hurriedly organised the father's day present for the hubby. He really missed out for his birthday back in July. He was meant to organise a generator for himself. Hmmmn I don't know why he didn't lol. I had been talking about getting him an Ipad2 for a while. He asked on Tuesday if he could load a flying App onto mine and give it a try. We did that, he gave it a go, and he was immediately sold on the idea.

So first thing Thursday morning (about 9.30)I rang Apple to see how fast they could have it sent.

I spoke with a very nice man in, I think he said, Austin, Texas. He told me that because it was first thing in the morning and I wasn't really chasing the engraving, we had a pretty good chance of getting it delivered before Friday afternoon. I asked him to put a special note for a super fast delivery as it was a present to give over the weekend!!!!

And it was fast, actually it was here before Friday lunchtime. UNBELIEVABLE.

THANK YOU APPLE

And because he was flying on Saturday to a bull sale in Roma, Qld, I made a phone call to the eldest son at boarding school and they all concurred that he should have it on Friday night. So he unwrapped it, I put the Sim card in, which I had been able to get from  get this, the POST OFFICE!! (I had made phone calls and plans to have one sent from hundreds of kilometres away).
We synced it.

One happy daddy!!

While he was at the Bull sale, Itty Bitty MDK and I did some serious weeding, rose planting and mulching and then I tried to knock myself out by walking into the Lindsell hoist on the back of the ute.

I have a very big bruise on my noggin, lucky I didn't knock my teeth out.

They look like sticks poking up, I hope they bush up well!!

I have decided that I am sick of mulching such a large area every year.

(Last year the pony ate the lucerne hay I had mulched with!)

So I am looking to underplant the rose garden with ground covers, society garlic, erigeron, butterfly bush and whatever else (that a snake can't hide in) will fill it up!

This is what I picked up at the markets on Sunday.

The doggies have been hanging out with me in the garden. One in particular, Jaller, is always loyally by my side.

I picked up about 30 new plants. Most are for other garden beds.

This afternoon I have dug up and replanted some clumps of liriope around the edges of the rose garden, there were already some, but a few had died, and I took out some barely there old railway sleepers( just quietly I loathe them, they encourage termites and I always reckon that snakes can get in them in a crevace or a hollow bit under them. Plus over time they just look so ratty and nasty)

Last thing Sunday after a long, long lunch, we did this.

Thank goodness.

 I was starting to be a bit worried that my new Peach, Apricot and Nectarine trees were not going to get in the ground.

I hope they will be very happy here in the garden.

We bulldozed the 40+ tree orchard last year.

It was quite separate and out in the paddock, most of the trees had really suffered in the long drought despite watering and many had borers.

 I was always too terrified of the snakes to regularly go and look for fruit and no one really kept the grass mown down, due to the pony( now gone ) needing a feed.

We decided that it would be better to have them in closer in the back part of the garden where we can tend to them better. There are still a couple of quinces and fig trees out there, we shall see how they go.

I had forgotten how this gardening caper is a time consuming hobby, so the inside of the house looks like a bombs gone off and needs some hard core work!

And my best organiser/declutterer is on an excursion ALL week. boo hoo!

Looks like hard work

I had a big box arrive from Treloars roses.

I asked Mr MDK to bring it home from work, it had been delivered to his office.
We don't get courier service to our house.

He laughed at me on the phone,

then said there was no way it would fit in the Landcruiser.
To town I went in the ute.

It was a big box! about 9 foot long!

 I also got a couple of bales of lucerne hay, one for the chooks and one for the poddy calf.

It was really heavy up one end.

I think it might have been tipped up the wrong way during transit.

The very top of the tallest tree was a bit bigger than the bamboo in the box and got a little bit damaged.

Inside were 3 fruit trees and many many roses.

 I have them sitting in my copper boilers that I put my wood in, next to the fire, during winter.
I think it might be too much hard work. I hope they don't die before I get to plant them!

They come with nice little pictured tags as well as the ones attached to their stems, plus an instruction booklet on what to do with the bare rooted plants when you get them.

I didn't read it.

Maybe I should, it's sitting right next to me.

I don't think they'd have changed since last year.

On another note, Mr MDK bought a new gadget.

We needed a petrol hedge trimmer.

 We have a lot of Murraya hedging around our house.

It jammed before he finished.

I asked if he'd read his instructions, he hadn't either, hahahaha.

Talk about peas in a pod!

When all else fails, read the instructions!

My wisteria is about to flower, or leaf up, I think these will be flowers.

The Engish Oak only lost its last leaves 4 weeks ago! The new leaves are now bursting out.

The Eureka lemon has not been put off by those lunatic cockatoos attacking it.

I'm glad it has the spirit of a survivor.