Beans

Chooks fed and watered-check

Horses fed and watered-check

Dog fed and watered-check

Washing out-check

Better have a look at the garden while I've still got a bit of light

(Nek minnut)

Anyone have any good bean recipes? Not entirely sure what sort they are but they taste alright. I remember finding some bean looking type of seeds and planting them last year sometime where they've decided to come up. Also in there are the end of our tomato glut and 2 mini capsicums (I actually grew capsicums!! yayyy).

And now a picture of Zali having a break from tearing up her moose toy, which is suprisingly indestructable.

And I forgot to take my phone with me to the ol nags so no pictures of those three! Dingbat has been locked up because my word she can stack on the kilos. She'd be the horse to rely on if ever there's a energy/fuel shortage and we had to revert back to horse and cart.

That's enough of my ramblings now anyway. I'd best get back into my studies. Only 4 assignments to get stuck into and finished before we go away. That and exams next week I need to study for....the nervous system, yay!

Good-day!

The Rains are here!

And thank god for that!

"Petrichor-the smell of fresh rain after a prolonged warm, dry period" coined, appropriately, by a couple of Australian scientists.

(The nearest webcam image overlooking the airport)

This morning, while pondering the dark, stormy sky heading our way and how it would fare leading up to my morning swim, our lovely 80-something, totally with-it neighbour across the way shared her 'I-told-you-so' moment with me. Our neighbour, directly next-door to myself, is a genius of sorts and a real genuine nice, if shy, guy. He's already completed a degree in some crazy complex science (I forgot what it is, perhaps it only sounded it at the time?) and now he's doing a double of nursing/paramedics. His aim, when we moved in he shared, was to gain a scholarship to the UK to practice o'er yonder in paramedicine.

Although now his heart has allowed other plans get in the way and, as Nancy said, 'it's always the determined, individualistic ones that fall the hardest, when they do".

The other night my sister and I visited him to meet a few kittens he had been looking after over the weekend and I asked him about his UK plans. He was brimming with excitement when he told me that even if he was accepted for this once in a lifetime opportunity, he would probably reject because things are going so well.

Well good on him I say! Its so lovely to find such simple pleasures in life (though some wouldn't count love as always a simple pleasure, it comes with its fair amount of falls and disapointments)

Symmetry

The countdown begins! And the scrounge for money too...

We bought our tickets to Europe this past week. One entire month devoted to the ol' continent I've hear about so much through my life. Lets see how it goes! As a student my finances have never really been over 3 figures (that is the hundreds in the savings account, not hundred thousands) so I admit this is gonna take some motivation to accrue any wealth in the next 2 and a bit months but we'll see how we go!

This weekend my other half and I devoted a day to beginning to fix my parents fence in preparation for two Dorpers, names already picked, Peggy and Pearl. Since I've left home (me and my animal influence) mum has actually begun to shine as the next animal caregiver. I guess with dad working full time and the last child left at home finishing her studies, mum has lost her role of cleaning up after the rest of us.

So anyway, we have so far strained 4 wires on a length of only about 60m of fence that cattle demolished in the last couple of years. Luckily my horse was happy to stay close to the house and lost his desire to jump fences, otherwise he'd easily have been lost.

The wires haven't come out very well so just imagine beautifully straight, strained wires.

It is only about 60m BUT look at the slope. Not the easiest to run wires up and down. It was actually pretty fun (as fun as fencing can be). We worked well together and saw a visible result at the end of the few hours we worked at it. Next weekend we'll get on to finishing it with the netting and probably only a top line of barb (in the UK it seems barb is generally shied away from but if you're next door neighbours consists of a thousand odd acres with a wild herd of cattle roaming about I'm not gonna risk my stock losses by only having plain wire and netting on it).

We did of course have our trusty helpful hounds with us.

I'm not your typical 20 something. My great weekend consists of spending time fencing to save for a big trip with my other half treading on dogs getting under my feet.

Oh and I forgot to mention locking Dingbat up AGAIN because her metabolism is just too slow. The poor girl, though it would help if she joined in with the games the other two play, galloping around the paddocks.

Once my battery gets close to running out I'll be off to move them back to the big paddock again because where they are now is close to running out of water. It's not been a good year for rain. It looks green but there's very little water around. With one of my other jobs (spraying weeds) our regular water holes where we fill up are dropping a little bit more every time, some smaller ones dried up completely. This is a sign that even the springs are doing it tough.

Here's hoping for some heavy downpours in the future. If/when we move out of town it might be worth considering buying a good big tank to hook up just in case we get any overwhelming showers over winter to safeguard for next summer.

I guess at least hay is fairly cheap at the moment....but for how long...

I can take on the world!

As someone with an irrational fear of needles from an early age I can now profess that I had my second Hep B dose this morning and DIDN'T CRY!

Go me! Go me! *does a little dance*

I felt so damn victorious.

I know though,
"You're studying nursing, how can you be scared of needles?"
It's alright when its going into someone else (how cruel of me, I know). For a week or two I was injecting penicillin into my boy Charlie's rump daily for an infected abscess. Not a problem in the world, until he began to expect it, then we'd get a lot of muscle tension resulting in needles bending....not fun, but we got through the whole lot in the end. And he hasn't had a major one since come to think of it. He hasn't been on that property since then too. (I wasn't proposing it was some miracle drug to prevent all future abscesses, it was plain anti-biotic.)

(such a photogenic dog-not that I'm biased at all)

In other news, life is flat out! I'm pondering how to tell an employer no thanks to weekend, cheap labour (I've never been very eloquent with my on the spot wording), while keeping on top of assignments for nursing, as well as managing my garden and tending to my dear animals. Oh, and all in conjunction with saving my precious cents for Europe!
All my research time I'm devoting to studying nursing seems to be falling away to research for Europe and the cheapest ways of getting about, eating, sleeping, etc..
Oh well, at least once I get back I'll be able to concentrate a bit better, maybe...

Hello!

 This is me in my garden holding a whopper 350g tomato!

We're still in suburbia. Still finding ways to get out and save money. Out of town rentals are few and far between and when found, quickly snapped up. But we have some leads to follow...

How can some people do so much in their lives?!
Ah well, all we can do is try!

Autumn is coming....

Or it should be...soon I hope.

I figured it's about time for an update. I've started studying nursing and my god is it full on. I cannot wait to embark on a career in it. As long as I can handle the people I'm working with I reckon I'll do okay. Prac begins in about 7 weeks and no one is sure where we're going but luckily I'm in a good position to go anywhere. No children, no tricky work commitments, fairly free. In the meantime I'll be concentrating on study 3 days, work 4 days, study 3 days, work....It's working so far! As long as it continues to do so I'll be killing it. My other half is lucky in that he's still working fulltime hours (seasonally) so we hope Europe is a viable option come June. Wish us luck!

Back to the present. 

This afternoon I finally got a moment to redo the poor chooks bedding. I bought some rice bed hulls from the produce store I work at. Some people are all for them, for their hypoallergenic qualities and others are against them in the belief that it's no better than any other bedding material. I might as well find my opinion on the debate (It doesn't sound like much to debate but some people are rather antsy when it comes to the bedding their prize horses are stabled in at night).

Happy happy chookens.

(Mildred, Reg and Annabelle)
The garden needs some TLC but we're bringing in a sumptuous tomato crop still, and it's March now. The corn is beginning to mature, it was sown late.

The beans are providing about twice a week for dinner and we've collected a few pumpkins off the vine. The capsicum are beginning to swell and the basil, thyme and mint are all proliferating through the garden (and pots). The Jerusalem artichoke are beginning to bloom and flower, such a lovely flower.

And I've always got my trusty help, Zali, by my side, under every step. I don't believe a house can be a home without a dog (or two). Town living is dreary in many ways for us mountain souls but the upside is the perfect growing weather. To every down there is an up (generally).