Jobs and politics

Just a quick note to get some things off my chest.

There is major upheaval of the mining sector happening in my hometown region right now. My own father was put off from his job as a miner Friday just gone. It is going to have a devastating impact on the town. So many of the business in the area depend on the mines for income.

Now capitalism is taught on the basis that economic wealth must prosper and the fact of bubbles in an ever-expanding economic climate happen, and can burst, seem largely ignored or blamed on someone other than the very system itself.

To make things clear, I am not a revolutionary committing myself to the cause of communism here. I am simply trying to illustrate that the mining boom of the early 21st century is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is a train coming straight on, in the form of both the prevailing social climate behind the movement for a cleaner, more sustainable future for our earth.

This mine closure, or waylaying of process to proceed mining in the area, is inevitable. Whether or not it is sudden or a slow wind down, does it especially matter? People are still going to be in debt and perhaps the shock of the sudden-ness of it all may indeed push those who have grown used to not needing to pursue a life outside of the realm of what can at times seem like a closed community out into bigger and better ventures. There are some amazing people in the area. The nostalgia for the town's past may still stick but the reality of the situation is that the continual mining is both economically non-viable for the businesses and not sustainable for the environment.

Time would be better spent on focussing on the future, both long and short.

Of course our government is not helping the problem by trying to privatise every aspect of the government, which begs the question-where does my hard earned tax money go? May I have a say in where it goes? I would certainly not choose the answer 'to line politicians pockets' as it seems it does mostly. Educate Australia's people to buy Australian made, and grown. We are one of the luckiest countries in the world with a wealth of resources at our fingertips and instead of using them to build our industry, we sell it off for a short term profit which makes the current government look good. We're not all mindless. Why can the government not work together for a future for Australia instead of constantly harassing each other like a group of school children about who did what last. We all need to work towards a sustainable future. Shift the conversation from 'us' and 'them' to concentrating on the ideas and not vilifying each other. We're sick of it.

Long awaited return + snow!

We have returned to our little cottage in the forest into the tumult of mid-winter, from the warmth of mid-summer in Europe. Within the first fortnight we awoke to this, our first proper snowfall, relieving me of work for the day (despite it being but a light scattering compared to some European or American folk). The view of our front yard from the lounge room.

A reminder of why I love where we now live.

My car with a good 5-6 inches of the frozen H2O. Such brilliance. As an Australian I'm happy with 2-4 good snowfalls in the region every year, it retains its sense of novelty. Some old, grumpy types will always complains just for something to do I believe but a good snowfall is always enough to lift the spirits, only when you have the option of retreating inside in front of the fire after some frolicking.

Two of the three in the herd, those retaining their 'winter stores' shall I say and have no need for a rug. My father in laws property, quite a serene, magical spot.

Yes, I may have gone a tad snow mad with the photos. #noregrets

Changing winds

We have moved, mostly.

Who knows how so much dust collects within the space of a year. Tomorrow I begin prac nursing at the local small hospital near my parents place. I'm a bit apprehensive. 

How will I go?

Will I like it?

Will they like me?

Will I be any good as a nurse?

Things are getting real.

Besides that, we moved this weekend

Yay.

Stress stress stress

I've been reflecting an awful lot more on so many things recently. Such as;

-Isn't it peculiar how when you're 18 you have an image of how things are for all 23 year olds but now I'm sitting here thinking 'Shit, I'll be 23 this year, 'da hell am I doing with my life? Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? As long as I'm helping others right?'

-If you hear that an ex who went behind your back with good intentions to introduce you to your penpal of 12 years, 5 years ago, just posted on social media about how he got a post card from 'his' penpal. Should I be angry? How do I bring this up? I'm conflicted because I love this girl to bits but eugh. I don't know....

....we are heading off to Europe in only a month though so that will give me a good chance of catching up and having a good old chat.

-Other half+I are marvellous, thanks for asking.

-Speaking of which I can totally see us two and another friend I met in the most unseemly of places and his other half being one of those groups where they get on really well and go camping on holidays together and stay up late having great long conversations about 'imagine if we had a commune' or beekeeping

-Moving to the mountains where it actually rains and isn't stinking hot when it's meant to be Autumn

-I'm running out of those ideas I had backing up in my mind when I was driving through the misty rain with the wet dog sitting in the back on her towel, well away from my nice clean, pet-hair-free prac uniform for tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

(P.S: Apologies for the abrupt ending. I was never very good at goodbyes...have you spoken to me on the phone?)

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!