My trip to work

I have about a 45 minute drive to work and there are dirt roads and gravel I travel on and there are many sites and smells a long the way. You think 45 minutes is a long time but when you enjoy your trip it doesn't really matter, I have lost count of the many times I have seen foxes hiding in the bushes as I drive past or foxes taking their tasty morsel of road kill or little rabbits scurrying across the road ahead or right in front of me and then there are the kangaroos and wallabies that I see in the paddocks or on the side of the road just standing there or the ones that jump right out in front of you and you curse them as they bounce off into the bush. I have to mention the Goannas that lazily cross the road or run high on their legs across the road and run up the nearest tree and the many gecko lizards sunning on the road or the red belly and brown snakes that I try to swerve. Then there is the occasional turtle with its neck out stretch crossing the road, sometimes I have stopped and carried it across because the thought of a car coming before it has safely reached the other side is too much for me. I have seen other wildlife cross my path such as Echidnas, wombats and the number of eagles I have come across eating road kill is amazing, one I thought was injured so I stopped and he jumped to the side of the road and crawled under the fence and eventually flew off ever so slowly.

Now for the smells, I now know when I am travelling if I see old road kill on the road to quickly wind my window up or the smell lingers for a while in the car. I love the smell as I cross a creek or the smell of freshly ploughed fields or freshly cut lucerne and the smell after it has just rained.
I love looking at the mountains ,the hills and the paddocks of sheep and cattle as I drive along so my trip to work is so amazing and refreshing and a lovely way to start the day

You just wait till I till you about my trip home from work now that is another story :)

These are just some of the sights I see on the way to work :)

A new door!

Before demolition

New door opening

check out the toilet on the left LOL

Our renovations are still moving along, little by little. Winter is coming and we need to get the things we started finished so we can keep the warmth in and the cold out. On the weekend Dave and a neighbour pulled down one side of the chimney and one fireplace. It was originally the place where they had their combustion stove and then later made it into an opening for their new electrical stove. Well we have moved the stove over the other side of the room where we made a new kitchen and now we have pulled this out and made a new door way leading out to the bathroom and laundry and to the back door. The other fire place is still there and we are restoring it and making a surround for it with a mantle.

The toilet will be moved to the bathroom because it originally was in a separate room and Dave will build bottom and over head cupboards and a bench in the laundry. We have a busy few days getting this work finished because my cousin Stephen and Jess are coming up over the weekend for a few days and I'm sure they will not like the bathroom conditions as they are at present LOL

Help a Stranger

I had an older gentleman in my shop this morning asking if I had any work, he had a backpack on his back and he was walking the area looking for any sort of work. He said he was on the pension and finding it a bit hard,to make ends meet and that he only wanted a few hours a week so that it wouldn't affect his pension. I told him that I had nothing at the moment for him to do and I told him of other places that had or might be wanting someone for work. We chatted for a while and I told him to call in again if was passing.

After he left and I spoke to Dave and I could see that there were ways I could have helped him more. I could have just given him some money or I could have let him polish the furniture or tidied up out the back, it might have been a one off but it might have helped him. Then I suppose I could have offered to bring in for him a box of fresh produce that is growing abundantly in my veggie patch or even some of my beef that is in the freezer, after all how long is it going to take us to eat 200kgs of beef.

Times are going to be tough for people this year and I think we should be prepared for someone who might pop in asking for help. It could be someone you know or a strange on the street. I know it has now made me more aware and hopefully I will be more giving next time.

Oh Baby!

We had great news last night that our son and daughter-in-law will be having another baby and we couldn't be more delighted. The expected due date will be around the 2nd of November and their number one daughter who is four is so excited. Our daughter-in-law has four other siblings and two of her brothers and their partners are expecting as well which will make an exciting year of babies.

The Church & Lunch

Things are sort of quiet at this present moment which is a nice change but I think we are just catching our breath because we are gearing ourselves up for the start of the building of our new church. We had a meeting on the weekend to get preparations for the DA (Development Application) for council which we are excited about. My cousin is the Architect and Dave will be the project manager. We are on a tight budget so we will be putting our heads together to keep the balance of building something spectacular yet very cost effective. I would like to post pictures later on of its building and progress. The church will be built on 10 acres of bushland and we are hoping to incorporate the building with the natural surrounds.





I had these for lunch today and boy they were yummy! I bought them from Aldis and I had them with my homegrown tomatoes. They contain 36% of wholegrains as well as Spirulina and garlic mind you they have a green tinge to them.

YUMMY! and GOOD FOR YOU!

The Cool room

The cool room walls

The motor

These pieces stacked up here is our cool room it is about 2mx2.2m. I did some work for a friend at a health resort last year and my payment which I was excited about was this cool room. It needs to be scrubbed and cleaned up but I think it will be great and we are even thinking of installing it in the white container it is leaning up against. The cool room will come in handy when we process our own meat and at harvest time. I will keep an update progress of it has we clean and install it. We also have to get the motor checked out as it hasn't been used for a long time.

Winter is coming

It has been great reading that the other bloggers from the other side of the world who have been experiencing snow and rain are now getting ready for spring. The excitement of ordering seeds and preparing the garden as been like an epidemic but for me on the other side of their world I have been feeling the chill of the cooler weather moving in and the thought of digging out my winter PJ's (pyjamas) and my scarfs and long johns. Last night I had to put the electric blanket on to take the chill out of the cotton sheets and I even had a hot milk chocolate as well. I think it was about 4 degrees this morning and the car was slightly frosted. I suppose it won't be long and I will be curled up on the lounge in front of the fire and making nice belly warming stews and eating my peach and blackberry pies :)

Note: I have now fixed up the link to my new blog so I apologise to those who tried to check it out and failed.

Guess What!

I decided to make another blog, a little different to White Lilly. I'm not a very good writer but I feel a little bit more comfortable since starting up White Lilly and have decided to express myself a little bit more on this blog "A Joyfull Heart" I feel that I/We need to take a step back from our busy life and see the beauty and joy that is around us, we need to breathe in and take hold what is joyful to us and share it with others and store it in our hearts. So please go and check it out and leave a comment if you like to let me know what you think.

Update on Veggie Patch & Road Works

The round about is now finished and the road is opened and the traffic has been flowing once again. Unfortunately the footpath on my side is a bit more difficult than the other three sides and will take a little longer. They have pulled up one side and are paving and concreting it as we speak and once that is completed they will pull up the other side.

On Sunday I eventually spent a bit of time in my veggie patch and harvested the potatoes. I wasn't sure if you waited till the potato plant started to die before you pulled it up because mine were still lush and green. Anyway we pulled them up and were pleasantly surprised.

We had some for dinner last night with butter and herbs, delicious.

I pulled up the remaining corn as well, I still have another crop of corn which we be at least another two weeks. I blanched and froze three bags full of them. I am so please with my Roma tomatoes, I must have got at least 25kg and the plants still have heaps on them.

The golden nugget pumpkin is good value as well because each plant had at least five nuggets on them. I harvested five plants yesterday and I have at least another eight still growing. I also have a Queensland Blue growing wildly in the patch. My beans made it through the heat and have started producing again. Overall I am really happy with this seasons patch, my patch has gotten better and better each year and I feel next season will need a bit more effort to make it better than this one. I also think I will not by store seedlings and only use organic and heirloom seeds. I think I'm sort of ready to step out of the square and start to be more adventurist