Custom Made

In our business we make furniture for the shop and we also custom make furniture for our customers. There isn't much we cannot do, my hubby is so skilled. The unit above is for a customer who has a B & B (bed and breakfast) and she wanted a cupboard to hide a little bar fridge and somewhere for people to store their suitcases and this is the design she wanted.





The customer had some old timber stored under their house, a mixture of hardwoods, cedar and oregon. It was old, odd and rustic, Dave cut the timber to lengths and sanded it back and made this fantastic piece of furniture for them. The door and sides are inserted with mesh and the whole unit was painted with tongue oil. The customers were absolutely thrilled!

Its the weekend again and I hope to do a lot in the garden and around the yard. The chicken pen will be worked on, the little chicks are growing fast. I was thinking of planting potatoes in a couple of the drums, I have been waiting for for the farmer down the road to come and plough the field for me with his tractor but he has been busy with his lambs. My water chestnuts, are overdue to be planted as well as the ginger and garlic . I should have photos of these jobs and also of my sons wedding which we thoroughly enjoyed yesterday as well :)

What Tree!

We had a neighbour come over yesterday morning to help us load 3 large wardrobes onto our truck and when he was coming through the gate he said "Did that come down in the wind last night?" I said "what came down in the wind last night" he said "the tree" I said "what tree". I walk around to the side of the house and there was this huge tree lying down on the ground.


I didn't hear a thing, Dave said he heard something last night and went out the front to investigate but could not see anything. We were very fortunate as it has just missed the house, Jessica's bed is on the blank wall you can see looking in this picture and my room is on the left of that.


Parts of the tree had been cut some years ago and had regrown and water had sipped through it and it has rotted and with the strong winds has broken off. When it has fallen it has been wedge between the other tree beside it, preventing it from falling onto the house.

This is where it was rotting and eventually broke away, splitting off the main tree trunk.
It was quiet a tall tree, this is the wife of the husband who is cutting down the tree. They have a family business and work together. If you look hard you might see him in the tree, he was tying off the rope, cutting branches and getting it ready to bring down.Because it was a large tree and one part broke off it posed a threat to the house and had to come down.
Here the tree lopper is chain saw cutting the base , the wife is in the truck getting ready to pull the rope to bring it down




This is the last shot I took before running back while the tree came crashing down, its a bad shot but somebody had to do it!



This is the tree on the ground, it doesn't look much but it came down with a thud! When can use some for fence post and for firewood for next winter.

And this is the remaining stump, it was a lovely tree but being too close to the house was just in the wrong place. Just behind the stump and up the fence line is where I planted my Hazelnut trees and luckily not one of them was touched.

Oh! my neighbor helped us load the wardrobe onto the truck, they were a customer order for the shop. They were so solid and looked fantastic. I helped Dave sand them back to stain and lacquer them and in the process filed my fingernails on one hand on a slope, it wouldn't have mattered much but I was trying to have them look nice for my sons' wedding on Friday :(

Bath Time

Bath time is always fun time for my three little furry friends. The scrub in the tub is not real fun and they are not really keen having their faces washed and water in their eyes but they absolutely love! love! love! the rub down. Abbey above looks so angelic after her bath as if all her cheeky mischievous acts have been washed away along with the dirt, burrs and manure.
Abbey absolutely loves her rub down she will roll, kick her legs in the air, flip over, belly crawl on the floor and even when you throw down the towel as if her bath time is finish she will throw herself on the towel and keep rolling on it, funny girl!
This is Jatzie, she is more serious about bath time and has the fine hair of a Maltese terrier and doesn't like it been pulled or treated roughly. Bath time for her is usually a lot more gentle as not to matte her hair but don't get me wrong when the scrub is over she will run with delight and roll on that towel just like Abbey.

And last but not least this is Sarabie, she is not real impressed with bath time but tolerates it. Sarabie is the more of a clingy dog than the others. Look at those brown brown eyes, she just wants to be wrapped in a towel and cuddled. I think I fuss over Sarabie more than the others (can you tell!)


She will sit patiently and put up with the scrubbing and brushing but loves a cuddly and a snuggle afterwards on the lounge
Yeah I think she is a sweetie! I'm hopeless! I even let her sleep at end of my bed.

Random Things

This is Wally she is a female, we got her through one of Jess's friend who found her in a rabbit burrow just after a huge bush fire ravaged the place. Wally as a kitten use to be into anything and everything, if something was going on Wally would be in the middle of it.We used to say "where's Wally" all she needed was a red and white striped hat. She is a lovely cat and is affectionate but does not like being picked up and carried. She like to sit up on our wagon wheel seat and watch what is going on.
This is our wagon wheel seat that we have carried from property to property. At the moment it faces out across the paddocks and dam and we like to sit there and take in the views and breeze.
Those plastic drums in the corner of the picture are what I use to bring water home from town every week We use the water for the washing machine and bathroom. We have other tanks there that are pretty old for the kitchen and bathroom as well.
This was my garden patch before getting in there and attacking it with my fork and gloves.The weeds were terrible but after a lot of hard work and back strain it is looking pretty good. I 'll have photos of its progress in a few days. Over the next few months we will be pulling down that gum tree that over hangs the shed and garden and we will be moving that fence to open up the garden and start producing more veggies.
This is my glass house, I know it doesn't look much but once it is up it will look amazing. We bought it off ebay for $9.99, it took us 2days to pull it down off the owners house , he was using it for growing orchids. Dave is a builder and all he has to do is build the foundations and one side wall, the side that was attached to the house. The metal frame thing you can see in the back ground is my shade house, also under construction.

We have babies !!

My Hens have been sharing the load and we have successfully given birth to four little chicks. I can't tell who is who but the hens are now called Ebony, Sooty and Inky thankfully named by Lisa from Laughing Orca. We have started fencing a bigger yard for them and we will be starting on the new chook pen soon. I called into my local produce store and was asking about his day old chicks he normally gets in he said they have gone up in price to $11 retail each. I was amazed but I suppose with the rise in fuel and grain they are one of many things going up in price and I think there could also be a demand for the chicks as people are tending to lean to the self sufficient live style.

This is Belvedere ( also name by Lisa, thank you Lisa) our handsome rooster, he is in the shadow there because he doesn't want to take all the glory for the four little weeds that are now running around the pen.

I wouldn't mind breeding turkeys if anyone has turkeys could they tell me if they are just as easy as chickens to look after and breed from.

"Sarabie"

This is Sarabie, she loves to come in the veggie patch with me. I dig and pull out weeds and she looks for mice and anything else that might be running on the ground, most of the time she gets dirty.
These are my drums that were covered in weeds, Sarabie loves jumping up there and scratch in the dirt
She usually jumps up runs around then jumps off and jumps onto the next one hoping to find that mouse that could be still around.
She sometimes sits there and looks to see if anything is moving so as to get ready to pounce. I don' let her in here when the weather gets warmer or during the heat of the day just incase there might be a snake or shingle back.
A girl gets really hungry doing all that work in garden she has to come in for a snack. Abbey is not impressed with how dirty Sarabie is, Abbey is more of a lounge lizard.

Weeds & Weeds.. I'm going out of my mind!!!!!!!

My poor veggie patch has been sadly neglected and it has only been through me getting up at the crack of dawn to try and get these weeds under control that my patch might be alright for this season and feed us. These plants of broccoli, brussel sprouts and cauliflower I planted at the beginning of winter and I don't know how but they survived and are still growing I haven't been gardening for long and I don't know very much about plants or gardening I have always had a brown thumb not a green one and I always seen to kill the most hardy of plants.
Under the cardboard are the weeds that have been pulled out, I'm hoping by the time I get back to the weeds they could be dead and decomposing into the soil (I sound so intelligent when it comes to the garden) There is also a bucket of liquid fertilizer (Horse manure) my seedling tray and also an empty box of cat biscuits (I have no idea why, probably for recycling)

Here are the turnips I also planted last season more weeds going wild in the back ground, my tank drums also full of weeds
Here is my no dig garden with rhubarb in the corner. I'm hoping this will be the answer to my prayers in regards to the weed problem, I can get heaps of manure and newspaper for nothing and lucerne is fairly cheap at the moment. I can just keep adding to it and pull out any stubborn weed.
This is my last big patch of weeds I'm hoping to pull out tomorrow morning. I did have big plans for my veggie patch but due to Dave's accident they were put on hold because I have had to work at our business 7 days a week but I'm getting there. If anybody has any advice or suggestions about keeping a veggie patch healthy and weed free I would gladly accept them.