October already!

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We’ve had a bit of rain this week!
We awoke in the early hours of Saturday morning to the very distant rolls of thunder, and after dozing for a while, the lightning and rain followed, and a lovely unexpected summer storm passed through.

On waking on Saturday morning, you could almost feel the Earth sucking it in like a sponge, and we’re pretty sure that if you stopped and watched for long enough, you could actually slowly see the grass greening up a bit from the dull brown its been for weeks now… Just glorious!

We’ve managed to get all except for two trees out of the orchard into pots, and a lot of them are springing back into life with the regular care they are getting.
At the present time, it’s looking like we’ve only lost about 3 all up – but we might still get a surprise and get new growth on those too…
Time will tell.

One of our potted lillypillies got a major ass-kicking from a super frost during winter, and whilst it has regrown from the base, we feared that we were going to have to prune back all of the original tree, but its now looking like it too might still have a bit of a surprise in store for us yet! YAAY!!

The actual cladding is now complete – and we just need to do some touch-up framing, and finish off the painting – and we’re really pleased with how it has turned out.

We went for a mini-road-trip last Sunday to Cairns, and did some driving around old haunts we used to often trip through on our holidays, before we actually moved up to the area 14+ years ago – and its was a great way to spend the day – just driving around, chatting and looking at puppies & dogs, beaches, and highways – and reminiscing about those times. 🙂

You may recall we installed a huge industrial fan on the wall last summer, which was sadly a dismal failure, as not only did it make an absolute racket when it was on at night, but it made our whole lil home shake right along with it, and we ended up returning it, and making it through the summer with just the small pedestal fans.

But on the weekend, we managed to score the big sister version of that fan – this one being a pedestal, and a much quieter version – and it was on sale for over $100 cheaper than usual!
As we can’t yet afford the air-conditioner we’re going to so desperately need once the heat kicks in properly, so fans are the way to go for the time being.

We gave it a test run the night we bought it home, and its great – and that was on less than half speed.

There was a down side though, which it took us a couple of days to work out…

That night, Dusk (cat) spent the night wandering throughout the house and loudly meowing every ten to fifteen minutes.
Usually, he will squish into some small space between us on the bed, and sleep like the dead for the entire night – but not that night.
And not the next.
The second night was a repeat of the first throughout-the-night meowing.
Tiresome to say the least…

The morning after the second night – it occurred to us that he might possibly be cold or freaked out by the huge fan, and thus was staying off the bed, and was verbalizing his annoyance re same, and the fact that as he wasn’t with his humans, he was also ‘lonely’.
(Gawd forbid he should sleep with the other cat or one of the dogs!!)

So night three, we decided to test-drive the theory – and went back to the small fan, and he came back to bed and slept through the night as is his usual.

Ok, so this isn’t going to work in the long-term…
It was time to ‘desensitise’ him to the new fan!

So the last couple of days the big fan has been running throughout the day and night – so that he can see and hear that its no different to the other one, other than the size and colour.

And that has worked – unless of course one of us goes to the toilet through the night – as he then decides he needs to go for a walk too!
If we then don’t remember to pick him up and bring him back to bed with us, he again starts wandering around the house yowling.
Good grief – talk about Mr Needy!!

In other news —— our tiniest hen and the last of the original Strigidae chooks Jac, has been rather clucky for the last few weeks, so a couple of weeks ago we decided to mark the eggs for the next few days, and leave those with her.

That went fine for about 2 weeks, and whilst she was a tad cranky when we lifted her each day to get the eggs from the other girls out from under her, at the two week mark she cracked the shits royally, and drew blood.
It was getting serious!
(We hadn’t candled any of the eggs)

Friday was the three week mark, and when feeding was going on the next morning, there were two little chicks to be easily seen.
One yellow and one black.
Gorgeous little balls of soft downy fluff.

We’ll probably be moving Mumma & Babies out of “Cluck Manor” and into the smaller “Chick Inn” soon so that none of the other residents of Cluck Manor decide to pick on the littles, but we’ll see how it goes…

The remaining eggs have gone to our good friend M&Bs place and have been popped under one of their clucky chooks, to see if any more come to fruition.
Hopefully they’ll get some nice little fluff-balls out of it! :))

The weather is looking like storms might be building again, so hopefully we’ll get lucky and get some more rain out it, and if we do – in no time flat, we’ll be whinging about having to mow so often all over again! lol

When you’ve got lemons…

Make lemon cordial!!

Cladding all done – just needs painting and framing touch-ups now!

The makings of a new patchwork bedspread for Summer.

Kitchen Helper 1

Kitchen Helper 2

New Growth on a previous orchard tree.

New Growth on a previous orchard tree.

New Growth on a previous orchard tree.

New Growth on a previous orchard tree.

New Growth on a previous orchard tree.

New Growth on a previous orchard tree.

Reshooting on the lillypilly.

New Growth on the lillypilly.

Thats one big-ass industrial fan!

The two “Needies!”

Mr Needy

Ms Needy

Jac & her two balls of fluff.

Jac & her two balls of fluff.