Archive for the ‘family’ Category
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It’s My Birthday!!
Yesterday I turned 40!! Woot!
Well 40 is a big one..there was a need to celebrate it and enjoy the day. Unfortunately my husband is currently working the night shift so had to sleep the day and was then gone the evening so we weren’t able to share a bottle of champagne. That will have to wait until next week when we might have a dinner party…possibly with a 70′s theme, coz I kinda love retro
Anyway what my DH did give me was a fabulous gift of a brand new Canon digital SLR camera! Talk about stoked and I can’t wait to show you all the fabulous pics I have been taking and just wait till I get my macro lens. I am very keen to get some fantastic shots around the garden of the flowers, leaves, seed pods, etc. I have taken quite a few shots already and will post some up soon. He also gave me this too cute for words birthday card which I just adore and will put in a frame for on my dressing table.
I was very spoilt on my special day and I do feel very lucky and thankful
Among my gifts was a beautiful red Le crueset casserole dish and a Pandora bracelet with three charms from my parents! I also received a stunning red glass lamp in the shape of a Lotus flower from my sister and brother in law. I will have to take a pic of this one to show you, it is absolutely amazing! I also received little leaf earrings from my children (so cute) and a very funky Crumpler camera bag from my bro in law! My brother and his partner gave me a brand new fishing rod and a very nice Daiwa reel so cant wait to go fishing, he he We had a luscious family dinner last night of home baked lasagna made lovingly by my mother AND these very cool and delectable canapes, devoured with champagne.
To top the whole dinner off we had a very, very yummy and oh so rich chocolate tiramisu birthday cake.
What a way to celebrate 40 years!
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Welcoming Kangaroo Grass
I have not written a post for so long….argh! I am sorry, but fishing has been a high priority for me lately and I have been trying to ‘wet a line’ when ever I can! It seems like the old bug has bitten me again…fiercely!
Along with my brother we have caught lots of lovely fish lately…and just tonight had a great time catching some Slimy Mackerel.
They are lots of fun and very easy to catch. A great little fish to catch if you are looking at introducing your kids to fishing. Actually we use them for bait when trying to catch bigger fish, but some people tell me that they are yummy smoked or cooked on the bbq.
Anyway….what I was getting to with this whole post that has gone completely off the topic is that I have this just lurvely grass by my front gate. It ain’t no ordinary grass either. It is beautiful, bronze in colour and bows and sways in the wind. It welcomes me when ever I come home, from where ever it may be…such as my recent difficult days out fishing! OMG how I have loved those days!!
My sublime and my absolutely number 1 favourite native Australian grass is Themeda australis or Kangaroo Grass. Apparently the seed heads look a little like a kangaroo…..hrmmmm, I honestly cannot see that.
Readers of my blog probably know I LOVE native grasses and oh there are so many new hybrids and cultivars out now! Just you wait till I show you them all. I’m in heaven
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The Garden Terrorist
I am going to let you know about the real life hazards of blogging……
You see, I know the hazards.
The first hazard that comes to mind is ‘being totally engrossed.’
Now, I know of this particular hazard because it happens to me quite regularly. I spend my weekends and often my time before heading off to work, reading blogs. I am a blog-a-holic. OMG.
Anyway… One particular weekend, not too long ago, I was catching up on some very valuable reading. I had my macchiato in hand and the morning was spent perusing, otherwise known as “hey, I’m having me time!”
Midway between blogs I got up to go to our lovely composting toilet. I do intend to tell you all about our wonderful Rota-Loo at some stage…BUT…as I was walking along our wooden pallets towards the toilet, that is when I noticed we had been under a terrorist attack.
Now you might find this frivolous or you may find it serious, but I could not believe that one tiny little terrorist could cause so much damage to my beautiful flowering gum.
It’s poor roots all dug up and torn, exposed to the sun and wind. It’s leaves all wilted and forlorn…What could I do? I quickly growled at The Garden Terrorist and forbade him to come anywhere near my garden again.
I then stooped down and covered up the precious roots, watered, fed and generally just hoped for the best. A few days later, my little Corymbia ficifolia that was planted for my son is looking okay. I really do hope she will pull through…
AND the said ‘Garden Terrorist’ is a very new addition to the family here;
He also happens to go by the name of ‘DEVO.’
And here you can see he has taken a liking to the succulent collection……
At least I can now explain where those bite marks came from! For a while I thought I had one helluva caterpillar on my hands.
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Knee Deep In Mud
When we first decided to make the big ‘Sea Change’, moving from the city to the bush, we weren’t exactly sure where we were going to live. We knew we would like to build our own home and that we liked the idea of mudbricks but we didn’t realise the work that would go into our lifestyle change.
My husband or myself had absolutely no building experience whatsoever. I am a horticulturist and my husband is a musician so give us a shovel and a guitar and we were both happy. We had never laid a brick, thought about trusses or wondered on the finer points of water proofing! Oh how all that was about to change…especially for my husband.
We moved into a gorgeous area that was in the bush but close to the ocean. My parents live in the same area and they have a huge 10acre block of land. Most of it is bush. One night over a family dinner the idea was put to my husband and I by my parents “Why don’t you build yourselves a little mudbrick cabin on our land here. You don’t have to live in town and pay rent that way and it can be your own little place.” Well we thought that would be just great. So our ‘little’ cabin that turned into a HUGE project began.
Our wonderful neighbours gave us the loan of their caravan so this is where we first lived while we lay the foundations of our cabin.
It had an annexe on the side and every time it rained my husband would jump up on a stool with a tube of silicon to fix the leaks! We had old wood pallets on the floor and then carpet on top of that.
It was freezing in the Winter and boiling hot in the Summer.
My husband and I slept up one end of the caravan and our daughter who was 6 at this stage, slept up the other end. I wish I had more photos to show you of our caravan life but I didn’t have a digital camera then and so most of my shots were taken on an Instamatic. I think we lived in the caravan for a good 2 years or so. Some people would say it was ‘character building.’
I have written in a previous post about the fact that we made all our mud bricks or ‘muddies’ as we affectionately called them by hand. I had a few people ask me how we actually did that. Well, the cement mixer was a really integral part of the whole process. We would mix 1 mixer full of clay with 1 shovel full of cement. Mix it all around with water till well blended then shovel into the moulds. The clay we used for the very first part of our cabin was actually off our land. For the second part of our home, we bought in our clay from a quarry.
Most of the days spent making muddies were stinking hot and it was very heavy work. Each muddie would weigh on average around 18kg.
Most of the mud brick making fell to my husband with a bit of help every now and then from my brother. I think we would make on average about 120 bricks a day and around 70 if working alone. The first lot of bricks we made were quite crumbly and our cabin is in need of repair inside where cracks and fissures have appeared. We became better at them though and they are now ripper muddies!
Our mud brick making days have finished
thank goodnesssadly.
This part of the house is now finished. At this end are the two kids bedrooms and our bathroom ( which is not finished).
We have been in the process of building our own home now for 6 years. We have owner built and pretty much done every thing ourselves. We are very lucky though to have the help from my father who has also built his own mudbrick home. It has taken such a long time and my husband is certainly ‘over it’ but deep down inside I know he loves and treasures our home made with his own hands.
Sometimes people say to us, “Haven’t you finished it yet?” with a look of incredulity on their faces. This annoys us both as it isn’t a race for us to complete it…although I would ADORE having a bathroom and hot running water…what a luxury! When we started building we had both just moved here and had no other prior commitments. Now we are both working, I own a 7 day a week retail business and we have 2 small children. One of which decided to pop into our lives right in the middle of muddie making. We had to adjust our plan then and incorporate another bedroom for the little fella.
My kids still get bathed in a bucket every now and then, although we did have a solar shower for a while there. I sometimes think about putting it back up but then I worry it might mean the ‘real’ shower might take a bit longer. It might not, it’s just a niggly kinda worry.
When we finished the first little part of our home, which by now you have probably guessed we call ‘the cabin’, we all moved into it. Our little boy was only a few months old and it was in the middle of Winter. We put a Patriot wood fire in and it warmed up the cabin beautifully. So we all shared the one room, all in together.
Where the beds are is now our kitchen and there is a entrance way knocked into the wall at the top left that goes out into the new part of the house.
As you can imagine it was pretty chaotic at times..but it really was character building
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Frolicking Flamingo’s
These two very unusual specimens arrived in our garden on Christmas Day. They seem to like the place and have decided to stay. They dont eat much or cause a fuss.
My very clever brother made them actually. They are made from steel, cut into shape and painted with a very quirky kinda style. This is the first time he has attempted to make anything like this and I think he should get his creative hat on and make some more. There is a whole world of wonderful birds out there and therefore just a ton of inspiration.
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What a campsite!
We have just spent four fabulous days camping. We have this gorgeous spot we go to which is situated on the South coast of NSW. The water is pristine, the birds were chirping and everybody wore big fat smiles.
The days were hot and sunny, so just perfect for lazing around in your bathers and a sarong. The plants in the area are mostly coastal species such as Coastal Wattle ( Acacia sophorae), Sea Box (Alyxia buxifolia) and Pigface (Carpobrotus rossii).
Our fantastic view from our tent. The kids delighted in waking up each morning for a dive in the river and a good swim. Some mornings the tide was really high and I feared we may be washed out, but it always subsided and left nice little swimming pools.
There were lots of crabs getting about in there and quite a bit of seaweed too. I always wish I could identify the many coastal seaweeds and seagrasses. They look so amazing. Just so textural and structured.
Behind our tent there was a little track that went along for about 20 metres.
The Coastal wattle was all in seed and had these beautiful curly seed pods all over the trees filled with little glossy black seeds. Anyway, the track led us out to this:
We spent a lot of time here, swimming, building the most amazing sand castles and making racing tracks for match box cars.
I went fishing quite a few times and suffice to say we ate very well
Lots of fresh fish on the bbq and some yummy abalone too.I hope to get back again before the end of Summer, so will take lots of shots then of the flora of the area. Hopefully by then I might have my new digital camera and can do my photos some justice!
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Wild Cherries Grow On The River Bank
Yesterday the kids and I spent an idyllic morning down by our local river. This beautiful river is literally just down the road and around the corner from where we live.
It was a gorgeous morning, sunny and warm with lots of dragonflies flitting about. The kids spent their time swimming in the river while I threw in a fishing line. I did catch a few fish but only small so they were released back into the river.
If you look across the water to the other river bank you can see that big tall, very green tree there. It’s the one to the left of the photo. It is quite conical in shape and actually looks a little like a pine. The rest of the foliage is rather dull and grey but this one always looks vivid and lush. The tree is known as Cherry Ballart or Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis). The tree is native to the Eastern states of Australia and is often admired for its lovely, pendulous growth habit which often turns purple or bronze in the Winter. The other thing that is amazing about this tree is that it is actually a parasite and lives on the roots of it’s host plant, usually Eucalypt’s. This is no way suggests though that it is a menace. It is a native plant species that is an integral part of the Australian bush. The other wonderful thing about this tree is it produces edible fruit and dense fine grained timber too. The timber has been used for fashioning tool handles and other woodturning work.
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Santa arrived on a fire truck
Every year the people in our small bush community put on a fantastic Christmas party. It is held in the old hall which is right next door to the bush fire brigade. The hall used to be used for dances and social gatherings but over the years it fell into disrepair and became quite dilapidated. Through the hard work of volunteers and fundraisers it is now looking more beautiful than ever, fully restored with a kitchen, toilets and a great big communal area.
Santa visits every year and gives each child a gift and lollies. This Santa is quite unique though, he doesn’t arrive on reindeer’s or even six white boomers, but on the back of our local fire truck! The kids all gather out the front of the hall as the sound of the siren rings through the hills. It gets closer and closer and louder and louder as each child’s excitement grows. Then around the corner comes Santa with his helpers, and the kids faces just beam with the most magnificent smiles.
Everyone shuffles into the hall and Santa sits on his throne giving out gifts and dispensing hearty “Ho, Ho, Ho’s”.
Afterwards we enjoy Christmas Carols sang by our local choir and the kids break apart a Christmas Pinata.
It’s really a lovely way to say thankyou to all our neighbours, share some food and a few drinks and to enjoy in the season that is Christmas.
For everyone who has no idea what a white boomer is then this you tube clip may help enlighten you
My son just LOVES this song and it has been his very favourite song this Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
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Gone Fishing
Today I skipped work and planned to go fishing. One of the advantages of owning your own business is you can make decisions like that! Anyway, I thought that first I should go and try and do a bit of Christmas shopping. I drove around and around looking for a car park. I battled my way through other weary Christmas shoppers and over whelming shelves full of Christmas bling, to the point where I said enough! I drove just a little way out of town to this beautiful, serene and very lovely place.
I took mum too! Now I come from a long line of fisher folk. My grandparents were keen fishing people, so too was my mum and dad. They in turn passed on the passion to my brother and I and now all our kids are keen too. I think for me though, most of the pleasure is derived from just being peaceful by the waters edge. I love sitting in the sun on a quiet river bank, watching the birds flying by and all the little insects flitting about. It is often time just to unwind and relax. If I catch dinner then that’s a bonus!
It was just coming onto dusk when the fish started to bite. Now like every good fishing story, I have to tell you about “the one that got away.” I caught a really, really big flathead. Beautiful eating fish and they can grow very large. Anyway because we didn’t have a net, I couldn’t lift it onto the little jetty so my fishing line snapped and I lost it. I was happy to see him swim away, he was a very beautiful and very big fish!
We caught other fish too, such as trevalley, bream and luderick. But these were all too small too keep and so were released back into the water.
Now at this particular spot there are many pelicans who swim very close by when they feel there may be a feed of fish heads on the menu.
They have such amazing large beaks for holding lots and lots of fish. They also make the most amazing guttural kind of noise which I think actually resembles the noise a camel makes! Pelicans are much loved and admired.
Oh I nearly forgot! Mum caught a puffer fish too! Even the pelicans wont eat this one.
There are also lots of Australian Seagulls around. Many people are not fans of the seagull as they are considered to be scavenger birds. Personally, I think they are very beautiful. This poor one had a missing foot. This appears to be a common occurrence with seagulls and someone once told me it is because fish bite them off when they are sitting on the water. I don’t know how much truth is in that.
It was a beautiful and relaxing way to spend an afternoon and early evening.
Upon arriving home I decided there was no escaping my Christmas list. So I made a start on my traditional Christmas fruit cake. All the yummy fruit when into the bowl with a good splash ( or two or three…) of French brandy. I’ll let it macerate for a few days and then cook a big, delicious cake.
I guess things can get pretty hectic at this time of year, so I hope you can all take some time out like I did today. In fact, I reckon I might try and get back there tomorrow….
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The Sweet Country Life
I guess for a lot of people, the idea of living in the country is pretty idyllic. That was certainly my thoughts when I was living in the big city and doing the 9 to 5 job, day in, day out. I would daydream of my country kitchen. My days filled with the warmth of a wood fire and making jars of homemade plum jam. My trusty dog by my side and oh the smiles…so many happy smiles
Well it came to ‘crunch’ time living in the city. Rent was becoming really expensive and our family was growing. We either buy a house in the city or we make the move, our very own ‘sea change’. At first we thought a cool little inner city abode would be just lovely. Somewhere close to the groovy cafe’s and the retro furniture stores. But alas our funds could only really afford us to be living way out beyond any kind of civilisation. We would be known as ‘fringe dwellers.’ Now I guess for some people, this would be ok but I’m a kinda all or nothing girl…so we decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and move to the country!
And this gives you an idea of our very first home, which we lived in for a good 2 years or more.
I went through my 2nd pregnancy in the caravan with no hot water, no proper toilet facilities and no tv! Argh!! The whole time we were living in the caravan we were busy building our mudbrick home. We have a gorgeous bush block in country NSW. We are close to the mountains and the beaches are just sublime. I will post up some pics soon of our gorgeous beaches. Anyway, we decided to make all our own mudbricks! Some people looked at us like we were kinda crazy. Especially because we had no experience in what we were doing and it is super heavy work..each mudbrick weighs on average about 20kg. We made them all by hand.
We laid them out on hessian in the sun to dry and would turn them every day so they could dry evenly. It was usually a stinking hot day when we would make ‘muddies’. We designed the house we were building all ourselves also, we wanted to try and keep the costs down and use recycled materials as much as possible. I think we have done pretty well and it just continually evolves. It is now 4 years since we started building and we still havent finished yet! I have decided to share the journey with you all and keep you posted with our story and our progress. By the way, I still don’t have hot running water!
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