Last week of June

It's a quiet time of year here. As with most places l suppose in the dead of Winter. Short daylight hours, cold nights.. Not much to do really except keep warm!!   Well, that's what the cat thinks anyway!

A blasted kookaburra has cottoned on to us feeding the Silver eyes and the (thousands of) Sparrows every morning. l have seen him sitting in the Walnut Tree several times now. Chasing him away works for a while but l am sure he will be back. Pretty birds though even if we don't like them around the place.

And poor little Max has got Laminitis (painful hoof condition for fat little ponies) he is locked up in his yard for a few weeks on minimal food and he is NOT happy. Life is very boring for him as Clips is in the paddock and he is left behind in the dirt. We go down and spend time with him whenever we have a moment, poor little boy...

Today though was very exciting as we put the tin roof on our soon to be gypsy wagon! It was wobbly up there and l got quite seasick by the end of it!

 Interesting view of the house though!!

The steel frame was very hard to drill into and poor Geoff was practically hanging off the drill trying to break through into the metal. As you can see we brought Maxie up from his yard to be close to us for the day to give him a bit of a routine change and something different to look at.

First sheet on!

Lunch time and we were half way there.

It looks quite peculiar at the moment without the sides on and incredibly tall!!!

We just hope a strong wind doesn't blow it over!!!

Here comes the Sun!!

This morning was one of those weird surreal sort of mornings here at Candlestick Farm. The sun made an appearance over the hill and through the trees looking like a pair of headlights through the fog! Hard to spot in this photo but it is there l promise if you look hard enough!!!!

Don't look at the sky line.........look in the middle of the hillside!!!! Weird hey???

By about 10am it finally burst though the tops of  the trees and bathed us in a glorious light.

 Making all the spider webs look like pearl necklaces........

And making Geoff and my favourite plum tree look very cool indeed!!!!!

In the late afternoon we laid the wagon roof out on the driveway to see exactly how long it was going to be. It looked HUGE!!!! Geoff and Treeka both posed next to it to give you some idea!!!!!

 

Hopefully we can put the sheets on tomorrow afternoon!

 

 

Omar Returns!

Geoff and l went up to Mum and Dad's property and collected our lovely ram Omar to put back with the girls He had been up there with two young wethers to eat the grass and to prevent the ewes getting in lamb again too soon! Greetings through the fence. Lots of sniffing, snuffling and kissing like sheep do!'

The girls waiting patiently for us to open the gates to meet up with the boys!

Omar was very happy!!!

Indeed!

And a great little candlestick l picked up at our local Op Shop...we could do with a few more of them around here!

Working with Goats!

Last weekend Geoff and l spent a bit of time clipping our latest line of Wallaby Defence onto another existing fence. It's a tedious slow business at the best of times....................made sometimes more entertaining and humorous by this lot !!! They insist on coming with us as usual.

As do these two , but these are generally far better behaved!

They only want to eat the grass/weeds/reeds/blackberries, whatever.........EXACTLY where you are clipping, cutting or generally just standing!!!

Unless of course they get REALLY bored and wander off to cause more mischief..

Like examining the entire contents of the tool box!!!

Or doing large enormous  bored Yak impersonations!

Never a dull moment that's for sure! No wonder Treeka watches it all from afar.

And Lilli always looks nervous!!

 

Happy Anniversary!

Today Geoff and l have been married three years!!! We got married at home with a $15 ring and a $2 Op Shop dress!! Our witnesses were two good friends of ours who got married as well! The Celebrant arrived and we had Champagne and Entrée, she then married us all ,went home and the four newly weds had our Wedding Reception!!

Lilli was the bridesmaid of course!!!!

The meal was a joint effort between us all so great timing and precision was required!

And after the other couple left we partied on!!!!!!!!!!...................................

 Happy Anniversary my darling man. l love you xx

Silver Eyes

It's that time of year again once the frosts hit that we we start to feed the birds. This year we have been bombarded with a Fighter Squadron of Spitfire Sparrows! We would have at least 50 if not more of the little blighters! They sit in the bushes and make the whole place shake when they all depart at the same time! They also hurtle around and around the house like there is no tomorrow!!! Pesky grain stealing little things but they are sort of sweet and nice to know we still have them here after their total unexplained demise in London!!!
Talking of unexplained!!..... The main birds we aim to feed here are the Silver Eyes.
Save me writing it all out l have cheekily cut and pasted this from a website on Australian birds. Well worth the read to understand these amazing little things!
Mystery migration
''These tiny birds are no more than 13 centimetres long and every year make an annual 1,600 kilometre trek from Tasmania, across Bass Strait, and as far north as Queensland. It's the equivalent of a human swimming from Auckland to Sydney, then walking to Cairo!! 
It's usually April before the Silvereyes start to migrate north and, by May, many of these amazing birds are turning up along the coast of southern and central New South Wales and some as far north as Queensland.
But this migration is a complex and mysterious business. Some Tasmanian Silvereyes don't migrate at all, preferring instead to rug up and spend winter on the Apple Isle. Others strike out across the water and head west when they hit the mainland, ending up as far as Adelaide.
Crossing Bass Strait is the biggest hurdle for the tiny Silvereye, and researchers are still working out how they do it.
Researchers believe it's most likely they achieve this feat by island-hopping, breaking the distance between Tasmanian and the mainland into several shorter stages.
This theory is based on the fact that large flocks of Silvereyes have been sighted on various islands in Bass Strait during both autumn and spring.
The Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) is a small bird that weighs about 10 grams. Its name came about because of the thin white rings of colouring around its eyes that give the impression it is wearing silver-rimmed glasses.
There are several races of Silvereyes, but it's only the Tasmanian race that performs the incredible migration across Bass Strait and up the east coast of Australia. Other races do migrate and cover considerable distances, but they don't compete when it comes to this annual long-distance migration.
Once they hit the mainland, they often hook up with their mainland cousins and form large mixed flocks for their summer holiday sojourn. Some flocks linger around the same small mainland region while others tend to migrate northward following defined routes along the coastal plains."
Thank you website!!!
So the tiny little things we feed every morning are the brave few that chose not to fly the treacherous Bass Strait  to warmer climates but have decided to take their chances in our cold frosty Winters down here. Lucky for them, Geoff creates delicious ((((if you are a bird!!!)))) sausages of fat, honey, seeds, strawberries, oats......all rolled up into one big lunch!

Well worth feeding don't you think?

A slow kind of Saturday!

We didn't seem to get a lot done today! Not surprising when amazingly we were still in  dressing gowns and pj's at 9am! (AFTER having fed all the beasties of course!!!) l think we were sorting of waiting for rain which never  actually eventuated! When we finally got our act together we went down to the Rivulet and dug out some Blackwood seedlings and transplanted them into pots. Hopefully we can put them along the fence lines if they survive the move.

We amassed our eucalypts and swamp trees (Yep! We need swampy trees down here!!) to go out sometime this Winter (protecting them from devious goats, huge horses, miniature bulldozer cows, sheep AND Wallabies always proves a challenge!)

The garden is looking very Wintry now with only a few die hard leaves still clinging to the trees.

Still beautiful though!

The Maple l planted last year has turned out to have beautiful brilliant orangey coloured leaves which l'm very happy with! l just want it to grow now!

Late afternoon we out to the Hay Paddock and set fire to a heap of old Willow branches we cut down last Summer.

Geoff + Fire=Happy!

THEN we go to unhappy!!  Up to get the goats to bring them in for the night. LET ME OUT .I WANT TO GO TO BED.......................................

Lizzy tries for the scary look..............

Whilst little Tinks hangs back as usual .Polite, sweet and incapable of making ugly scary faces!!

The gate opens and off they shoot. Down to their little safe haven shed for the night.

Not quite as luxurious as where Lilli is on this chilly night but not too bad!!