Best Invention Ever!!

l bought a new piece of machinery during the week. And l can honestly say it's one of the best things I have ever bought!!!! DA NA!!!! A Push Mower!!! Now before everyone starts laughing and thinking l have gone mad...........trust me........l haven't!! Push Mowers have come a long way since your Grand Father laboured with one in his back yard 50 years ago! This weighs practically nothing. The faster you walk the quicker it mows! No heavy cumbersome 30 kilo mower to heave around the trees. This little number is not restricted by gears and can go as fast or as slow as you like!!

l bought it initially as often in the morning l wish l could do a quick 5 minute mow maybe out the front of the house, or a bit of the side , but by the time l have dragged the mower out of the shed, checked the fuel, primed it, started it, my 5 minutes is gone. The idea was to have this tucked under the veranda and have it ready on hand to do a quick little mow of a piece of lawn each day.

As it happens though, it's so fabulous l don't think l will bother with the big old petrol driven one again! l mowed the WHOLE lawn in about a third of the time it takes me to do it normally!!! And l wasn't puffed afterwards !!

l don't need a catcher as it throws the grass around with such gay abandon out the back (yes, you do tend to get a bit more covered in grass!!) that it isn't necessary to drag around a big heavy catcher that you have to keep stopping and emptying!! (Have l converted you yet??)

ALSO..............................it is so light (about 9 kilos), rather than ploughing through a slightly raised lump of lawn leaving an ugly exposed yellowy bit, it simply skips over it so it leaves a more even greener result!!

AND it's quiet!!!!!

Not that poor deaf Treeka could hear the old one.................

So l highly recommend them to anyone who is sick of mowing lawns! l am not going to say the old cliché about "oh it is good exercise" , as you do the same walking as you would with a traditional mower, this one is just quicker, lighter, easier and yep..............more fun!! Brilliant! Just love it!!

A day with a Spray Can!

What a difference a spray makes!!! An old bike l picked up from the Tip Shop (am l a junkaholic shopping addict l wonder??) It was old , green and ghastly but the potential was there as soon as l spotted it.

Perfect! One for the garden somewhere.........

 And four old light fittings. Brass and electrical wiring everywhere.

They are now a beautiful soft shade of copper and l will find some glass to fit in each one (to put a tea light inside!) No idea where they will go yet. They are currently hanging off the car port. Geoff is nervously wondering too l think!

So much fun though and all for a few dollars!

 

 

The Hallstand

The Hall Stand is now prettied up and settled into its new home!

With a most appropriate telephone!

Scarves and dangly bits....

Candlesticks (of course!) .........and a frog!

A Shepard's Crook resting in-between working!

More dangly bits...............it's heaven!............ All these hooks to hang things off!!!!

And l love it!

I wish l could have found room for this magnificent clock l picked up a few weeks ago but it really wont fit! It's gracing the mantelpiece in the Dining Room instead. l think my taste is getting gaudier by the day!!! I just adore this!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...............

Maxie's Yard

Maxie (being the little fat piglet that he is) can't spend days and days hours and hours eating rich green grass. Sadly he suffers from a disease called Laminitis  which mainly affects small robust native ponies like the Welsh Mountains whose bodies have evolved over thousands of years to survive on very little at all. Scavenging off steep heather covered hillsides, foraging for a meal under two feet of snow and surviving off the poorest quality of food imaginable................ . (And jumpers!)

Put these little things on rich green grass especially during Spring when the sugars are at their very highest and their bodies just cannot cope. Unfortunately it is the second biggest killers of horses and ponies  in the world (that and colic) and needs to be taken very seriously. He will have it forever and he just needs to be managed in a different way to if he didn't have it. Annoying, but such is life!

The basic rule is no grass!!!! Or very very limited.

So we have built him a long narrow run under the trees in a paddock with poorish quality native grasses. He has sun, shade, shelter from the wind and rain and has Clips on one side and a paddock full of brood mares to watch on the other.

He can pick up a good gallop in it if he wishes and can see the big fella and nuzzle him over the fence at any time.

This weekend we put the finishing touches to the fence (with help)

And interference.............

Double trouble!

A broken pulled apart hat.................(wasn't me says the big boy!)

And sucked and trodden jumpers and coats..........

 

Yay!!!

So hopefully given the circumstances we have made him as happy as he can be.

We think he is worth it!

 

 

 

The Wood heater

A great bargain in our local classifieds the other day. This solid cast iron wood heater for $200.Too good to pass up so we snaffled it straight away and went to collect it on Saturday morning.  When we arrived it was way bigger than what we had expected and considerably heavier! There was no way on earth it was liftable with just the two of us, (about 200 kg Geoff reckoned!) Luckily the owners called up a young strapping lad who lived down the road who, (luckily AGAIN!) turned up very quickly with two equally strapping mates!! So between the three of them and Geoff, they managed to get it onto a now decidedly lop sided ute and off home we went. Very pleased with our purchase even though it doesn't really have a home to go to at the moment!

Of course getting it OFF with just the two of us back at the farm was never going to be quite so easy...........

Geoff had a plan.......and a sling was slung under and around the beast... 

Then a pulley assembly was rigged up in the barn........... 

It looked quite complicated....

The plan was to hook up the heater.............onto  the pulley.........attach other end of pulley to the other ute's tow bar. Drive other ute away and pulley will lift heater off newer ute. Drive newer ute away........leaving heater swinging in the air. Reverse old ute back slowly till heater was on the ground. Sounded logical.......sounded like a plan...a bit nerve racking.. but l guessed it SHOULD work ok...........until l saw Geoff (who weighs not even 70 kilos) swinging off the pulley to test it.......and l saw the barn trusses sag........and the front of the barn shudder...............and l said no...............we are not doing this crazy thing................not to the detriment of bending the barn!!!...................and Geoff said ok!!!  No arguments....no telling me it would be fine.......Very admirable l thought! You know what boys are like when they have contraptions rigged up ready to go!!!

So Plan B was then up to me!! Girl logic? Hay bales...................

Tip it......................Gravity wins....

Legs off (Geoff's idea in case we broke them)

Moved some of the bales away so it slid down another level.........onto trolley and with reasonable effort we managed to wheel it into a corner of the barn..........

Phew! Barn still intact .......bargain heater in a safe dry place until we decided where to put it and Geoff and l still on speaking terms!

Marvellous!..........