Friday 30 December 2011

Holiday fun

Yesterday, hubby decided that he was going to straighten up some of the fences that had been pushed down in the recent floods. Our cattle have been found out on the road a few times.

And of course, as always, I was dressed for the occasion when he rang to say he had the tractor bogged and he needed me to quickly bring the chain.

So the Landcruiser pulled the little tractor out of its boghole.

Then he lit up the stubble and proceeded to pick up the fence and push it back into place.....
kind of......

All Itty Bitty could say was, "Great now the tractor's going to catch on fire."
But it didn't and the fence is back in place.
With some more sureing up today.


Thursday 29 December 2011

Pretties


This David Austin is doing ok after all the rain.
Some of the roses have a bit of black spot.

Crafty kids









Our back door Wreath

Miss MDK made this wreath for the back door from torn up strips of fabric and a rounded out coathanger.
Then I found the bell and tied it on too

And she finished her little brother's one and hung it on the front door.
She just loooves this christmas gig.

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Pup

Our cute little puppy has funny expressions.
Yay! I think I have this posting from my phone and Ipad finally all worked out!

Tuesday 27 December 2011

These kids' favourite Christmas dessert

This one was always made by the children's Nanna.
For the last few years Miss MDK has been making it.
They are not interested in puddings or boozy trifle.
Next year I'll do a Pav for Itty Bitty.

We call it Broken Glass.
I think others call it Cut Glass.
It has 3 jellies made with only half the water so the jelly sets really hard.
then one carton of cream whipped with a half a cup of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla,
 then folded in with one cup of pineapple juice with a teaspoon of gelatine, warmed to dissolve the gelatine then cooled so that it will not sour and melt the whipped cream mix.
Mix this in with the cut up jellies, carefully!
Put it in a pretty bowl and into the fridge to set.
The original recipe had it in a biscuit crust like a cheesecake but we just leave that bit out.
~
Late on Christmas eve they heard some bells and ran outside then took these photos of santa in the sky.




Weren't they clever to get these shots?
Gee he was fast!
He must have come closer,
these photos really made my kids want to get into bed ever so quickly!

Tuesday 20 December 2011


God I loooove holidays!
6 weeks are in front of me.

I'm SO pleased I did the mowing yesterday, half in the morning and the other half in the evening.
THe first half was interrupted as Itty Bitty needed to see a doctor after doing a back flip on a
half blown up matress and crunching down on his tailbone.
Showing off in front of big brother and his friends.
It's only bruised said the doctor.
Then we did some shopping!

The lawn is looking very parklike.

I've worked really hard on it this season.
(Dont mind the finger in the shot!)

And I've been mowing the surrounding paddock, trying to keep the snakes down.
I don't think they get much of a chance slithering over  wide open spaces.
The birds can easily spot them and get them when there is no where to hide.
I think this theory is working.
Well I like to believe this anyway.
 ~
We had a huge thunderstorm again last night, with more rain.
Miss MDK took these photos.

Building up.........

Then bang, looking like night has turned to day!
She took about 20 shots to get these 2, most were just black.
~
I received this award from Lotus at Ped Phoenix Style, http://redphoenixstyle.blogspot.com/.
I have a 'couple' of their beautiful necklaces

Liebster is a German word meaning "dearest" and this award is given to bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.

The award has these stipulations:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your 5 blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you have sent the award to will forward it to their favourite bloggers.


Here are the bloggers with Boutique blogs who I'd like to hand this award on to---
5. And my old school friend Sarah from http://wintonhousebowral.blogspot.com/ who's been with me from day one!

Friday 16 December 2011

Parties and puppies

Yay it's the end of the school year!
We have a staff luncheon to farewell colleagues and celebrate.
I haven't joined in for a few years now.
But this year I'm very much in the mood and it's going to be held in my Library, so I can't hide.

 Sometimes it can be very emotional.
In small communities the teaching staff really band together.
And we get really sad when some leave us.

I've put together some Pavlovas.
Lunch will be catered, but there wasn't any desserts.
I put 2 in the oven before I went out last night,
And another 2 in when I got home.
Plus there will be some sticky date puddings.

 I think that will cover it for about 60 people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And in other destructive news.
Our pup has taken to chewing.
After a few months of nothing, She's making up for lost time.

I give you photographic evidence no.2
 Very sad.
But you'd have thought they would have learned to put the bikes in the rack after the first one was destroyed!
Luckily we were able to source some new seats last night at our fab bike shop.
Hmmnn I wonder what will be next!

Monday 12 December 2011

More water, seriously!

Each day there is a bit of a top up to the floodwaters around here
There are constant stormy clouds.
Today there was a big scare after some heavy rain upstream last night, and lots of people went home early as some roads closed at midday.


 And rainbows delivering pots of gold to my house
or not!

We thought there would be another huge downfall this afternoon.

The wind had really picked up.


and those clouds just wanted to burst

But then the sun came back.

These photos were taken further down our closed road.

And this one is at the start of the road.
So I am not allowed to go to town.
The Police have started booking people who drive around these signs.
This sign changed this morning, it had read that it was closed further along, but now the whole thing is closed.

There is still a bit of water glinting across the road from our house.

And a lot more moving down into that spot.
It's all good for the garden. rainwater has nitrogen which the bore water doesn't.

And I had put out seven 20 Kg bags of fertilizer on the lawn as this all started.
The lawn is growing about an inch a day.

A friend had this bogging happen to her the other day at the school's award ceremony.
She was hurrying into the carpark.
My hubby piggy backed her tiny bod across the mud so that her suede shoes wouldn't get ruined.
She has lots of 11 kids!
Those men are not all her's, her hubby was busy elsewhere.
They like Chivalry around here.
After the ceremony a bit of brut pushing got the beast bus out.

We were thrilled that Itty Bitty got the student award.
And while we were at home after the roads closed this morning, after a bit of an upset, he and I baked this banana bread.
Thank you A Beach Cottage for the recipe!

Waaay too good!
It won't last long.
I shouldn't like this flood bound business.
And can't wait for holidays next week!


PS. all these photos were taken on my new phone,
I'm so impressed!
And Iphone's Siri, I looove it!

Sunday 11 December 2011

BIG Water, mozzies and swamp conditions

Over the last couple of weeks we have had 14 inches of rain.
10 of those inches fell in the first three days.
It started on Wednesday, 23rd Nov.
I travelled to pick up my son from Boarding school on the Thursday.

When I crossed a little water on the highway I had serious doubts that the road would be passable the next day. It was still raining, heavily.


 And then on the return trip the next day, Friday, we managed to time arrival at this point 15 minutes after the road closure had been put in place.
Initially it was a bit further along and we were made turn back by police at a roadblock.

only 1 1/2 hours from home.

All the trucks had to park and wait in the road houses.
 Or turn back.
We decided to quickly check in to a motel. before they all filled up.
We could have tried to get in from the west, the direction the water was heading from the road closed.
I decided it was just too risky, as I had been hearing on the 2 way that the roads to the west had one and a half metres of water going over them. I knew it was only rising and I did not fancy getting stuck between 2 rising creeks or stranded in one of the near tiny towns with - no shopping or movie theatre.

There is only so much laying around watching movies and amusing three active, strong-willed kids who don't always get along, that one can cope with, endure,  tolerate.
I may have done the wrong thing in giving them sugar!
(that is ginger beer he is sucking on, not real beer!)

So we hit the shops in Goondiwindi. We had a total of 4 days in Gundy!
I feel I know the shops pretty well.

 
AND Watched the birds in the parks.
AND Watched movies (3 at the picture theatre) til they closed for their days off.
AND more Shopping, (enthralling for the boys!!)

AND more drinking pots of tea, and eating scones.
But finally I found something interesting for all.
RIVER WATCH!

 Day 1
the SES were surveying the scene.

While the locals were fishing.
(-note the height markers under the bridge- here it is at 15 feet)

 
the next day at 25 feet.

day 3 at 28 feet. The river peaked later on the Monday night.



The marker reads at 8.5 metres.

 

Even though it looked like a fun adventure, our minds were constantly aware of the danger and grief people were experiencing at home, A 3 year old child had been washed away and after we had returned home we heard of an elderly lady who had become disoriented and had been washed away in her vehicle also some people lost beloved horses. not to mention all of the lifting or flooding of things in sheds and gardens.

 
The same tree over the days.


Meanwhile, my husband back at home,
was sending me pictures of the rainfall and flooding.
These iphones are great things!

this one was at about 3 am on sunday 27.11.11 morning, 255mm of rain.


The neighbours sale sign was almost under.

He got around in our old, old tractor
He was seen going to a BBQ with an esky strapped on the back.

Talking to neighbours on a bit of high ground.


from out the front of our house.
The water height would have had to be another 5 metres high to be an inconvenience to us at our house. The paddocks are a different story!

 
Then he started tripping around in the plane on monday 28.11.11 morning.
He could get to the airport.
The river had peaked at 10pm the night before.
It is amazing how far the water will spread out on these flat plains.
This can help with easing the height of water going through homes, yards and sheds.

After 4 nights and 3 days, with the 3 kids trapped stranded in a motel room, on the Tuesday morning, I decided I'd had enough. So I packed everything in the wagon.
I was going home, even if I had to cut a big circle around that would take about 16 hours!
I had heard of people getting through to the east of town.
So a goat track I took. It was high and dry.
There were 3 cars and we convoyed it home. Only getting lost once, because the leader did not have a GPS nor a phone with good service, so I couldn't contact them, to tell them.
Ah well, I did not want to be the leader and come across the holes in the road, I was very happy to be a follower and let them get washed away first!
It wasn't a problem, with only shallow bits of floodwater to get through and a bit of damaged road that didn't worry the landcruiser.

This bit was opened up just an hour or so before we got there.
Its usually the first to close and first to open.

When we finally got home, we went for a drive up our road.

This water had cut through our country and then flowed through the neighbours to go past the front of our house then into the river to finally flood town and all to the west.

some fences were knocked down.
On our place, we had big logs that were swept by the water knocking down our fences, there must have been some huge force in that water to lift and carry big old river gum trunks.

Everyone had been quite isolated. They are still juggling cars to get in and out. Using 4 wheel drives to shuttle out their driveway to parked cars on the roadside.

the water had flowed very quickly through lots of causeways.

And is still laying about and getting topped up with an inch or so every couple of days.
Breeding mozzies that want to carry me away and creating a jelly like feel to thhe earth under my feet.
This can mean big, big, big trouble if there is another huge downfall.
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