Sunday, May 29, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
The Story
The House
Hooray ! The house will take shape today. The builders will be putting together the frames that have been sitting on the pad for approximately 2 weeks and promise to work 10 hour days to do so. As long as they do it properly, I don't care how long it takes. Still, once the framework is up, I can then walk around in the shell and start designing in my mind, how the place will look. I have been looking around on ebay lately for little bits and pieces to collect (again !). I had a few rare b&w photographs of people like James Dean and Audrey Hepburn that I will never recover but have been picking up some nice prints of Audrey and will start seriously searching for all of my other "heroes", Melissa Etheridge, James Taylor, James Dean, Joe Jackson, all in b&w so I can recreate the room that I was beginning to create in the old place, sort of my space with all my strange and wonderful things. Just speaking with the man about the house and the builders don't think that enough wood has been delivered to site for the house. He informs the man that this house is huge. Maybe we were a bit over the top. Oh well, plenty of room for VISITORS when the time is right.
The Region
When I go home from work, which is generally at dusk or later, it's really interesting to see heaps of little fires, (don't panic, it's just the property owners burning off all the dead tree debris), it's really cool ! The trees are sprouting nicely and greening up, the ground, although still dry from lack of rain, seems to be harboring weeds and the grain that has fallen from the harvest is sprouting. So, the next trick is to have some more rain to let the weeds/grain grow, spray it, then seed (plant) and fertilise. I think some of the farmers around here are dry sowing some crops and hoping for a bit of rain soon ! The roads are a bit dodgy around here as there has been more traffic due to house building, fencing contractors, electrical contractors fixing up the lines, phone technicians repairing the lines constantly due to the fencing contractors drilling through the phone lines and rubberneckers seeing how us bushies are surviving.
The Man
Busy, busy, busy. He seems to be out on his truck or loader or tractor every day preparing the land, picking rocks (firstly by hand and dumping them in the truck, which is where I come in when I'm home - truck driver), but now has a bucket with teeth on his tractor/loader to rake the stones into heaps. Still, what to do with the rocks, well, I'm glad you asked... The council are interested in taking them for their roadworks. I kinda think they crush them up and put them down as road base, but they are ironstone ??????? I would think they would be pretty hard rocks ?! They also want to take some dirt from unused areas of our farm for the same thing. I think that if they don't pay us for it, the driveway is gonna look schmick once they fill and grade it in return for the dirt they take. It is good that the builders are there at the moment while he is home as he has missed out on the other progressions with the pad leveling and the concrete pour. I promise, that when I get some spare time at home, I will download the software required to put pictures up on this site. We are signing up for Satellite Broadband, (thanks to the Government for subsidising the $1500 + fee to have the damn thing connected) so we have a faster internet connection. 28.8 Kbps is frustrating enough at work ! It seems that all this talk about helping the rural regions with internet and mobile connections is smoke and mirrors. I need to rally 30 people in our "Greenpatch" region to qualify for a feasibility to be conducted. A time waster in our area so I decided to go this way for the time being. It seems that I am talking more about other things than the man, not much to say really. He works all day, end of story.
The Girl
Going really well at school, I went to her assembly a little while ago and she received an award for skipping. I know that sounds a bit lame, but an award not matter how insignificant it may seem to others is an award nonetheless. It made me feel proud to watch her receive it and she was indeed proud to have Mum there to watch. She has learned to ride her bike now, and before anyone says "she should be riding by now" needs to understand how the girl works, as she is very similar to me in that respect. Unless (and I am talking about both of us), we can be 110% confident that we are not going to fall, embarrass, have people laugh at us, then the task will not be attempted until WE are ready. So she has hopped on the bike and confidently pedalled ever since. No falls, scrapes (not yet) and only the praise of her parents to encourage her and be proud. We may be going to visit the calisthenics club to see if she would like to start something like that. We have tried tap dancing (not interested), netball (too hard) and want to get her involved in something to encourage her skills in being a part of a team and working together, being an only child they get a bit selfish. Also, I believe that us not being there and watching her at tap/netball made her lose interest because she couldn't show Mum/Dad what she had achieved right there and then with a group. Her kitten, Oscar, has developed a sore eye and had a trip to the Vet's on Tuesday. Turns out, he had an injury with a blunt object (who knows?) which could have been the dog as Oscar baits up Sarge pretty much by lining him up and jumping on his back, quite funny to watch really. She loves her reading still and is participating in the "Premiers Reading Challenge" with her school. She was quite cut up the other day when we couldn't find her reader and she told me she would be out of the competition if she didn't return it. So, what does Mum do you ask. She turns the caravan inside out, searches the car only to find that she had it in her reader folder at school ! D'Oh.
Moi
Phew ! Had my birthday a couple of weeks ago, pretty quite (and most of you know how I love my birthday) but will celebrate next year with a bang to make up for this year. Work is not as busy as the company would like it due to lack of rain and the fact that the other fertiliser company in town (Incitec Pivot) has managed to put out a better price than HiFert this season. The management needs a rocket ! They might as well be selling lollipops because they would probably know their customers better. Have had a couple of visits from ladies around the region, delivering quilts made by women all over the place, a mother's day basket from a couple of ladies in Adelaide that put together 80 baskets on their own. It's amazing how stuff is still being distributed. I had to decline more quilts as we have no room to keep them (without mice or damp getting into them and ruining them). The Man thought I was mad and said he could've used one on the tractor as a soft seat and a lap blanket, and have them looking like an oily rag after the amount of work it takes to make one of those, I THINK NOT !!!!!
The end
Hooray ! The house will take shape today. The builders will be putting together the frames that have been sitting on the pad for approximately 2 weeks and promise to work 10 hour days to do so. As long as they do it properly, I don't care how long it takes. Still, once the framework is up, I can then walk around in the shell and start designing in my mind, how the place will look. I have been looking around on ebay lately for little bits and pieces to collect (again !). I had a few rare b&w photographs of people like James Dean and Audrey Hepburn that I will never recover but have been picking up some nice prints of Audrey and will start seriously searching for all of my other "heroes", Melissa Etheridge, James Taylor, James Dean, Joe Jackson, all in b&w so I can recreate the room that I was beginning to create in the old place, sort of my space with all my strange and wonderful things. Just speaking with the man about the house and the builders don't think that enough wood has been delivered to site for the house. He informs the man that this house is huge. Maybe we were a bit over the top. Oh well, plenty of room for VISITORS when the time is right.
The Region
When I go home from work, which is generally at dusk or later, it's really interesting to see heaps of little fires, (don't panic, it's just the property owners burning off all the dead tree debris), it's really cool ! The trees are sprouting nicely and greening up, the ground, although still dry from lack of rain, seems to be harboring weeds and the grain that has fallen from the harvest is sprouting. So, the next trick is to have some more rain to let the weeds/grain grow, spray it, then seed (plant) and fertilise. I think some of the farmers around here are dry sowing some crops and hoping for a bit of rain soon ! The roads are a bit dodgy around here as there has been more traffic due to house building, fencing contractors, electrical contractors fixing up the lines, phone technicians repairing the lines constantly due to the fencing contractors drilling through the phone lines and rubberneckers seeing how us bushies are surviving.
The Man
Busy, busy, busy. He seems to be out on his truck or loader or tractor every day preparing the land, picking rocks (firstly by hand and dumping them in the truck, which is where I come in when I'm home - truck driver), but now has a bucket with teeth on his tractor/loader to rake the stones into heaps. Still, what to do with the rocks, well, I'm glad you asked... The council are interested in taking them for their roadworks. I kinda think they crush them up and put them down as road base, but they are ironstone ??????? I would think they would be pretty hard rocks ?! They also want to take some dirt from unused areas of our farm for the same thing. I think that if they don't pay us for it, the driveway is gonna look schmick once they fill and grade it in return for the dirt they take. It is good that the builders are there at the moment while he is home as he has missed out on the other progressions with the pad leveling and the concrete pour. I promise, that when I get some spare time at home, I will download the software required to put pictures up on this site. We are signing up for Satellite Broadband, (thanks to the Government for subsidising the $1500 + fee to have the damn thing connected) so we have a faster internet connection. 28.8 Kbps is frustrating enough at work ! It seems that all this talk about helping the rural regions with internet and mobile connections is smoke and mirrors. I need to rally 30 people in our "Greenpatch" region to qualify for a feasibility to be conducted. A time waster in our area so I decided to go this way for the time being. It seems that I am talking more about other things than the man, not much to say really. He works all day, end of story.
The Girl
Going really well at school, I went to her assembly a little while ago and she received an award for skipping. I know that sounds a bit lame, but an award not matter how insignificant it may seem to others is an award nonetheless. It made me feel proud to watch her receive it and she was indeed proud to have Mum there to watch. She has learned to ride her bike now, and before anyone says "she should be riding by now" needs to understand how the girl works, as she is very similar to me in that respect. Unless (and I am talking about both of us), we can be 110% confident that we are not going to fall, embarrass, have people laugh at us, then the task will not be attempted until WE are ready. So she has hopped on the bike and confidently pedalled ever since. No falls, scrapes (not yet) and only the praise of her parents to encourage her and be proud. We may be going to visit the calisthenics club to see if she would like to start something like that. We have tried tap dancing (not interested), netball (too hard) and want to get her involved in something to encourage her skills in being a part of a team and working together, being an only child they get a bit selfish. Also, I believe that us not being there and watching her at tap/netball made her lose interest because she couldn't show Mum/Dad what she had achieved right there and then with a group. Her kitten, Oscar, has developed a sore eye and had a trip to the Vet's on Tuesday. Turns out, he had an injury with a blunt object (who knows?) which could have been the dog as Oscar baits up Sarge pretty much by lining him up and jumping on his back, quite funny to watch really. She loves her reading still and is participating in the "Premiers Reading Challenge" with her school. She was quite cut up the other day when we couldn't find her reader and she told me she would be out of the competition if she didn't return it. So, what does Mum do you ask. She turns the caravan inside out, searches the car only to find that she had it in her reader folder at school ! D'Oh.
Moi
Phew ! Had my birthday a couple of weeks ago, pretty quite (and most of you know how I love my birthday) but will celebrate next year with a bang to make up for this year. Work is not as busy as the company would like it due to lack of rain and the fact that the other fertiliser company in town (Incitec Pivot) has managed to put out a better price than HiFert this season. The management needs a rocket ! They might as well be selling lollipops because they would probably know their customers better. Have had a couple of visits from ladies around the region, delivering quilts made by women all over the place, a mother's day basket from a couple of ladies in Adelaide that put together 80 baskets on their own. It's amazing how stuff is still being distributed. I had to decline more quilts as we have no room to keep them (without mice or damp getting into them and ruining them). The Man thought I was mad and said he could've used one on the tractor as a soft seat and a lap blanket, and have them looking like an oily rag after the amount of work it takes to make one of those, I THINK NOT !!!!!
The end
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