Moving Day

My middle daughter and her partner moved into their first home yesterday.

It is a tiny renovated cottage in Cockatoo, a leafy place on the fringe of the 'burbs', in the Dandenong Ranges. It will need more work to get it up and running properly, but that matters nought to them. It has three tiny bedrooms, a lounge, living, kitchen area with a pot belly stove, and a bathroom with a cupboard in it for the washing machine (the laundry!). There is a covered deck at the rear, which was probably the clincher on the house.

In a world where the young want so much so early, I am proud of their determination to buy what they can afford. She is doing her PHD in Psychology and he is now working as a sound technician and stage manager in a large theatre restaurant. A one year old bubby and two lively dogs makes up their contented little family.

How close would you drive your parent's van to the power pole?

They pulled together his brothers, and her sister and partner to do the move from Watsonia, about an hour away. We were thankfully spared that end of it, but were elected to put an electric fence around the derelict wire one at the rear to keep the dogs in. My farmer fella knows all about such things, and had the necessary unit to power up the doggies.

Once it was up and running with the power switched on, the dogs took numerous shocks as they explored their new back yard, with yodelling squeals pealing through the hills, and all the neighboring dogs taking the call up in sympathy. Poor Hunter the boxer retreated under the house to recuperate, making his mum very concerned and just a bit guilty. Better than taking off through everyone's backyard, we all commented.

Poor stressed Seeker wanting out

They have factored in a new boundary fence into their budget, so that should be installed very soon.

I had made the sandwiches and cake for lunch, to fuel up all the flagging energies, so was pretty popular, and my man was sucked into the moving. He's a bit sore today, but he amazes me with his energy and enthusiasm, considering he's 20 plus years older than most of them.

My grandson, happily oblivious to the activity around him.

Telling them to watch Wendy Harmer's "Stuff", on ABC TV, where she wanders through people's lives chiding them about their accumulating unnecessary junk, we did a runner late in the afternoon, leaving them to their piles of boxes, bags and disconnected furniture. The baby was due to be delivered home in half an hour, so his mum would really be up against it. Asher is just walking, and will enjoy climbing over everything and exploring his new home.

You can't beat the cosiness of a pot belly fire.

Ode to the Beaut Ute.

After a small, whingy digression yesterday, I am back with renewed vigour.

When I first met my man eleven plus years ago, he had a ratty little Toyota twin cab ute which he loved with a passion. He had a bunch of little kids and was building his new house, so it was used for carting all sorts of gear.

He was keen on impressing me (then!), and decided to wash the grubby little thing to take me out for a night on the town. "Hell On the Hill' was in its infancy then, and there were no solid fences around the house.

He left it parked out the front and went inside to get a bucket of warm water. Coming back out again, he was horrified to discover said ute rocking off down the hill with no one in control. Our hills are not to be taken lightly, and she crashed through a rough wire fence half way down, across a disused road, and took off the bank with gay abandon. A second scruffy old wire fence hooked at her and she came to a panting halt hanging precariously over the bank.

My man had rushed out and leaped at the door, managing to get halfway in, but had no hope of pulling his carefree little girl from her chosen path.

If that wasn't bad enough, his brand new oven was sitting on the back, and took a nasty tumble.

He rang me, panting with the drama, saying, "I've had a major!". Not knowing him well enough to understand this often used phrase of his, I said, "A what?"

Now I know what 'a major' is!

The ute was a write-off, and the oven went to be panel beaten and wires reconnected, and still stands in her slightly creased state in our kitchen today. It seems to not understand 'simmer', but I have now learned to appreciate her inadequacies.

So, there have since been many years of muttering about his need for a ute. The government department he works for has recently and unfairly begun to threaten his dogged determining to bring the work ute home, so we asked a local car broker to hunt one up for us.

That was six months ago, and we had pretty much given up hope, until two days ago when our man rang saying he had found what we wanted.

Woo hoo!

It came up to visit last night for us to test drive over the weekend, and my fella was quite impressed. "So, come on!", I said after dinner, "Lets go out for a drive."

Well, he got into that ute and we screamed off round the windies for an eleven kilometre white knuckler. It was like he had driven it for ever (probably in his dreams). We passed many peaceful wallabies out for their dusktime graze on the side of the road, watching them leaping into the bush in fright. "Big cat!" he smirked, recalling the times he had to deal with delusional spotters of lions and leopards supposedly at loose in the Aussie bush.

My stomach was starting to swirl as the oncoming dark lost my contact with the horizon, but we made it home in one piece.

I think he likes it! It's not a big important sort of ute; not the kind you would take to a ute muster, but it will cart wood and feed, and earn its keep.

Ohhhhh.............

~ Chromed ~
Pastel on board
Beautifully framed in brushed silver moulding and white mount board.
Available for purchase @$600 + p.h.

I've got the gloomies today. Although all my surgeries have healed OK, I can feel my knee breaking down almost hour by hour, and the bones are crunching against each other in my wrist. It seems I have no cartilage left in either place ........................

And, my beautiful laptop, that I have really enjoyed for just over a year (out of warranty) has been rejected by my local computer fixer. I paid AU$4000 for the sucker. It may need a new motherboard and a visit to Toshiba.

Ho hum!

Just Photos

My man's beautiful black exhaust pipes we painted with heat treated ceramic paint. Look Good? We think so.

Late in the afternoon, when the light wanders in and out of cloud, just one hill lit up like a beacon.

I love clouds, especially when a hole opens up to reveal the sky beyond (click on to see larger photo).

Almost a religious feeling ................

Please. We Want Rain!

It stubbornly refuses to rain. If wanting a downpour could pull it out of the sky, we would be flooded.

I just want enough to top our tanks up, make the grass grow a little, and wash all the sheep poo into the soil. It looks like someone has opened a huge bag of black jelly beans and spilled them everywhere! There is not a blade of grass in sight. Any shoot that dares to pop its green head above ground level is chewed off with ruthless efficiency by our sheepies.

There are grey clouds all around, but nothing seems to be dropping anything, yet!

Bowling me over at feeding time.

We have been feeding out hay for a few weeks now, and they have learned to love it. We were also given some beans that look like brown broad beans, and when I scatter them on the ground, they crunch them up with relish, sounding like pop corn going off.

Feeding Frenzy

The last bales we bought were lucerne, which is the Rolls Royce of hay, so they are not suffering, but our bank balance is. Time to get on with turning them into our intention - 'table sheep'. Well, four of them anyway. The mums will remain and meet their Cheviot lover, Herbie, again in May. And, one cute little cheviot type girl will stay too, because I want to paint her, then she can become a mum as well.

Note the wool caught on the barbed wire. where they poke their heads through to get to the grass.

Doggie Business:
Dear Old Connor is exhausted having two gorgeous poodley ladies on heat at once. I'm not sure how Zara's teddy came to be there, but a totally candid shot of him dreaming happy dreams.

I love the Smell of Oil Paint

Work in progress........

Most of yesterday was spent out in the studio painting the edges of my gallery wrapped canvases in readiness for Art Melbourne 08 Exhibition in mid April.

I am paying for my laziness just painting to the edges and not the rest. For a time, I did think I would frame them, but decided I liked them better 'au naturelle'.

All colours have to be perfectly matched; no mean feat for the six large paintings. But now they are done, I am really pleased I have, because they look great, giving them an extra dimension and finish. I just have to sign them and then wait for them to dry enough to put a sealing finish on.

Baw Baw Shire have entered this great event as a gallery, and invited artists to apply. I was accepted, which is very pleasing.

Yesterday I booked my man and I into a motel for the opening night, so we can really enjoy ourselves. We rarely go to Melbourne now; we can't bear the traffic and the crowds, but I do miss wandering round the Gallery and having lunch at Southbank. My accident injuries also impede our freely walking around, so that's probably a stronger reason than the other.

~ 'Kiri' ~
Pastel on Board

Commission

I fixed my laptop (with lots of help from my son-in-law-to-be), and it was going great. I spent many hours loading all my programs in. It lasted around 24 hours, and crashed again. I hadn't backed it up when it was perfect.

I am devastated.............

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Another stinker of a day today. I am off to have my skin checked by a dermatologist as I have two small carcinomas on my face, and who knows what elsewhere. Not dangerous ones, fortunately, but they have to come off.

This intense heat makes each day a planning nightmare, with how to dodge from one place to another without expiring. The car and house are both air conditioned, and Safeway, and hopefully, the skin doctor. I wouldn't imagine he would enjoy hot sweaty patients to handle.

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Our local beekeeper came around yesterday evening to see our 'dinosaur' of a honey extractor. He has been using a hand driven one for years so I offered him the option of using ours when he needed it. It will be sitting around doing nothing for a time as we only have two hives. We do intend to expand our numbers next year, but it takes time to split a hive, install a new queen, and then not raid the hive while they build up numbers and honey supply.

He is a tall, intensely shy man in his thirties. His parents are German and must have kept a tight hold on him as he is quite awkward around others. He shears sheep locally and did ours over Christmas.

Sitting talking on the veranda in the cool of the evening, he told us of his experiences shearing away, and how he didn't enjoy that much, with the rough accommodation, and sometimes wild shearers. He is altogether too fragile to enjoy the ribald jokes and beer drinking.

He brought me a container of his beautiful honey. I will be looking forward to doing the same next year.