The Brine Family Blog

Halloween Party

2008-11-27T21:16:00.016+11:00

Saturday 22nd November 2008

Now, onto the Halloween party. While the boys were out and about making good use of time and going to the pageant and doing a bit of looking around town, I was madly putting streamers up around the house and cutting out bats and witches out of cardboard and hanging them up. During the week the boys helped us put some string on glow in the dark stars and moons and they also did some great cutting out of shapes for me to hang up as well. The boys are really getting good at cutting and colouring in and love it.

I had a ball, having the place to myself and making the place look scary. I put spiders on all the power points, which this will not make Kasha happy as she hates the things, but I thought that it was funny. I also got their costumes ready and set out the table for the food that we were going to make. I made some red and green frog in the pond's for the kids with sour worms hanging out of them and also a pumpkin that you put a candle in the middle of. What a job that was but it turned out really really well.

At around 4pm, the boys came wandering through the door. All I could hear were fits of laughter and excitement as they walked into the new scary house. I think that they were pretty impressed with the effort.

We got them dressed and did a final few adjustments to the house and Jamahl started making pizzas and by this time Kasha was well on her way with the three kids. Five boys, this could be all very interesting. There were a couple of 11 year olds, then a 7 year old and 5 and 3. We figured that when all the excitement had died down and they had done some running around and eaten dinner we would put some scary (cartoon Halloween) movies on for them.

This was ok for the little guys but the big guys started to get bored. I had planned on having some games and things but that just was not going to happen. All the kids had fun though. Tao and Kai were so excited, and it had been building up all week. What a laugh.

Tao has now decided that this is what he would like for his next birthday party. "I think that we could arrange something like that" I said. The adults did not get out of anything, and in fact we made a huge effort. I did some face painting on the kids and they loved that so there was face painting all round. Kasha dressed up as a witch, I did as well. Jamahl dressed up as Dracula, with teeth and all.

Kai dressed as a skeleton pirate like the ones on Pirates of the Caribbean, he had a knife in his belt, a little money pouch, an eye patch, hat and a face full of scars. Tao dressed as Dracula with a black cape, red and black tops with a collar, and some face painting with a drop of red blood on his mouth with Dracula teeth, which he found a laugh to wear and could not talk while they were in place.

Oh yeah and by the way, it is still raining and will be for the next 5 days at least.........You would not think that it is November.

The 2008 Christmas Pageant

2008-11-25T20:15:00.009+11:00

Saturday 22nd November 2008
I cannot believe that it is that time again. The christmas pageant. I know that Adelaide had theirs last week and this week Hobart had their turn. This year we were not quite in a hurry like last year as we knew that it was not as packed out as the Adelaide one. While the kids got themselves organised and of course watched Ben 10 before they even contemplated walking out of the door, Jamahl and I packed a bag and got ready aswell.

This year I was not going to the pageant with the boys, it was to be a boys only day. The reason I stayed at home was because I was going to be setting up the house for a very important party, a belated Halloween party.

The boys set off about 9.30am and the pageant started at 10.30am so I was a tad worried that they would even get to town on time or not. They will figure it out I thought.

At about 12noon I received a call from Jamahl saying that it had all finished and they were going to the markets at Salamanca and then they would be home. By this time I had pretty much all the decorations up and the place was looking pretty good. (a story on the party later)

At about 4pm the boys arrived home all excited about the pageant, but could not tell me who their favourite entry was. I guess there were far too many things to see.

I have put in some photos of the day.

Two new little mouths to feed

2008-11-20T18:16:00.010+11:00

Well two more little mouths to feed scraps to anyway. Tao and Kai are now two little proud owners of their own miniature dwarf lop eared rabbits.

A colleague at work asked me a few weeks ago if I knew of anyone that wanted some baby rabbits, it just so happened to work out that during that week Tao had been asking if he could have one and we were on the hunt for a rabbit hutch.

Everyday we pass a house down the road that has one sitting unwanted in the back yard and everyday Tao kept on asking if we could go to the house and see if he could have it. Finally Tao and Jamahl went up to the front door and asked. The lady was not quite sure if they were going to keep it or not and said that she would ring back and that she did. We were allowed to have it for free, what a find we thought.

After about a week we decided that we really needed to get it as Owen told us that the rabbits were now ready for their new home. After picking up the hutch and on further inspection is was decided that we would have to completely rebuild the thing OR get a new hutch. Being that we don't have all that much time as it is, we decided in the end to get a new one.

Tuesday Owen turned up to work with the rabbits in a carry cage all ready to go. They were so cute and they drew so much attention to my office at work. One is a caramel and white colour and the other is a smokey grey and white. They are about 6 weeks old.

After a shorter journey home compared to the one that they had in the morning they settled in to the lounge room for the night in the travel cage as it was too cold to put them outside in their new hutch and also we did not have the straw and things for their cage.

At this time we asked the boys who wanted to take care of which and Kai quickly piped up and said that he wanted to have the caramel coloured one and Tao was happy with the grey one. There were many discussions over names and after a day it was decided that Kai wanted to call his " Avatar" (after a cartoon character) and Tao's was Homey (after Homer Simpson) (which funnily enough was the name of the last rabbit that we had.

Tao also during the week had a little pet that he had picked up from school called "little matey" which was some sort of insect, we think that it was a cricket. He kept it in a container but unfortunately he died (well got out, according to Tao).

And by the way..... Tao does not spend all his time in his pj's, it just happened that everytime I wanted to take a photo of the kids Tao was still in them.

The Huon Valley Show

2008-11-15T15:13:00.012+11:00

15th November 2008

Well it is that time again for the Huon Valley Show. Apparently it is probably one of the most popular country shows in the south of Tassie. I could believe it! There were quite a number of people and about 10,000 were expected for the one day event.

Like any other show there were rides for the kids, and the adults, show bags, lots of junk food to eat and the normal things like animal judging and arts and crafts. We headed straight for the dodgem cars first as when we went to the Hobart show we forgot to go on them and the kids had been hounding us ever since, so we promised that we would go on them next time we went to a show.

This was our second time to the show as we went last year but of course we did not know anyone so we pretty much saw everything. This year, a year on, every second person that we bumped into we knew from somewhere and that is what we came to Tassie for. Everyone is friendly and it is like a huge country town. Consequently it took us nearly a whole day to see everything as by the time we stopped and talked for a while we kept getting distracted.

The weather was ok, it was forecast for Mountain snow the night before and that it did apparently. In Tassie you have to learn to wear layers because one minute you are cold because of the rain and the wind are upon you and the next, you are hot because the sun is out. That is OK though, it is not that bad. As I am typing this though in the comfort of home, it is bucketing down with rain as per usual, which is definitely what we need so we cannot complain about that. I don't know whether it like that back home, but hopefully it is as SA needs it badly, along with the other states.

The kids had a ball looking at the animals, especially the goats, because they can relate to them now, they also liked the alpacas and thought that they were pretty funny. I learned today that we can make some decent money from breeding goats, they were selling for $350.00 unregistered, or $450.00 registered. Tao and Kai said that one day they would like to bring a goat to the show and show it and see if they can get a ribbon for it. They are really turning into country kids, which is great to see. At least they know where milk comes from, infact everytime Kai pours his milk into his bowl in the morning he asks if it comes from Emma (our friends cow that we were getting milk from a while ago.) I hope that the goats are liking this weather, they have a new house now, as the babies were kicking their mum Jill out her house the other day which meant that she was getting wet all the time.

Overall, it was an excellent day and we will definitely make a yearly event. Maybe next year we might have something to contribute to it. I have also been thinking very seriously of some business ideas that we could do for the farm and one of those would involve possibly being at the show next year. See how we go......

Even More Slow Progress On The Farm

2008-11-11T20:36:00.008+11:00

Well we have a little more progress to report on our first straw bale structure at the block. We now have the roof in place and the frame work and the roof is also double lined with aircell insulation and builders blanket insulation that looks the same as pink bats with sisalation but do not have the same itchy factor when putting them up.

At the moment though because there is so much going on at this time of year things have come to a standstill in the building department as we also have had a few half finished jobs on the go and have decided to finish them first. This is a little frustrating as I really wanted to get into finishing the shed but never mind these things happen.

One of the jobs that we have to now finish is planting the rest of the trees that I am still keeping alive and repotting into bigger pots so that they can survive a little longer before planting them out, and also we have to whipper snip around the plants that we have already planted as now the grass is getting so high that we cannot see them. The baby goats have been having a field day eating the grass around them and also sticking their heads into the plastic bags to see what delight they can eat but luckily they have pretty much stayed away from them.

The other job that we have to finish is plumbing in the rainwater tanks as we have discovered that they are too tall to catch water. We now are going to take the tanks that we already have and move them up to the header tank pad so that we have 3 tanks up there so we will definitely have enough water to irrigate our vegies and trees when we get them going. We will then get a couple of smaller tanks to catch the water off the sheds instead.

We have had quite a lot of interest in the straw bale procedure, from people that we dont even know, but have heard about what we are doing. It is amazing, Tassie is really like a huge country town, you really have to watch what you say and do sometimes, which is not always a bad thing as word of mouth can sometimes be a powerful tool.

I am soon going to be working on our website for the business, which will be pretty exciting, so I may have to procure the services of Monte to help me out a little on this one, so watch out for it.

I have put in a few photos of the shed but also some beautiful sunsets and a rainbow over the windmill and the more than full dam that is over flowing still.

Our first Hobart Royal Show

2008-10-26T21:05:00.014+11:00

Thursday 23rd October 2008
It is a very strange thing for us, but Hobart has a public holiday for the show. Show day is always a Thursday apparently, don't ask me why it is not a Friday. Everyone has the day off and then has to go back to work on the Friday for one day before the weekend, but if you are smart you take the Friday off. I will learn this for next year.

In our usual show tradition we got up early and headed into town. The weather was going to be very warm for the day and we keep forgetting though that we are not on the mainland and things over here are a little more laid back. In Adelaide if we wanted a free car park spot on the street we had to get to town at 7.30am. In Hobart you don't have to rock up until at least 9.00am - 9.30am. The first place that we headed for was the animals, not before Tao had seen the most enormous jumping castle (as pictured). Now that we have goats, I was really interested in seeing all the different types of goats and asked lots of questions, for which no one seemed to be bothered by. I ended up talking to a lady that I am going to be doing a goat husbandry course with on the weekend, and she was full of information so I was quite excited about this.

Our next stop was to look at the motor bikes who were doing tricks on their bikes pretty high up in the air. It was pretty good to see but this did not keep the kids entertained for very long before they were asking to go on a ride or two. Off we went to side show alley and chose a couple of different jumping castles for the boys. The one that Tao went on was far too high for Kai and I knew that Kai would not go on it so he went on a different one. They had a ball of course and this proved to be exhausting and thirsty work for them so about 11am we had lunch.

I must say, the show was a hell of a lot smaller than the Adelaide one, which meant that we managed to go around the whole thing by about 2-3pm. Despite this we had a great time, saw some people that we knew and the kids headed to the show bag hall on the way out.

Once we had got into the car and the kids were starting to tear their show bag apart they promptly reminded us that we did not go on the dodgem cars. We had been talking about going on them a few days before hand, but with all the excitement about what to see next we forgot all about them. The Huonville show is coming up so maybe we will go on them then.

On the way home we decided to head down to our favourite beach at Kingston. This is where we always have our ice cream at a little cafe that looks out onto the water. The beach here is awesome, white sand and a good swell but not too big. We quite often go down to the beach and make sand castles and look over to the other side of the peninsula. There are some photos included of this. We also have the most amazing rainbows like I have never seen. The most at one time I have seen have been three bands. What a sight.

Our New Car....

2008-10-26T20:51:00.001+11:00

After much deliberation and research for quite a few weeks I finally decided what new car to get (well second hand new anyway). We have been wanting to get rid of our Magna as we don't really need the room anymore for prams and things as the kids don't have a need for these.

I decided to look for a Toyota Rav 4. I didn't want something too old and so I started looking for something that was 2000 and younger. After looking pretty hard in the paper and at car yards I came to the conclusion that Tassie was not the place to buy cars as you generally pay anywhere from $2000 - $5000 more for the same thing that you would buy on the mainland. Everyone I spoke to said they have gone over to the mainland to buy a car and so that is what I started at looking to do.

I found one in Penrith in Sydney and also one in Baulkham Hills, and set about booking planes, boats and rental cars for the short time over in Sydney. I could not get time off work to go so Jamahl went over there. He hated every minute of it, the traffic was really busy and everything was very expensive, but after getting lost a few times we finally purchased our new car.

How exciting......well for us anyway.

It is white, 4wd, and is in fantastic condition.

Spinning Wheel

2008-10-21T21:04:00.008+11:00

I have a new toy to play with, a spinning wheel. Quite a few months ago I was looking on my friend Ebay and won a really old spinning wheel, but it was in Victoria. This did not stop me as I knew that I would be able to get it over to Tassie at a reasonable price. I won this really old spinning wheel that was made in Victoria many many years ago for a whole $50.00. Not bad I thought considering that they are normally going for about $200.00 or more in the shops over here and this one had a pair of carders to go with it. Carders (if that is how you spell it anyway) are used to comb the wool before you spin it, making it easier and keeps the wool at an even width.

I was so excited. I asked a very good friend of mine Bronwyn, who lives in Melbourne if she could go and pick it up for me. After a few dramas I dont think that she will pick anything up for her mad friend again. She lovingly wrapped it in bubble wrap for me and tried to send it by good old Australia Post but they would not touch it, so after all of this running around I decided that I would just fly over to Melbourne and bring it back on the plane with me.

After waiting for a couple of months I saw some cheap flights to Melbourne and decided to take Tao with me so that he could play with Hayley at the same time, and I also got to hang around with Bronwyn and see Connor, as he is getting so big now.

Tao and I had a brilliant weekend, we stayed with Bronwyn and Andrew and the kids and took the kids out on the Saturday and Sunday we flew back. Tao and I had a great trip together and Kai stayed at home with Jamahl having fun as well.

It was also Jamahl's b day the weekend that we went over there, so I felt pretty bad but we had a nice breakfast on the Friday morning and Sunday we went out for dinner.

When I lived over in Adelaide everyone would have thought that I was mad getting a spinning wheel but over here everyone else has them as well so it is not a big deal. A friend at work came in a couple of weeks ago with this huge tartan bag and gave it to me. I didn't know what it was at first but a quick look inside made me jump up and down with joy and I don't think that you could get the smile off of my face, she had got me some beautiful chocolate brown wool, the bag was enormous, there was definitely enough in there to keep me occupied that is for sure. All I have to do now is try it out, I cannot wait but I have not had time as yet to do it. Thank you Sue.....

Taos First Performance

2008-10-21T20:12:00.009+11:00

What an exciting adventure. Tao had his first public performance for his Kinder, Illawarra Primary School. An art gallery in Salamanca Place was opening an exhibition about kids and Tao's deputy principle was helping in the running of it. The kids in the Kinder class had to do a performance and it was on TV. The kids had been practicing for weeks but to ask Tao about the performance before today he would not tell us, saying that he could not remember what he had to do.

Jamahl and I were excited anyway....oh yeah and Kai who also wanted to come along and watch. I took the afternoon off work and went along, it was an excellent exhibition with pieces of art and information from various schools around the South of Tassie.

The kids walked into the room in a line, dressed in all black and sat quietly waiting for their turn. They then got up in a big line and did their dance to music that was performed by some other kids in the class. What a sight, it was pretty funny and the kids did an excellent job, it brought a tear to my eye because I realised just how quick the kids were growing up.

Tao in the last picture is the 5th one from the right, Fran is his teacher in grey.

More progress at Bodhi Farm

2008-10-02T18:59:00.010+10:00

Well I know that I have not added anything to this for a while and everyone has asked me when I am going to do another entry. I have been pretty buggered lately with my new position at work and consequently because I spend all day on the computer at work sometimes I just want to chill out, so I apologize for that.

Well things are coming along really well in the straw bale shed building department. We have finally managed to get a builder to put the frame work up for it after a few Owner Builder dramas thanks to the Council (that was before I started working there by the way).

The framework and roof are in place and last weekend I spent Sunday painting bitumen paint on the slab where the straw bale frame is going to sit and Jamahl did some piping for the drainage around the site. The bitumen paint is to prevent moisture coming up through the bales and rotting them out. I painted around the outside of the slab as well to stop any moisture sitting around the bottom of the bales. Now that the frame is up this weekend we are going to be building the ladder work to put the bales on above the slab, again this is to keep the bales off the ground in case of moisture. This will then be filled with 20mm gravel. It should only take a weekend to do the ladder work if the weather stays the way it was today.

Later next week we are having the trench dug by Wally for the electrical cable and our next door neighbour Michael who is an electrician is going to lay it for us and connect it up to the meter box. This will be pretty exciting as it means that we can put some lights in the shed that we already have built and also we will be able to use some power tools without the use of a generator. We have also had some tanks delivered so we will connect one of those this weekend as well so that means that with all the rain that we have been having lately we will fill the tanks in no time at all.

It has been raining for the last couple of weeks non stop and we still have snow on the Hartz mountains as well and today was pretty warm despite all of this. It is absolutely beautiful at the moment over here as all the spring grass is growing, it is beautiful for the rest of the year as well but for some reason it is even more so at the moment. We have nearly been here for a whole year now.

It is pretty hard to believe and in our true form we have managed to do a fair bit in a short amount of time and had a lot of fun doing it.

Tao and Kai are still loving it as much as us over here. They love the snow, the bike riding, the new friends and the new farm lifestyle which is great. Tao mentioned the other day that he wants to be a farmer when he grows up and he asks for a horse almost every day. His school is very much into gardening and he does really well at this.

Both Jamahl and I are very much into the Permaculture Association over here which is great. I have been doing alot of the paperwork stuff like redesigning the membership form and Jamahl is about to run a short workshop on Grey Water systems and then I will be helping to teach the introduction to Permaculture course sometime this year. The association is quite young and small still but interest is growing every day and hopefully new members will grow as well.

On the way to work one morning I saw the most bizaare sight, it was quite a windy day and I looked to the sky and saw the weirdest shaped clouds, they looked like UFO's in the air. I have never seen anything like it.

Hope everyone is good and keep an eye out on more news....

A day in the snow

2008-08-19T21:01:00.020+10:00

Sunday 17th August 2008

Mum and dad are over from Adelaide on their first visit to Tasmania, so after going to the Salamanca markets yesterday and buying a few souvenirs and having a good look around I decided that a trip to the Tahune Airwalk and a visit to the block was in order. The weather was good and we knew that there may be the possibility of rain but that was ok. We purchased our tickets from the visitors centre in Geeveston and proceeded to the block to check on the new arrivals that were still not even 24hrs old yet.

We arrived at the Tahune Airwalk which is only about 15-20 mins away from our block, parked the car and started to have a look around. The water was running so fast under the bridge, it was amazing, we all decided after some discussion that if you fell over the edge you really would not have a hope in hell of not drowning. I have seen pictures of when the water level was so high that it destroyed the bridge and that was not all that long ago.

After a meandering walk we finally reached the end of the walk and the kids now a year older from the last time that they were on there were having a ball trying to make the whole structure shake and move ( kids meaning Tao and Jamahl) as Kai does not really like things moving too much that are at great heights so he layed down on the floor and kept telling them to stop.

Each time that we have gone, we are always amazed at the beauty of the place and the fact that it is on our doorstep, and each time that we have gone it has been different weather so it is nice to see it at different times of the year.

After exploring for a while we headed insid while. Whe the visitors centre for some lunch as it had started to rain, only lightly but enough to get you drenched if you stood out in it for aile at lunch we reminded the boys that we were going to be going to the snow today aswell, up to the Hartz Mountains, we were all pretty excited about this, as coming from SA we have not come across snow in our back yard like we do here. They boys forgot to bring their carrot for their snowman's nose and something for his eyes so Tao and his cute voice asks the waitress if she could ask the chef is he had a carrot and something for the eyes of the snowman.

Sure enough a few minutes later she came back with a carrot and some tomatoes for his eyes, and Tao went up to the chef on the way out of the restaurant and thanked him while jumping up and down as he knew that it was time to leave for the snow.

Jamahl and I and the kids had still not been up to the Hartz yet, but have been meaning to. On the way there we stopped at a very short walk called "The Big Tree" and that is was. The tree was a Eucaplypt by the name of Regnans ( I have forgotten the botanical name for it mind you) but it was amazing, the trunk was so large and it was dying because it was that big that it has got to the stage that it is starting to shrink. Poor thing.

After this it was off to the next track to the snow. We had two cars for the whole trip as we could not all fit so I was driving the Magna and Jamahl was driving the Mazda. As we were going up higher and higher up the mountain we suddenly hit snow and before we knew it the magna was a little bogged as the snow did not look at deep as it was. Jamahl jumped in and finally drove it up the hill to the next stop, and I drove the Mazda, as I felt a little more at home and safer until someone was coming the other way and caused us both to skid to a halt which happened quite a few times. We all finally got there in the end.

It was the most amazing sight, even better than the last time that we saw the snow at Mount Wellington, this was thicker and fluffier and the day was perfect and not cold at all. We all donned our snow gear on and started a huge snow fight, Mum, Dad, the boys and I we all laughing so hard because the snow balls were in full flight.

After settling down we started to make a snowman, and by this time all the boys wanted to do was keep throwing snow and the snowman making was pretty much left up to the adults. Kai was in his element, he was climbing hills of snow and sliding down them and throwing snow balls and laughing, it was so good to see. Tao at first was a bit annoyed (he called it) he did not like getting hit with the snow.

I thought that our efforts of snowman making was brilliant and we managed to get the kids interested and I got them to find something for his arms and buttons, mum donated her hat and the kids scarf aswell.

We next went for an explore in the Mazda, we got a fair way up the mountain more before we got stuck again and had to reverse all the way down the hill and the 4wd could not even go up the hill. The fog had started lifting at this stage and we could see that we still had a fair way to go to get up to the top, but we decided to head back down and make our way home as it was getting fairly late in the day and everyone else had gone home.

While on the way home we came across a couple and their son who had got their car into a sticky situation and needed help getting out, Jamahl jumped in the Mazda and proceeded to help them out while mum, dad, the boys and I went to Rebecca and Montes house to say hi for a while. We had a snack and then it was time to move on, the boys were playing with their favourite friends, Georgia and Matty but it was dinner time.

After a long day of fun we finally had dinner and went to bed.......what a day.

New Grand Kids in the Brine Family

2008-08-19T20:55:00.010+10:00

Well.... in the goat world anyway.

As of the 17th of August 2008 at around about 2-3pm in the afternoon we had 2 new little arrivals. What a sight, they are gorgeous. It puts all my queries and wonderings about whether Jill was really pregnant or I was imagining things.

We had spent the day at the Salamanca Markets in Hobart and mum, dad and myself had been for a scenic drive home and as we do every day we checked on Cheeky and Jill to feed them and make sure that they were ok, also they love the company and know that there are always treats for them when we come to the block.

As we drove up the long and steep driveway we got to the opening of our main driveway and I looked over at the goat pens and could not believe my eyes, there we two tiny little goats walking around. I raced out of the car because I was dying to see the new additions, pity the boys and Jamahl were not there to see them but I was soon on the phone to tell them of the good news.

I think that literally they had only been born about 2 hours as they were still a little wet and looking very sleepy. Cheeky must have thought that he was the dad as he was bouncing around his pen and bleeting madly when I went up to him. I had to pick the little ones up because they had wandered over to him probably thinking that he was mum and were trying to get something to eat that wasnt really there.

I checked Jill and boy was she hungry, which is an understatement, she ate everything in sight that I gave her and while she was doing that I made sure that everything was ok and the little ones were aswell. They were so cute and one was bigger than that other one. One is pretty much pure white and the other one has a couple of brown patches over each eye. I could not see just yet what sex they were but I would wait for this.

Mum and dad were pretty impressed and were madly taking photos, it was good that they got to witness the occasion aswell.

Well after a week of getting to know the little ones the boys are wrapped now that they have started to move around, we thought that it was now time to name them. The pure white ones name is Supergirl (named by Kai) and the second one is Shya (named by Tao) the reason for these names are that the white one jumps everywhere and does not walk and flies through the air and the other one is really timid and shy. They are now starting to roam further away from mum and getting alot of confidence up and are now starting to eat the hay and the grass around the place.

I am on a steep learning curve with this. I have found a vet that I can ring anytime that will answer my questions that seem to me to be worrying ones but always turn out that the problem is normal and thanks to Miranda Jill had a blocked teat but that is now clear. I am going to leave the babies on her for a little while as we are not set up yet for milking but in a couple of months when we build a new goat pen for them with a milking stand for me to milk on then we will start getting our own milk, that is going to be pretty exciting.

Anyway, here are some photos of the new little ones and I will post some more in due course as more news comes to light.

If anyone has had any experience with goats and raising them and would like to comment please do, or if you have anything to else to say.

See ya.

And we are on our way.... to the next shed

2008-08-11T19:56:00.016+10:00

Well we really feel like we are getting somewhere. The 6x15 shed has now officially been finished bar the electrical work that needs to be done. We have concreted the floor and today we had our stuff that we have had in storage delivered. This is not only a money relief but also a useful one. We quite often forget what we have in storage which is pretty easy to do considering how long we have been without the stuff.

We worked on putting the box section up for the 6x12 shed which is going to be our strawbale one. After working out the diagonals and measurements we then started setting to work putting the box together and making sure that it was all level with the laser level and also the right length and width. After this it was time to put the formacon plastic d own as a moisture barrier and then the rio mesh was laid down. By this time it was getting fairly late in the day and time to think about getting home, but not before we had to move the goats as they had pretty much eaten all the grass that they had around them. This always proves a fun task as Cheeky thinks that he is suddenly off his lead and he is so strong and loves playing.

It is so good to see that the goats are really getting along well and love playing with each other, but Jill is still head of the pack and occasionally lets Cheeky know this.

Well it is only a week now until my parents come over from Adelaide for a visit, we are all pretty excited about it and no doubt they are too. It will be pretty exciting to show them our new patch of what we now call our home.

Attached are some pictures of the 6x15 shed going up.......and of course some pictures of the kids helping and Tao doing some concreting....and the kids shed.
The whole open bay part of the shed is now completely full of straw bales waiting to be used for the next project.

See you soon.
Tanya

National Tree Day at Bodhi Farm in Tassie

2008-07-31T20:47:00.021+10:00

Sunday 27th July 2008
( I have discovered by the way that if you double click on any photo on this blog you will be able to look at it on a larger scale)

Yes it is National Tree Day again and with our usual tradition we aimed to plant as many trees as possible for the day.

With a great deal of preparation and organization in the few weeks before we were certain that it would all pay off for us.

I worked out what plants we wanted to plant and where and set about trying to find a supplier of trees as we had got quite busy in Oct/Nov of last year when we were suppose to start propogating and planning so this year we would have to buy some in. This proved to be a little difficult as we were still trying to work out who supplies what and to where. Finally I found a place in Launceston that supplies trees in Hiko trays (which are plugs, which are quite small trees) but the smaller they are the better and stronger they grow in the end. They were able to supply the trees for around 70 cents which is quite cheap. I organized and ordered about 850 trees and this was only to fill one side of our wildlife corridor on the block, and even then we would still need understorey and shrubs.

With a detailed plan of the block in one hand and a day after I ordered them the trees arrive and we were pretty much ready for the day. Food was organised for the anticipated volunteers that would arrive and suitable work wear was also needed. After inviting all the people that we knew over here we ended having about 14 people altogether come and enjoy the day which we thought was fantastic considering that we have only been in Tassie since October.

Jamahl borrowed a petrol auger from work and worked out from the plan where the trees were going. We measured out some stakes at the precise points as to where the different species of trees were going to go and started laying out tree guards, stakes, water, soil and plants.

First to arrive was Miranda and Monte, they set to work planting and Monte was put to work putting soil in the holes that Jamahl had drilled, ready for the plants to go in. I was to come up behind them and put the tree guards on around the plants and Jamahl was going to drill some more holes for the plants. We had a fantastic system going and were going really well. I needed to start using the new tree guards that we had bought that came on a roll and soon discovered that the shop had given us the wrong ones......spewing. That was ok, we decided that we would just plant the trees that had tree guards supplied and leave it at that as we could not risk the plants being eaten by the wildlife in the area.

All in all we had the most fantastic day and planted about 200 trees, we now have a sea of tree guards, and those of you who saw our efforts at Murray Bridge in Adelaide you will appreciate the same effort that we had put in on Sunday. It will look amazing and serve many purposes when it all starts growing. The best thing about this block compared to Murray Bridge is that we only have to water the trees in when we plant them and put a tree guard on and walk away, no irrigation, no mulch and no compost is needed for this lot, what a relief. We could not have asked for a better day weather wise, we had sun even though it was a little chilly we did not mind in the slightest.

The kids also had a ball as there were six of them altogether and they all had fun either climbing on our mountain of straw bales that now take up our whole shed, or the enormous dirt mound, or the playground. They were in their element.

In the late afternoon we then headed over to Monte and Rebecca's house for Matty's 2nd bday party, so we had another big day.

A huge thank you to everyone that came along and helped us out for the day, it is really great to see the community spirit that everyone has over here and there is always someone or people willing to help and lend a hand. We enjoyed the day and look forward to helping you all plant your share at any stage.

The new addition to the family

2008-07-20T19:46:00.014+10:00

July 19th & 20th 2008
We have a new addition to the family. A new goat. His name is cheeky and is the same breed as our lovely Jill, a Saanen goat. He is pretty cheeky but being on his own is one thing and now that there are two of them that is another. We picked him up from Michelle's house (a lady at work) on Saturday morning, put him in the back of the 4WD, which was a sight to see in itself, but he was loving it and practically jumped in the back by himself. A short trip to the block later and eating everything in the back of the car later he was introduced to Jill.

It only took about 5 seconds before Jill made sure that she was boss of the field. Cheeky TRIED to assert himself but one telling off and prod of the head with Jill's horns and he was sent packing. It was so funny, he certainly has quietened down again in a hurry. Every time Jill even looks at him now he runs for his life. In saying that he thinks that he can take on the next door neighbours dog though, he rears himself up and stands pretty tall and come crashing down just in front of her nose.

On Sunday we helped one of Jamahl's work mates out with planting trees on his property at Oyster Cove in the morning until after lunch and that was fun. He has about 50 acres and is looking at acquiring about 50 more. He has beef cows on there at the moment and is re vegetating a lot of it. That was all fun, he is going to help us out next weekend with National Tree Day on Sunday.

On the way back to the block in the afternoon I have been dying to take some photos of the amazing scenery from the top of a hill that is our short cut from Huonville to Geeveston. On one side it looks over the valley towards the Hartz Mountains and that is our back doorstep of the property, on the other side is a view of Sleeping Beauty and Mt Wellington etc. I also have some amazing sunrise pictures that I took last week in the morning from our rental. Some of these photos do not do it justice unless you are looking at them on a large scale but you will get the picture I hope. There is also a picture of going over the bridge in Hobart coming from the airport, some of you that have been here will recognise but others are yet to see.

Well it is a short one for now. I have to finish the Adelaide trip journal soon and I have a few more things to put in as well so look out for it.

See you....

One very frosty morning

2008-07-04T20:41:00.009+10:00

My goodness it was cold last night and I now know why. I knew there was a reason for me to stay in bed snuggled up nicely, this does not happen all that often mind you, we normally bounce out of bed to start the day. We got up and started having breakfast and I happened to look at the next door neighbours house and thought that it had been snowing. Everything in sight was white with the heaviest frost I have seen for a while. What a laugh, we opened up the door of the house and had a look. There was that much frost that I had trouble opening the car door because it had stuck to the body of the car and there were little particles sticking up in the air, it really had looked like it had been snowing.

We have had some amazing weather occurances this week. During the week we also had some major water levels in the Huon River which came to and over some roads, it was amazing to see and then because the river is tidal the water receeded a little before we knew it in about half an hour. Some areas like Franklin were pretty flooded as these pictures will show and apparently this happends pretty much every year. We have apparently not had the most water we will get though. The water comes down the Judbury valley when it rains and all of the smaller rivers run into the Huon river and create a huge water swell. This is something Adelaide and Perth I am sure would love to have. We are pretty lucky really.

Apparently it snows in Geeveston sometimes so this will be great, I cannot wait.
Talking about snow. All this week we have had snow on the mountains and we said that we will take the kids up there for some snow fights and to build a snow man or two now that they have some snow gloves to keep them warm. One of the girls at work wanted to go during the week but instead her daughter came in carrying a plastic bag full of snow. It was so funny and cute at the same time. She was pretty excited. Small things amuse small minds apparently but for those of us that come from the main land we really appreciate this beauty every day.

Our first lawn mower

2008-07-01T12:28:00.001+10:00

June 29th 2008

What an exciting day we were going to have today, we have organised to pick up our first bit of livestock for the property. We had a phone call a couple of weeks ago from some people that we know that live not far from where we are living at the moment in Judbury, saying that they are going back to the mainland and wanted to know if we wanted their beloved family pet as they knew that we would look after her. We of course said yes and this made me pretty excited as I have wanted one for ages and I know that the kids would too.

We had agreed to get given a goat. Not just any goat but a Saanen goat which are the best milking goats that you can have. They are very docile, friendly and love company and produce about 4-7 litres of milk per day and are very easy to milk, this is exactly what we were looking for. I could not wait to see her and bring her to the block to start bringing the grass and blackberries down a bit as we have not been able to have the neighbours cows on the property for a while because of the work that we have been doing so this was going to be great.

It was a couple of weeks since we talked to Richard and Vanessa so we made contact and agreed to pick the goat up today. Consequently Jamahl and I spent all day making a snug goat pen for her to sleep in and so she does not get wet. I did a bit of research on her and found out that goats unlike sheep are not grazers, they need shelter otherwise they can develop respiratory problems and we did not want that. The pen look amazing considering that we made it out of mostly scrap wood and tin and we had a ball doing it as well. Now it was off to get the goat.

By the time we got organised it was 3pm and it was starting to get a little dark so we had to get a wriggle on. We arrived at Vanessa and Richards, said hello, chatted, packed the wood heater that we bought off of them into the car and I headed straight for the goat. Her name is Jill, and is pure white and is about 3 years old and has had 2 lots of kids already and apparently can look after herself pretty well when it comes to birthing so that is going to be a relief. Vanessa suspects that she may be pregnant already again but time will tell in about 4 months time as apparently they have a gestation period of 7 months. She is beautiful, very gentle and LOVES eating. She loves the wattle branches that we gave her and apples as well.

This week I had to get a new collar that is stronger than the one that she has one her and a running lead to put on the tether and also a brush to start brushing her which hopefully she will like.

Our Surprise Adelaide trip - Chapter 2

2008-06-30T12:58:00.025+10:00

Friday and Saturday June 6th 2008

While we are staying at Peter and Kerry's house the boys are always excited about the prospect of having a ride on their favourite toys, the quad bike and the dirt bike.

We had a few things to do as per usual and then back it was home time again. I had to get my haircut and have waited to come back to Adelaide to do it as I have only used the same hairdresser for the last 10 years and it was also a special occasion on the weekend. While I was out at town the boys, Pete and Kerry went for a walk down the back of their property and had a look around. They have a wonderful 15 acres and have the most amazing view from the top of it. Very lucky but have also worked very hard to be there.

Once I came home in the early afternoon, had lunch and snacks we decided that the boys would get their wish. I have never seen them move so fast as what they did this day. They followed uncle Peter to the shed and opened it up watched intently. It was then a fight to see who was going to go first and both Tao and Kai did not want to miss out.

Around and round they went on the property on the quad and then then it was time for the dirt bike. Safety was had all round of course..... then it was also the big kids turn (Jamahl). He had a smile from ear to ear as he has been wanting a bike for ages but I keep saying no, too dangerous especially on the roads.

All the kids were pretty knackered out for the afternoon and after all the fun we decided to go back inside and start dinner for the evening and sit down.

Pete and Kerry's son and daughter in law to be were coming over with their georgous daughter Jasmine and that was nice to see them and catch up with them aswell.

What a day.

Sunday June 8th 2008

Today was going to be a big day. We slept in as per usual for the holidays so far, but that is what holidays are for I guess. We were suppose to be a Leigh's house at 9am but made it there at 10.00am instead. We helped him with some things for lunch preparations and had a chat and played with Chalina the dog and then we were off to mum and dads house for mums super surprise.

Leigh had arrived before we had and had started unloading and then once we had organised ourselves we got out and headed inside. Everyone knew that we were coming and were all of a sudden quiet when they knew that we were coming inside. Mum had absolutely no idea at all that we were coming let alone a party. The look on her face when we came around the corner of the dining room was priceless and well worth the trip over to Adelaide, as it was her 60th and a big birthday at that.

After all the emotional hugs and kisses and a couple of tears we all said our hellos to everyone and got into the party aswell. It was nice to see so many people turning out especially others from interstate. Mum could not stop hugging us and was still in shock for the rest of the day it was good to see.

At the end of the day we were all exhausted and went to bed pretty tired and all with smiles on our faces. Mum could not believe that we were also going to be staying with them for the next 3 days aswell. I dont think that she will forget this in a great hurry....we were glad.

Mon June 9th - Wed June 10th

We had a fair bit of cleaning up to do from the previous day but that was ok we all pitched in and helped and we soon forgot about it. It was a public holiday today so everyone was off work and Leigh came over to visit aswell so that we could all catch up. We had an idea that we were going to take the kids to St Kilda playground to play for a while, but as soon as we were thinking that it started to rain and was quite cold. We also had another idea. We would take them to an indoor playground to play. They was been absolute angles and have not asked to play on a playground but we thought that it was their holiday aswell so why not. After having some lunch and heading to Glenelg, going past Harbor Town to do some shopping at the same time we finally got to Wiggly Worms, but Jamahl had an idea that the new Waterworld on the beach could be good.

After deciding what to do the kids were going to go on a train ride, carousel ride and on the indoor playground for 1 hour. That should keep them occupied. They also got their arms painted as spiderman of course and that also made them happy.

We went to the museum on tuesday as Tao has hassled us for the last few weeks about going as he saw the movie " One night in the musem" and thinks that all animals come alive at night time which is quite cute really. So off we went and I always thought that the place was alot bigger than it really is, but maybe because when you are a kid you always think that things ARE bigger. He was obsessed about the tombs and mummies and was eager to head there first. Funny boy.
We had a ball and met mum and dad about lunch and headed into town for the rest of the day. I got told off several times for using the flash on my camera, the security guard had a grand time chasing me around the place telling me off, but it was the only way that I could take some decent pictures.

Our Surprise Adelaide trip

2008-06-23T19:33:00.008+10:00

Wed June 4th 2008

(this is going to be long so I am going to break it up into a few different stories.....)

Well we are off to Adelaide today by plane leaving Hobart airport at 11.10am and arriving at our destination at 1.10pm Adelaide time. At the airport to greet us was our really good friend Kerry. We were really excited to see her and the kids were aswell. Both her and Peter have helped us out immensely over the many years that we have known them and we appreciate that. We were going to be staying with them for the next 4 days so that should be fun, the kids certainly love spending time with Aunty Kerry and Uncle Peter.

Once the plane had landed and we grabbed all of our stuff and poor Kerry headed out in the car into Adelaide traffic madness heading for the hire car company to pick up our car for the 2 week trip. We hired a subaru outback and boy was it nice, I certainly was not going to want to give this back in a hurry. We were starving hungry and so we headed for the Gouger street markets for lunch which was always our favourite place to eat. They have a vegetarian place called "Pure Vegetarian" and the food is awesome and cheap and tasty. The food is made from gluten or mock meat as the asians call it and then it was off to roam the markets and see what bargains we could pick up. Whilst in an asian grocery store Jamahl came across one of his old girlfriends mum from way back.

We did a bit more shopping and headed to Pete and Kerry's house to settle ourselves in for the next few days. The trip down south to our old stomping ground was not without its events. We were pretty much nearly there when Kai was being mr chucky in the background so we did a major turn into a service station and spent the next 20mins or so cleaning him and the brand new car that we had up so that we could drive a little longer without being sick ourselves. This was unexpected, he was alright the rest of the day and he does not get car sick so who knows what was happening. We finally got there after a quick visit past our old house, it still looked the same, one lot of our neighbours are now parents and that was good to see then the action of Kai being sick sent us off on our way again.

It was nice to arrive at Kerry and Petes house and sit down and do nothing for a minute as it had been a pretty long day. We had dinner and sat back chatting after the kids had gone to bed for a while before I fell asleep on the floor infront of the wood heater. I guess I was pretty knackered, well that was enough for the day anyway. We were looking forward to seeing some of our other friends tomorrow and catching up on any new goss and news.

Thurs June 5th 2008

Well this morning we woke to a nice sunny day, typical dry, hot Adelaide. We are going to catch up with Shane, Majda, Lucy and Sebastian. We went around their place in the morning just before lunch and surprised them which was nice and it was great to catch up with them see what they have been up to. They sold their house and have bought some land in the Aldinga Arts Eco Village and that is now on the market so they are renting back the house that they sold. They are a bit unsure of what they are going to do at the moment but I am sure that they will work it out. The kids have grown so much. Last time we saw them (8 mths ago) Sebastian was not walking yet and was sitting, now he is zooming around the place and trying to catch up with the other kids. That is so cute. The kids had a ball playing and got along really well and were not happy when we told them that they had to say good bye and get going. We wanted to do a few things before we headed off to another friends house at 2pm. I can see that we are going to be flat out driving around for the next 2 weeks.

We went to another cool vegetarian cafe for lunch in Christies Beach, which is south of Adelaide. We really miss this part of Adelaide, there are a fair few vego options to choose from. Hobart does not have all that much. If anyone can tell us where to go that would be great, but unless you are vego yourself you never really notice.

After having lunch and going to a few op shops, which is my favourite past time, we then headed to Kate and Andrews to see them and Tahli. Again we have not see these guys since Tahli was born, she is so cute and smiles all the time and Kate is doing quite well and enjoys being a mum and I can see that, she adores Tahli, it is really good to see. We had a nice visit but after an hour we had to be off again.

We had to go to the airport AGAIN because somehow we forgot a parcel, and it so happened that it was the all important 60th bday presents, I could not believe it. We took to opportunity to go shopping at Harbor Town and bought some things for our new goat and for ourselves and the kids. They are really cheap and all I could start to think was, " if we keep going like this we are going to need a truck to get all this back!". Again the day went and we decided to go back to our new home for the next few days and avoid the peak hour traffic. I was starting to get annoyed with it already and we were only on our second day. We managed to make it back in sort of good time and then we helped Kerry with dinner and sat down to relax for the night. Another day over already!!!!

An Inaugrial Event....

2008-06-01T19:30:00.021+10:00

Saturday 2nd June 2008

Today was going to be a pretty momentous moment. The windmill is going up for good, about time we are saying considering that it has been laying on the ground for a few months now. I was getting pretty excited about it all. After making sure that everything was greased, primed and working well including attaching the pump correctly we were ready to put the whole thing into place.

In true tassie family form, Monte was around to help as we needed two people driving and one person directing the aim of the windmill. Rebecca came around as well to help us take photos and the kids played together and had fun as per usual.

While Monte and Jamahl were tinkering I was repainting the vane for the windmill as it was getting pretty faded and you could not see the writing.

The windmill is a Bryan Colac windmill and we bought it from a farmer in New Norfolk. Boy the farmers are going to have something to really say now that it is up and away.

Once all the ropes were attached to both cars it was now the nerve racking moment, the boys were in the cars and I was making sure that the legs were lining up and the there was enough tension in the ropes to stop it from falling over when it got to the feet. The gin pole is pretty amazing, I cannot believe that it takes the whole weight on the windmill.

It was pretty funny, at one stage earlier on in the day Jamahl was testing the gin pole and whether it was in the right position and managed the snap the rope clean in half, that was pretty scary, the wind mill proceeded to come crashing down but luckily not to the ground. It was then decided that the gin pole had to be moved a meter or two towards Montes car. After realigning the pole it was time to test it again. Everyone was in place and we were all pretty anxious to see everything go right, especially Jamahl as he had been planning this moment for a while. The attached movie is pretty cool.

This is one of the best moments so far, it was beautiful, and amazing. Just using two 4wd's and a gin pole, you would never have thought.

When everything went extremely well, we were all exstatic and jumping up and down and were pretty quick to pull out the beers and have a toast to the huge event. Well it was for us anyway.....

It was so awesome to see and nerve racking at the same time. We were pretty confident that the legs that were concreted in the ground were going to fit and they did. Thank you to Rebecca and Monte for your help, our LETS list is pretty even now I think.

Windmill Raising

2008-05-26T21:21:00.014+10:00

Saturday and Sunday May 24 /25

It is all starting to get more exciting for us. Not only have we got all the piers concreted and set for the new shed that will hopefully be started this week, but we have nearly raised the windmill at last. The poor thing has been laying on the ground for the last couple of months while we have been deciding where to put it and get our selves organised.

Jamahl went to the block early saturday morning and started finishing the concrete footings. Again I felt pretty bad that I was not in the lead as quick but I stayed home for a little while, got the kids organised and headed out mid morning.

When we arrived, the kids flew out of the car, and started climbing on the structure, this seems to be their newest playground feature.

After a few dramas of trying to get the top of the windmill connectors near the bottoms half we finally succeeded. Jamahl and I then started putting bolts and nuts together and everything started to come together. After lunch I decided that we should put a bit of history in this thing and got the kids to put their hands in the concrete and make their mark. It was pretty cute, they were so excited about it. It turned out really well and so now we have one piece of history that we will not forget in a hurry. At least when the kids get older they can hopefully look back and laugh on this day, I know we will be.

Jamahl and I found out the the various farmers around us have all got bets on all the projects that we are attempting to undertake. It is pretty funny really. They are predicting that our dam is going to fail, and that our windmill is going to blow over with the first breath of air that goes over it. They dont have any confidence in us really do they..... I guess anything that is new is always going to seem strange. I can tell you now though, if none of this happens they will be attempting to put up their own, who will be betting on them then. We will be.

This weekend coming we should be able to put the whole thing up in the air and get it going. We just have to do some more cosmetic things like finish painting the bolts and nuts and any slightly rusty spots that are appearing.

Handmade Washing Detergent

2008-05-26T20:30:00.006+10:00

I have run out of washing detergent and had all intentions of making my own like I use to a long time ago (when I had time.....). Bugger it I thought I AM going to do this. Rebecca had kindly got me a grater, I found a wooden spoon, went to the shops to get the other ingredients and off I went. It is the easiest thing to do and it is all worthwhile IF it works. I have had great success in the past and thought I could not possibly go wrong.

My intention for this is not only to not have to go to the supermarket to get it, but also to be kinder to the environment and the water. Some of the ingredients in shop bought washing detergents are not only bad for you but very bad for the enviroment. Because we have always had the idea that we would have a grey water system in our house we have always been conscious of what we are putting down the sink.

The washing detergent that I am about to make is phosphorus free, low sodium and fragrance free, apart from some recipes you can put a couple of drops of essential oil in the mix to make it smell nice.

The recipe is:

Ingredients

Washing Soda
Pure Soap
Boiling water
Wooden spoon
2 x 20 litre buckets
1 grater
Essential oil of some kind (optional)

Method

Basically you get your two buckets
Put 1 cup of washing soda in one bucket
Grate 1 bar or pure soap in the other bucket
Boil a full kettle of water and put 1/2 of the boiled water in each bucket
Using the wooden spoon stir the liquids around until dissolved
Combine the two buckets when dissolved and fill the bucket completely with cold or warm water and keep stirring
Add a couple of drops of essential oil if necessary
Put the lid on and that is that.
(you will have to stir the liquid everytime you go to use it otherwise it forms a thick layer ontop of the water)
Once you have restirred the liquid then use 1 cup of liquid to your wash

This recipe is what I have always used and is really good for top loading washing machines. Since buying a front loader washing machine I have found that when you put the liquid in the dispenser it disappears.

I decided to try a different approach this time and this happened completely by accident. I could only find small 5 litre buckets this time so I still used my same old recipe but in a smaller bucket size. What came out of this was that a gel formed instead of really runny liquid. I was pretty excited.

After the liquid started to cool down however I discovered that the whole thing went solid. I then put a little more water in and then used my bamix hand mixer and wizzed it up. That was better, now I really do have a gel type mixture and works really well. I will be doing this from now on. I still managed to make about 3 litres of mixture so this will last me about 6-10 weeks, and it has only cost me about 50cents so far. You have got to be happy with that and the whole process did not take as long as you think.

The Uni Revue

2008-05-23T21:13:00.003+10:00

Thursday 22nd May

After a pretty hard and busy day at work, I was off to town at 5.00pm to Hobart to meet some of my old work mates. We were on our way to watch the Uni Revue. We had booked and paid for our tickets weeks ago and was told that it was to be a great night had by all. I left work at 5.00pm and headed straight into town, parked the car and met everyone at a tiny pub called Joes Garage. This pub is pretty amazing if you are really into cars and anything motoring. All over the walls and floor are car parts of all descriptions. The tables in the place are old car engines with glass placed ontop of them. I thought that it was all pretty well done really.

When it hit 6pm we then headed over to the Theatre Royal restaurant which is situated near the Hobart Hospital. We sat down and ordered our meals. Emilija and I had a voucher from the Entertainment Book which was great, so without sounding like scabs we used these and saved ourselves some money so did another couple of people that went along because it was 2 for the price of 1. Good book that really.....

Eight o'clock hit us pretty quickly really and it was time to make our way over to the theatre. The night was pretty cold so we were all looking forward to getting inside and sitting down as quickly as possible. Not long after we sat down the show started.

It was not long before we were all in fits of laughter and were promtly warned about what kind of show we were about to expect, language and nudity and a good laugh.

They were right. It did not take long before we were in fits of laughter and wanting and expecting the worse to come. Every act on stage had some reference to something that had happened on the tv in the past 6 mths to a year, everything was mentioned but it was mostly streamed along the political lines. Lennon did not get out of it, Peter Garrett didn't either, nor did most of the politicians actually.

Half time hit us and we decided to stretch our legs and brave the cold of the foyer. This was short lived for me as it was too cold and I headed back inside to get warm again. The second half of the show was about to come. You could not watch this if you did not have a sense of humour I decided. The second half of the show contained quite a bit of nudity, but I can tell you that those people up on stage had some guts and that is all I am about to say about it. I didn't think that that content of the show was as bad as people kept on telling me it was. I will leave you to let your minds wander about that one.

See ya

Progress At Last.

2008-05-19T17:56:00.015+10:00

Friday 16th May 2008

Today is going to be an exciting day. Jamahl went up to the block to start the windmill feet and start standing it up finally and I had to stay home because little darling Kai came home last night with a 38 degree temp and could not breathe, which was quite scary. It turns out that he has a chest infection which now means that I will have to have a couple of days off work until he gets better because they will not take him like he is at childcare.

Monte came over to help Jamahl which was nice, The reason that I was not up at the block with him (apart from the Kai drama) was that Jamahl dislocated my shoulder a few weeks ago. Lovely... no heavy lifting for me for the next couple of months the doctor said. The kids and I went over to visit after I had picked Tao from school and watched the progress. It was looking quite good. I could not help myself while there though, I put some aluminium sulphate in the dam, to try and floculate it, it worked on the top dam and we are attempting to do the same with the big dam now that it is nearly full again. The aliminium Sulphate makes the clay particles in the water fall to the bottom of the dam and clears the water. Standing around doing nothing was not my style so that is about all I could do for now.

SATURDAY 17TH MAY 2008

While Jamahl went to the block again I was heavily involved in making dinner as everyone was coming over our place tonight. We decided that we would do an Asian theme so I was armed with a menu and off I went, trying to keep the kids in check at the same time which proved harder today for some reason.

While I was busy cleaning, cooking and washing and fending off kids, Jamahl was putting a few more finishing touches to the windmill leg stands. After a couple of hours of food preparation and many arguments intercepted, it was time for Jamahl to come home and help make a dish that he wanted to do for the night. Miranda and PJ, Christina and Craig, Rebecca and Monte and the kids were all coming so it was going to be a great night as per usual, we were pretty excited. We love these nights, they are so much fun and lots of different things get discussed, mainly on an environmental front.

At around 5.30pm, Miranda and PJ arrived armed with goodies for desert asian style including a good Japanese beer that was awesome. Rebecca and Monte and the kids were soon behind them armed with soy cakes and we all toasted to another good night to be had. We had the fire going outside and as soon as the kids were sorted with food we headed out and sat around having a chat. Christina and Craig turned up and we all decided that it was time to get into the food.

In true asian style I made cold rolls, vegetable tempura and wontons filled with Cabbage and mock meat. They were so good and went really quickly. I also made prawn crackers and for the vegos (us) popadums. YUMMMMY. Jamahl made a slightly curry dish with asian greens so we definitely had enough to eat. We went through it all that is for sure. After we thought we could not eat any more we had desert of fruit and fondue, chocolates, fortune cookies and soy cakes, you could not ask for a better way to end the food part of things.

It started getting late and our kids went to bed by themselves and crashed, it has been a big day. Georgia and Matty were watching the tv and were about to go home aswell. We bid everyone good night and soon crashed ourselves, ignoring the enourmous pile of washing up that was made. Never mind.......a job for tomorrow perhaps.

SUNDAY 18TH MAY 2008

Even though we had a pretty late night we still managed to get up at a reasonable hour this morning and the kids of course did not let us sleep in anyway.... little rascals. We got our stuff organised and I decided that I was not going to miss out on all the fun today. We packed the kids lunch and snacks and headed out for the morning. When we got to the block, we packed up the tools that we were using for the windmill site and headed up to the top of the block to start the piers for the 6x15 shed. We had the holes drilled on thursday morning and the council inspector came out on thurs afternoon to inspect the holes and they were fine and ready to be poured and filled with concrete.

The first thing that we had to do was make us some box sections so we made them out of scrap wood that we found out we can get heaps and heaps of at Mitre 10. We then placed these over the holes and then I went around and oiled them with vegetable oil so that the concrete would not stick to them when we took the wood off. I then got the dumpy level out and repositioned each box so that they were level and off we went concreting to our hearts content.

Meanwhile Rebecca came by and picked up the kids for us and took them back to her place so that they could stay out of the wind because it came in pretty icy.... I had four layers on and was still cold, so much so when I took Monte into town I got a hot cup of coffee to warm up. The start of winter I think. Monte was building another chook house for the new chooks when I arrived, he was doing a good job too.

Back to the concreting. This was a fun job, I love doing it. Jamahl mixed it and I levelled it off and made the edges. We unfortunately only got about 4 holes done before it was 5pm and had to go and pick the kids up before it got even darker and colder. What a day, we actually achieved heaps today, that felt good.....

Well catch you another weekend for more exciting news and developments..take care.

PS: I am considering putting a video clip on here but just working out the camera option at the moment.

Progress and patience is a virtue as they say!

2008-05-12T19:46:00.002+10:00

Tonight we have made a bit more progress on the shed erecting. We had the holes drilled by our favourite excavator operator Wally and wednesday we will get the site inspected so that we can do the next process which is putting in the concrete piers.

Sometimes it feels like things are taking forever but you forget that you have to go through all the processes to get things done.

On friday night we went to our organic cafe for curry night and this was to say good bye to people we know that have made the move to the Northwest of the state, onto another dream piece of land of 50 acres. Pretty lucky really.

On Saturday night we made our way up to our Tassie family's house as we call it, to Monte and Rebeccas for Lasagne night and a bonfire. The night was amazing and as always there was not a breath of wind and the sky was clear. As per usual we had a fabulous time, but it was starting to get really cold around 11am and we thought that maybe we should make our way home.

Because we all dont have family over in Tassie we all call each other our family. We all help each other out and do what we can. We love it.

Next week we are back to our place for dinner and we going to do an Asian night and have some surprises. I can see that before long it will become a competition or battles of the dinners.... what a way to spend the weekend.

We are doing our first bit of babysitting in a couple of weeks time.... for Monte and Rebeccas goats and chickens. The goats are coming over to our block, and every night we are going to look on the chickens and see what they are up to. I cannot wait to get our own and we considered on the weekend of setting up a temporary chicken coupe, we are getting sick of buying eggs that are not guaranteed to be free range at all.

So back to the shed. The delivery of the materials happen in a couple of weeks time and then straight into building. Monte and Rebecca and the kids have said that they are going to help with the building and then when it is their turn we will help them.

I am also again this year working on National Tree Day for our property, which is pretty exciting but all we have to do is get some trees now. That is going to be the fun part.

Well onto another subject... MOTHERS DAY.

I had a great morning, with presents in bed and the kids bouncing all over me wanting me to open things that they had made, it was so cute and beautiful to see their faces and the excitement that they had. After opening my presents which was a green asian tea set from Jamahl and a head torch for camping, Tao had made a fantastic necklace that I am definitely going to wear. He made it at Kinder and also his writing is coming along so well that he actually wrote in the card. Kai had done a hand print and the teachers laminated it and wrote a poem to go with it, it was pretty cool and Iwill hang it up at work.

After we got ourselves organised Jamahl made a yummy breakfast which seems to be our traditional breakfast for special occasions, multigrain muffins with poached eggs, mustard, roast capsicum, haloumi, and asparagas spears. YUMMMMMMM...

We then spent the rest of the day going to Dellas house to pick up some stuff that they were getting rid of. The unfortunate thing that it was on mothers day so in a couple of weekends time we are going to have a relaxing day at the markets that are on in Franklin. We also spent the afternoon chasing chickens around because darling TAO pushed the top of the box in and let all the chickens out and they were having a grand time eating the neighbours property out of bugs but Jamahl and I had to run after them.. That rooster is a fast one I tell you. Anyway we are hoping that Rebecca and Monte will give up some babies after that episode, nightmare......

Anyway after all that the night was relaxing and Rebecca and Monte came around after going for a drive for the day. They had dinner with us and Rebecca bought a mothers day gift for me, which I thought was beautiful and am now using at work.

Well off to bed for me, I am pretty knackered and my shoulder that Jamahl dislocated is still stuffed so I have had enough of typing for the minute. Catch you later.

Tanya

AGFEST

2008-05-12T19:07:00.004+10:00

This weekend we made our way up to Launceston for AGFEST. This grand event is held over the first three days of May every year and has that many stalls I really lost count and got lost quite a number of times.

I had been planning this event for a few weeks as it meant that I had to organise accomodation in Launceston and food and kids stuff. We made our way up on friday night pretty much straight after I had finished work for the day. This meant that we left about 6.30pm, we decided that we would have dinner along the way somewhere.

We were pretty excited about the trip as we had heard that we would be able to get lots of bargains for our property and ourselves no doubt. We were about to see what we could find.
The drive is a pretty easy one really considering it is only about 180kms long, but as we found out every man and their dog was thinking about doing the same thing. The road was bumper to bumper with traffice and this included very large trucks.

Travelling in the middle of Tassie at night is unreal. The sky is jet black and the stars are so bright it is fantastic. The kids were all set, they had their portable DVD players that we got when we were in Adelaide and so all they had to do was watch a dvd and soon enough they were asleep anyway. Quiet trip really.

About 8.00pm we reached a beautiful little town called Campbelltown. We love stopping at this town as it is really pretty during the day and there is a large park with playgrounds and things to keep the kids occupied along the way. We stopped at the only cafe that was open for the night and had dinner, fantastic meals were had by all, then it was on our way again to make our way to Launceston.

We hit Launceston at 9.30pm and were really ready to crash by then. We stayed in the Launceston Backpackers. We were a little dubios I must admit about the place but when we arrived we soon relaxed. I had heard really good things about the place and it was cheap. It was pretty cold when we got to Launceston but we did not care bed was all we could think about.
We had a dorm all to ourselves and set up our bedding and crashed for the night knowing that we had to get up really early in the morning for another exciting day.

Saturday AGEST day May 2nd

After a decent nights sleep and our little alarms going off at around 7am we got up and headed downstairs for breakfast. Being that we were staying in a backpackers, this meant that we supplied our own food, that was ok because even if we stayed in a caravan park we would have to do the same. I figured that the nights would be cold and I could not be bothered opening our tent for two nights either that is why I decided that we would stay inside, a wise move. Breakfast was soon over and we headed outside, OH MY GOSH... it was freezing, and FROGY.. as Kai calls it. We could see though that beyond the fog was sun and it was going to be a glorious day.

AGFEST is held in a little place called CARRICK, which is about 15-20mins out of Launceston heading west. About 5 mins into the journey we discovered that most of the other people on the road this morning were going the same way. I wasnt too worried as I had been told that the event is extremely organised and parking is not an issue at all. The event started at 8am, we got there at around 8.30 . There were people directing us to car park spots and everything went off without a hitch.

The kids were well looked after, they had name tags with our phone number of them incase they got lost along the way, we discovered that this worked very well as various times during the day we heard kids names being called out over the loud speaker. Many of the stalls catered for the kids, having activities and stickers to keep them occupied.

Rebecca, Monte and the kids were also making their way up aswell and we were meeting up with them soon. When they got there the kids found a cow to pat and try and feed.

After having a bit to eat and leaving the boys to look at some of the tools and machinary that they could only dream about having, Rebecca, Georgia, Tao and I went for a walk to try and find the craft area. After walking quite a few lanes and talking to some people at the Centrelink stall we finally found what we were looking for. Along the way though we were constantly stopped by the kids wanting to touch things....

For Example
As you can see the kids were in their element.
Our main aim was to try and get some rainwater tanks at a really good price. We got some prices but bumped into our neighbour Michael and he seemed to have got a good deal so we left it in his hands in the end to see what he could do for us aswell.
We managed to get ourselves some drizabones and got a really good deal on them, Jamahl got a couple of tools and we both got some new pruning shears. We luckily did not spend too much, but a good had was had by all. We all lasted until about 3pm and then the kids started to lose the plot and it was time to go.....
There were so many people and so many stalls to look at, we were pretty excited and decided that we would definitley be back next year and probably on our own. After going to the pub for dinner we headed back to the backpackers for a very early night, 7pm. We all needed it. What a fantastic weekend so far....

Sunday 3rd May

We awoke to more fog and then rain. Breakfast was a bit later this morning thank god, the alarms got up a little later. We had planned on going to Dr Harry's farm this morning on our way home but soon decided that we would just go straight home and get some work done, like cleaning up and getting organised for the coming week. After stopping at Ross and going to a market and having a coffee we were on our way again and got home at midday.
Wow what a weekend.... a great one at that. There is probably so much more I could say about it but I am pretty tired at the moment thinking about it.
See ya....

When the S..t hits the fan.

2008-05-12T19:06:00.000+10:00

Among our friends over here, and others that aware of what is happening in the world regarding climate change and the enviroment, the saying "when the sh..t hits the fan" is our favourite saying.
After quite a few discussions a couple of nights ago and talking to a friend who discovered that the situation regarding food around the world is getting worse, we came to the conclusion that things are already well on their way to making our lives a great challenge and we think that it is going to happen sooner than we think.
I know that this topic is a very contraversial one and some people do not believe that it is true and all these things that are happening are just a cycle. I dont think so.... There is a mountain of evidence supporting this and i dont even know where to start. One of our driving reasons for us to move to Tasmania was the fact that the Murray River was dying at a rate of knots and is looking very grim. We could never do what we wanted to do in regards to growing organic vegetables and having orchards and so forth with no back up of water to support this. Also our land would not be worth anything soon so we are glad that we got out when we did.
This is just the start.....

Emotional Last Day at work..

2008-05-12T18:59:00.002+10:00

My last day at work with the Dept of Health in Hobart was an emotional one for me. If it was not for the long drive everyday into town, getting up at 6.30am and not getting home until 6.30pm I would still be there. Everyone was excellent to work with and I felt right at home and made some friends along the way. We had a going away lunch at an organic cafe in Hobart which was quite nice and as a going away present I received from everyone some Lost Seed Company seeds and a gift voucher from a bulk organic food place in the city, Eumarrah. This was pretty cool and I cannot wait to get into planting the new seeds and having our own vegetables again. I will miss everyone.....
My new job had my mind boggled and blocked last week. I got to the stage on friday that I was zoning out in the afternoon and I think that all I was thinking about was relaxing, sitting down with a nice cold beer to finish the hard week off. And that I did......

We have made some amazing new friends here in Tassie considering that we have not been here very long at all. We have friends that live just over the hill from our block in Geeveston, Rebecca, Monte, Georgia and Matty. They originially come from Adelaide aswell, and were only 15mins away from us but we never met, it tells you how big the place is. We spend pretty much every weekend visiting them at least once or twice a week and have met a few people through them aswell. They are building a strawbale house aswell and are going down the same path as we are which is so nice to have people to bounce our ideas off of and get excited with.
Tao and Georgia have become pretty great mates which is so cute......they play so well together.
TAO AND GEORGIA....

L to R - TAO, GEORGIA, A BOY, REBECCA, AND KAI
Every friday or satruday night now for the last 6-7 weeks we have been going to an organic cafe in Huonville called Granny Lews, fantastic, down to earth place and yummy food, but unfortuately all our pockets are not that deep, so it meant that we all suggested going to someone different every week and have dinner instead.
Last friday night we all gathered at our house in Huonville. Jamahl and I made pizzas, and bruschettas and put on drinks etc.... We all had an absolute ball and Miranda and PJ have volunteered for next weeks episode...
As you can see we are not bored at all. Every weekend there is some sort of festival or fare on to go and have a look at or spend your money on. Consequently this weekend we did not do anything on the block at all and next weekend we will have to be bottoms up and heads down to get some more work done.
Have a great day everyone...

Tao and Kai's Birthdays

2008-05-12T18:53:00.003+10:00

Well today was a very special day for Tao, he turned five and is loving it. He was counting the sleeps before the big event and made sure that everyone in the family said Happy Birthday to him when we woke up. Four weeks before this it was Kai's third birthday and for both of the boys birthdays I spent the day with them individually and took a day off work to do it. We went to an indoor playground and we had a ball. I don't know who is more worn out, them or me, I tell you they do not make those playgrounds for adults that is for sure, especially when you are playing chasey.

On the nights of the birthdays we had a cake and a party hat and sang happy birthday. The boys picked out their own cakes and were so excited to blow out the candles it was so cute.....
Both of the boys did quite well for their birthdays present wise. They got bionicles, clothes and a kite and some puzzles. All of which has continuously been played with and in danger of wearing out......

The Weekend

2008-05-12T18:52:00.001+10:00

We decided that we would have a pretty relaxing weekend, and after getting up fairly late on saturday morning for a change we got ourselves organised and headed to the block. Our plan was to mark out where the windmill was going to go and start the process of putting it up.
Once getting to the block and having a few discussions about where and how it was going to get there we came to the conclusion that we needed to build a bridge. The windmill is going to be situated on the other side of the dam, but to get over there you need to cross the newly made channel around the dam. Jamahl had great visions that we would be able to get the car, put it into 4wd and cross it. The problem was that we have fairly bald tyres on the back of the car at present and also the ground is fairly soft and I could see that we would get to a certain point and sink.
We are going to now build a bridge out of huge logs for the base and we will get these from the local saw mill, and the top ramp will be made of sleepers that we will get aswell. We have to make it wide enough so that when we get our tractor we can drive across it and not fall off the sides. We are pretty excited about this. Our orchard is also going to over the other side of the bridge aswell. I will put some photos of the block on when I get a chance.
The other thing that we did was pick up some rocks off the block as we have many and they are in the way when we drive over the block, we are collecting them in the trailer and then driving them down to the bottom of the block and making gabian walls across the channel into the dam to catch sediment from the water that is running down it and also it looks really nice. We were going to line the whole channel with rocks but we realised that we probably dont have that many to be doing this. It is coming along really nicely though.
This all happened saturday and sunday was soon upon us. We had a morning of working out house plans and remeasuring the rooms and changing a few things, but we have still pretty much stuck to the original plan that we want. I then took the kids to the "Focus on Franklin" fair which was excellent. We had lunch down on the huon river and watched a friend of ours row her way down to the finish line. Tao and I decided that we would give it a go next year. It looked like fun. We picked Jamahl up and went to the block again.
We took some soil samples from the bottom, middle and top of the block and also a water sample from the dam. I am going to get these tested this week, so it should be interesting what they find out. The water is getting micro tested for water quality and the soil is to find out what the soil condition is for growing. We again then picked up a pile of rocks and did some more of the gabian walls.
Friends of ours that live around the corner are looking after our trailer for us so we took that back and showed them our house plans, they are doing some of their own, so it was nice to get some feedback and discussion on ideas. After a couple of cold hours there, because the temperature was dropping we wandered home for dinner, buggered as per usual and went to bed.
That was the end of the day....

Rain, Rain and more Rain

2008-05-12T18:50:00.000+10:00

It has been a very wet day and night. Fantastic really because we need it. Apparently Geeveston had 20mm in 24hrs, I can hardly wait to see our dams and measure their progress.
On the way to work this morning the roads looked like there was a hurricane passing through the place. There was debris everywhere, trees upturned, leaves and pieces of roofing iron. The wind must have been just amazing as the rain.
I love the rain, but not when the wind comes along with it. We have to get use to this Tassie weather, I am glad that I have a new job I was thinking this morning and this will mean that I will not have to walk the 3 kms each morning in the rain and wind.
See you soon.

The Brine News....

2008-05-06T21:04:00.008+10:00

Hi there everyone,
How are you all?
Just thought that I would send another short letter around to let everyone know what we are doing. A huge thank you to all of those we have had contact with since we have been over.
We are all well and looking forward to building our first straw bale building on the block. This should be happening in a couple of months time. We have ordered the bales and the frame work but are now of course waiting for council approval, that could take some more time. Anyone that has built knows how that goes… forever sometimes.

Tao and Kai are doing really well and have settled into life in the country, why wouldn’t they with plenty of room to move, and fresh air. Tao was crowned that master blackberry picker of the family this year.

When we are working on the block he often wanders off and you can see him from a mile away with a face that looks like he comes from another planet, all purple. He has also started kinder this year and the school that he goes to is absolutely beautiful. It is really hard to get in there and is a waiting list a mile long but somehow we managed to get him in there. He is doing really well at his numbers and is always asking what something says and is recognising letters and words.

I cannot believe how grown up he is. Time passes too quick.
Kai is doing a really good job of trying to catch up with Tao, whatever Tao does he has to do too, including the fact that we now have to buy two of EVERYTHING because Kai cannot be left out apparently, he is also nearly the same height so as a consequence we are asked quite often “ are they twins?”.

The kids went to their first concert in February of this year. The concert was the John Butler Trio and they had an absolute ball. We all danced up the front and amazingly there were about 3000 people there, which is a good turn out for Tassie standards. Here are some photos, the concert was held in the Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in Hobart.

The next exciting thing that has been happening on our agenda is that we bought a windmill and now have it on the block. The neighbours have all been pretty curious and we have discovered that we are pretty much the only ones south of Hobart with one, which I find amazing. It is lying on the ground but as soon as we have a dry weekend (hopefully this one will be coming up), then Jamahl and I can lay out the foundation and put it up. It is beautiful and will be a great sight to see. We will use it to pump water from our main dam (which we have also just had dug) up to our header tanks at the top of the block, this will be used for irrigation purposes.

Now to the dams…….
We initially thought that we would get two dams, a turkey nest dam at the very top of the property and a 1 mega litre (= 1million litres of water) dam at the bottom of the block on the key line. One day we were talking to the next door neighbour Michael and he suggested that we put tanks up the top, and we thought this was a better idea than a dam and went ahead and planned for this. We got the pad cut from the 5 tonne excavator and put a box section in and filled it with 10mm gravel, all ready for the tanks that we would be getting soon.

Next came the 1 meg dam. Wally the excavator driver started to cut the big dam and hit an underground spring, water exploded into the air and after a couple of hours of digging and the ground falling away from him and the excavator sinking he decided that perhaps we should not be having the dam in that particular spot and maybe make it a bit smaller. So we did, but it is still around 6m deep and we also got him to dig out the smaller existing dam that was a little further way up the block, this is now going to be our swimming hole in the summer time (when it gets hot).

Water is running out of the ground, it is the most amazing thing to see. Nothing like our situation in Adelaide. Our dams are now nearly full as a consequence. Cannot wait for those winter rains…….

Tao and Kai are loving the fact that we are going to have a swimming hole, as well as the permanent spring that we have aswell. We cannot believe our luck, water and a beautiful spot. Wait until the house is built aswell.

Anyway enough bragging and dreaming… just letting you know what we have been up to.
Our shed sites are now cut so just waiting on everything else to fall into place.
Well better get going and love to you all…..

Tanya, Jamahl, Tao and Kai.xoxoxoxo

We have never looked back.... Bodhi Farm here we come.

2008-05-06T20:49:00.001+10:00

Hi there,
We are an average family that is following our dream, to be sustainable and give our kids the best possible life we can.

It all started in Adelaide, SA. We had a house in the south and a block of land in Murray Bridge which we had all intentions of moving onto and pursuing our dream.

We welcome you to share our journey with us and join our quest for becoming as self sufficient as possible and share our dreams and plans, successes and failures.

Late last year after my husband did a permaculture course in the north of the state, and being alluded to the fact that the Murray was in a sad state of affairs, I decided to look around Australia at the possbility of moving ourselves and our dream elsewhere. It did not take long and after a few months of research I decided that perhaps we should go on a holiday and check Tasmania out for ourselves. We have always loved being close to nature and felt that a life away from the fast lane was what we needed.

We went on a holiday for a month and travelled around pretty much most of the state before we decided that the south was the way to go. We battled early mornings and very late afternoons and a tough budget to finally walk away on the very last day before we left, knowing that we would come back to the south of Huonville. We felt relieved but at the same time the realisation that we now had to tell our close friends and family. This should not be that hard!!!!!

Well stay tuned for what happened next.

See you soon, with photos aswell.