Snake or stick?

One of the most often asked questions once we had moved to the country was “have you seen a snake yet?” or “have you got many snakes at your place?”  The movers claimed to have seen a Brown Snake sunning itself when they arrived, but I decided that they were trying to spook the new girl in town.

That one is a stick

We spent a lot of time in our first few weeks clearing branches, chopping wood, dismantling sheds, and general clearing up around the place.  All the time I was on guard.  “Is that a snake or a stick?” I didn’t leave the house without my work boots on and always put on gloves just in case a snake decided to turn up to defend its territory.

No snakes there either.

Last week I finally saw my first snake. Or was it a stick? That was my first thought anyway.  Up until that point, every snake I had seen has turned out to be a stick, or a tree root, or a bit of bark. I was starting to think that we must not have any snakes at our place. Having been at the property a couple of months now and having not seen any snakes at all, I was more relaxed with what I was wearing, especially close to the house. This sunny weekend day I was gloveless and also wearing thongs.  Not much protection happening there.

Then one day, while moving sprinklers around out the front of the house, there was a stick on the lawn. And then it moved. It went under the house, the stick went under the house. The house that we live in! EEEEKkkk! That’s no stick . . .that was a snake!

These aren’t snakes either . .

 

When I told people that I’d seen a snake, the reaction was “WOW! What sort was it? A Brown?”.  Ummm, I don’t know.  It was just a stick that moved.  I ask a few people what sort of snakes I’d be likely to see near us and there were generally two options.  It was either a Brown Snake or a Copperhead. Thankfully Mr Google has assured me that a Copperhead was the better option of the two.  Even so, I’m still wearing my boots and gloves every time I go out in the garden from now on.

Michelle

The Coop Begins

It started out as a few painted fluorescent spots on the ground to mark out where the chicken coop would go. And before we knew it, the frame was going up and we had the makings of Cluckingham Palace.

I’m not sure if that qualifies as bigger than Ben Hur, or just  slightly smaller. The dogs supervised the site all afternoon, from the shade of the trestle table, occasionally rising to inspect the workmanship.

We are expecting some spoils from a demolition any day now that will provide some shelter for the coop section and when the wire arrives at the local supplier, we will be able to start to enclose the run.  Then the fun begins – the choosing of the chickens!  We mainly want them for their food disposal, ground scratching, bug eating and fertiliser providing properties, rather than an egg-per-hen every 24 hours.

I’ve now started to concentrate on what sorts of hens we’ll have in our flock and was quite delighted to read about all the different colours of eggs that hens can lay. And not just your white, off-white, and brown varieties either. Now that know that there is a whole rainbow of eggs there waiting to be laid – blue, green, lilac, chocolate-brown, olive – my choice of chicken may now be based on what colours will fill my egg basket.  Or which hen is prettiest. All the important things!

Michelle

Roadside Rambler

On country roads there are all manner of animals wandering alongside some are more obvious than others, especially when they leap out onto the road in front of you.  Unfortunately that is what happened to me this week.  It’s the first time that I have hit an animal on the road and I was quite shaken.  I can’t say that the Wallaby came out of it too well. I have been told that, with the amount of kilometres that I cover,  it more than likely won’t be my last. 😦

On a brighter note, I spotted someone else on the side of the road who wasn’t planning on leaping out in front of me. Rather, he was attempting to hide.

He thinks I can’t see him and if he stays still long enough, I will think he’s a rock and go away.

I just sat still, so he decided I must be a rock and decided to head off home to safety, away from the road, much to my delight.  I couldn’t save the Wallaby, but I feel that I may have saved the Echidna.

Michelle

I like a pretty sunset as much as the next person . . .

The fires in Victoria have been going, in various areas, for nearly four weeks now, but this past weekend it was slightly closer to home.

The map shows all the fire events that were taking place on Sunday around Victoria.  It was deemed the worst day, weather-wise, since the fire event on February 7 2009 which will be forever known as Black Saturday.

We were not in any danger, but when the cool change came through, it pushed the smoke from the surrounding fires all around us.  It was quite surreal.  We had spent the day being whipped by northerly winds and, being on top of a hill, we really felt them all around us.  Then suddenly smoke was everywhere and visibility had dropped to only a couple of hundred metres and he smell was overpowering. We were still in no danger of the fires, and very glad of it too. I cannot even begin to imagine how those communities to our east and west were feeling. The ABC had switched to emergency broadcast mode, keeping everyone informed of the changing conditions.

As the day drew to a close, the colours from the sunset were bouncing around the haze and, to quote a cliché, it looked like a painting. We gathered at the fence to watch the sunset and just watched as the colours swirled and changed the lower down the sun went. We realised that the horses in the front paddock were watching too.

Although houses have been lost and over 130,000 hectares have been burnt, there has been no loss of life. A big thanks to all the fire-fighters who have worked tirelessly over the last few weeks and will be rotated in and out of shifts for the weeks to come to ensure that we all stay safe.

Michelle

A New Resident

While we prepare for some feathered friends, in the form of chickens, to join us someone thought that they would jump the queue.

Meet Gorgeous, our Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.  Isn’t he just as his name implies?

He was found on the roadside after a flock of Cockatoos flew across the road into the path of an oncoming vehicle.  Many didn’t survive, which seems to be quite common at the moment.  Not just for Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, it seems that Galahs are just as prone to fly en masse in front of cars too. There were quite a few youngsters among this lot that were rescued and we have been told that Gorgeous is about four months old.  He’s got a dodgy wing, which means he can’t keep up with his flock, so he’ll have to rest awhile with ours.   Gorgeous has been given carte blanche with the contents of the fruit bowl and the veggie crisper and it seems that carrot is the clear winner at the moment.  But I am sure that he will be like all children and tire of that soon enough and want a new flavour with his seed mix.  One of the dogs is enthralled with him and just has to watch his every move; the other is keeping an eye on the discarded fruit.  Who knew dogs liked bananas?

We will be working on accommodation this weekend for a planned addition to the household and hope to have some of these soon –

  source

We haven’t decided on the types of chooks we want to get yet. Their primary mission will be as chief food scrap recyclers and the eggs will be an added bonus. With only two of us, we aren’t going to need a full box of eggs every day. Perhaps I better dust off my CWA Cookbook and find some egg-laden recipes.  Frittata anyone?

Michelle

Getting into the swing of country life

We have been here for just on three months now and our first 6 weeks were spent getting to know the house, the land and the surrounding area.  I had spent the last 25 years coming to Gippsland to visit my folks and had never really gone out and been a tourist to see the area. I really didn’t know what was around, let alone all the great places to see and the beauty that is now on my doorstep.

Getting right into the spirit of our new country life, on our first weekend we were here we went to see a bluegrass band, The Davidson Brothers, playing at the Valencia Creek Hall.  The brothers are local Gippsland boys and are bit of a big deal in the Country and Western / Bluegrass scene.  I’d never heard of them, but I do enjoy a bit of banjo-pickin’ bluegrass.  The brothers seemed to get a buzz playing to a local full-house and even posted a picture taken from the stage on their Facebook page. As you can see, it’s what they’d call an ‘intimate’ venue, seating about 120 people; no-one had a bad seat!

Valencia Creek Hall is a beautiful community hall that was built in 1926 and was dedicated as a memorial to the local soldiers. It has been a focal point and a center of activity for the district ever since, including being used as a meeting place in times of trouble, such as bushfires and is well known for its display of locally historic photographs.

 

We returned to Valencia Creek Hall on New Year’s Eve to help ring in the New Year.   A few clever souls had brought along their campervans, so they had no worries about drink driving.  A large communal barbeque was set up ready to grill the snags and steaks that we’d brought along.  A local bush band played, there was some bush poetry and a kilted piper tootled in at the appropriate time, squeezing the goat skin bag, to let us know when to start singing “Auld Lang Syne”

Albeit slightly late here’s wishing you a happy and healthy 2014! (I’m just in time for Chinese New Year though, aren’t I?)

Michelle

A New Stamping Ground

It’s been forever (well, nearly 2 years) since I last blogged and I was pretty sure I never would again. As I purported to have a crafty ‘show and tell’ kind of blog and it seems that I didn’t have much to ‘show’ and not much that I wanted to ‘tell’, so I just stopped posting.

My ‘crafty mojo’ had gone AWOL and what I was creating; I didn’t feel like showing anyone.  There are so many crafty blogs out there that if you were looking for inspiration, I wasn’t delivering. What else did I have to talk about? Not much, it seemed.

Life has changed quite a bit for me over the last year or so.  Some of it very sad, but the biggest change of all has put a great big, silly grin on my face.  A good ol’ fashioned, mid-life tree-change.  We have moved out of our cramped quarters in the big smoke and moved to acreage in the country where the view goes forever and the only smoke is that from the recent summer bushfires.

We are all the better for the move, the fresh air and space that is now all around us.  Our days are filled with productive busy-ness, interspersed with cups of coffee sitting on the veranda watching the weather cross over the nearby mountain ranges and discussing our plans to build the lives we have always talked and dreamed about.  The lives we thought we would only get if the benevolent Lotto gods smiled on us.  It finally is our real life and no longer do our sentences start with “One day, wouldn’t it be nice to . . “.

I have started feeling creative again and have been sewing a little bit, learning the finer points of patchwork from a master of the cut-it-up-and-sew-it-back-together art, my mother.  I enjoy it immensely and have already got a drawer full of PhDs (projects-half-done) with another half-dozen projects in the pipeline. I have just about unpacked all the vital tools required to get cracking on my card-making and have set up a little space in the storage container that is doubling as my craft room until more permanent accommodation is built. I hope to find a space in the local community centre class schedule so that I can teach again.

Other plans currently on the drawing board are an orchard, a big chicken run, a small apiary (only 2 hives), a vegetable plot  and the biggun’, the building of our dream house that we have talked about for most of our married life.  It’s nice to take it out of the “dream plan” file and place it firmly in the “reality plan” file.

So this is what I hope to share with you; the things that I am doing, creating, learning and experiencing along the way.

Michelle

Have you got time to take five?

We rarely do take time out, time out to just “be”.  If you are a carer you will probably find it harder to find some ‘me’ time and have to wait till you can get respite of some sort.  What if you were able to just ‘Take Five’ over a cuppa or escape while you are waiting at yet another medical appointment?

My cousin, who is a wonderful photographer (and is her husband’s full-time carer) has put this small book together – “Take Five”.  It’s a great little book, filled with beautifully photographed images that, by flicking through the pages, can just whisk you away for five minutes. Hence the title “Take Five”

Vanessa is currently selling these books as a way of raising funds for her Parkinsons Carer’s group and if you would like to purchase one, please send her an email at books4charity@y7mail.com.  She is more than happy for you to purchase them in bulk, at cost, if you would like to sell them to help raise funds for  your carer’s group.

Now back to your regular programming!

Michelle

Quick and easy enchantment.

I have no excuse other than I was on a roll the other day when I was playing with the Everyday Enchantment paper and Sale-a-bration (read: freebie)  Elementary Elegance stamp set.  I may as well show you the rest of  the cards that I made and have it over and done with.  These cards all fall into the “lemon-squeezy” section of “easy”.  This next card I did in every colour way that the patterned DSP offered. I liked this combination the best :).  I think if I wanted to spend some more time on it, I would have used Versamark to stamp on a background pattern. But it seems to have survived okay without it.

And this one falls into the super-squeezy section of easy . . .

Once I discovered a trick for making scalloped squares without too much maths (“turning the corner“) it seems to feature in a lot of my cards these days.  🙂 I don’t know if you can see in the photo, I’ve popped up the birthday greeting on a punched-out curly label which fits neatly inside the scroll-y, elegant frame. Can lemon squeezy get any easier?  I don’t think so.

Okay, off you go and make some lemonade!

Till next time,

Michelle

More enchantment.

I’m still loving the Everyday Enchantment Sale-a-bration freebie papers and am using them with everything that I am doing at the moment.  I had a different design in my head when I was making this card, but I think I got distracted halfway through and forgot what I was doing.  It’s missing a little something . . .

I will just have to go and play some more until I get it right. What a pity 😉

Do you remember me telling you about the other card I made with the Everyday Enchantment DSP here. I posted a picture of it on a group forum and the cheeky Madonna Dunn asked “Is that for me?”.  Well, as she had asked so nicely, I just had to send it to her. I mentioned that she sent me back a gorgeous card.  Well, she’s taken a lovely picture of it and has posted on her blog here.  As I mentioned before – I LOVE IT.  I think I need to send out more cards, if this is what I get in return. I love some card Karma.

Hope you’re having a great Tuesday.

Michelle