For Annie - Rainbow Toes

I've painted my toenails in rainbow colours for Annie who is having a hell of a battle right now! Such a great idea by her lovely friends Anna and Carmel. Well done!!

IS IT GOODBYE AUSSIE FARMER?

This song and video will be very important during this Year of the Farmer don't you think?! We need all the help we can get to keep our farming community prospering. Here on our farm we have 3 generations working together - my father in law, my husband and our 17yo son. Is there many other family farming operations where this is also true?

The Blogging World Rocks!!!

Two months ago a lovely lady called Cheryl left a comment on my post about Fiestaware letting me know that she had a collection of scarlet Fiestaware and was willing to sell it to me. She was moving back to the USA after a few years living in Melbourne and didn't want to pack it up when she could just re-buy some when she arrived back in the USA.

Of course I jumped at the opportunity because Fiestaware is not available in Australia and it costs an absolute fortune to have it freighted here.

I met Cheryl in Melbourne over the weekend when we were there to watch the Moomba Masters Water Ski Tournament. The Fiestaware is in perfect condition and includes an 8 piece place setting plus 4 extra dinner plates, a pitcher, 2 platters, 3 serving bowls and a butter keeper. I'm thrilled to bits and we used it last night for Emma's birthday dinner!

16 Years Ago.......

........our "Little Emma" was born!!

Please excuse Farmer Phil and his dirty work clothes!!

Red Velvet cake with cream cheese icing from The Pioneer Woman

Emma has been at home for 2 weeks now because of the recent NSW flood event affecting most of the state. Her school was flooded over the weekend, but no serious damage was done to the buildings or utility services. School will start again on Monday with most students able to get back to school although there are still roads closed with flood water and damage to the road surface.

The teachers had emailed school work out to the kids so it wasn't completely wasted time! Emma also passed the test for her Learner Driver Permit so there's no stopping her now!

Powerful Stuff!!

Wagga Wagga Flood 2012

Yesterday evening Farmer Phil and I took a drive into Wagga to have a look at the flood waters. It was very scary to see how much water there was coming down the river and surrounds - it was flowing incredibly fast. If you've been watching the news and morning TV shows you will have seen the flood waters, but to see them for real is something else!

It was a very eerie feeling when you drive past Wagga's CBD and there is not a single vehicle or person to be seen - it definitely was a ghost town! But this morning it seems that most of Wagga came away unscathed by the 2012 flood. However there will be a hell of a cleanup go on over the next few weeks and months to help the residents of North Wagga get back to normal after their homes (all 240 of them) were inundated up to their roofs.

Emma is not expected to get back to school until at least next week with the Wagga floodwaters expected at her school on Thursday. The school has been reinforcing their own levee banks and have moved all stock to higher ground. Some of the teachers houses which are closer to the river than what the main school buildings and dormitories are have been evacuated. Thankfully, flood water is not expected to impact on any of the school buildings.

Looking over East Wagga

Getting close to it's peak

North Wagga Flats

North Wagga Flats

This is the Murrumbidgee River

Sunset over floodwater

40th's and Flooding!

We had a very interesting weekend!! It will be a weekend that none of our friends will forget in a long time! Jason and Kellie's 40th birthday party was moved from their home to the local CWA hall after we had almost 8 inches of rain in 4 days! We got dressed in our costumes, brought Ryan and Emma along to babysit the party goers kids, and packed an overnight bag just in case we got flooded in!

Well we did get flooded in and couldn't get home until Sunday afternoon. Here is some of the flood water we drove through. Our house and farms were perfectly safe as we live on much higher ground.

This is the back of Jason and Kellie's house on Sunday morning. There is normally no water there!
The 40th party was a lot of fun, but not long after we'd eaten the main meal, the SES said that all roads out of town would be cut within half and hour with flooding and anyone who needed to get home had better leave now! Well, that thinned out the crowd by 50%!

There was only about 20 people to watch the cutting of the cake and listen to the speeches, but those of us left had a great night. This was Kellie (aka Judy Jetson) and Jason (aka KISS) towards the end of the night.

Katie Perry made an appearance.
So did Jane, Kylie Mole and Jesus

There was The Joker, Jessie from Toy Story, Farmer Phil as a Jedi Knight and Jane

We had a Japanese geisha and the Karate Kid

Kylie Mole again with John Travolta, the King of Hearts and another Jedi

Other party goers were jockeys, Juliet, Jack of Spades, Kate Lee from Underbelly, Jesse James, a jackaroo and a judge. Anyway, a lot of fun was had by all but the flooding still continues!

Emma came home from school on Thursday for a designated long weekend. She was supposed to return by bus this evening, but the school has closed until further notice. It sits right on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River which is to peak tomorrow at 10m in Wagga Wagga which will cause major flooding for parts of the city. All this flood water will eventually make it down the river towards Emma's school. We will sit tight and wait to see what happens!

Dress Ups!

Tomorrow night we have our very good friends Jason and Kellie's combined 40th birthday party. It is a costume party and you have to come dressed as something starting with either J or K. I "Googled" both letters and came up with a long list - Jack and Jill, Jesus, Jack Sparrow, jillaroo/jackaroo, jockey, Kath and Kim, king, koala, kangaroo, knight and Kermit to name a few. I finally settled on what seemed easiest to sew.

Here's what I've come up with today.

Farmer Phil will be a Jedi

I will be a Jailbird

I'll take my camera and show you some of the costumes our friends came up with. Should be a fun night although we're supposed to get between 40 and 80mm of rain again tomorrow - we've had 150mm since Tuesday!

Where Has Summer Gone?

The weather really has been crazy this Summer! I'm still waiting for the hot weather to arrive!! We normally have a lot of days over 40 degrees, but this Summer I don't think we've had any!

It's absolutely pelting with rain today and the pool is just about to overflow!! I was planning a trip to town for supplies but have wisely decided against that! Rain is forecast for the rest of the week too!

PS: All up we had 225mm of rain over 5 days! That's 9 inches in the old scale!! Our average annual rainfall is 22 inches, and we've had almost half that in one week!! Unbelievable!!!!!!!!

I ♥ Rollerskating

Like a lot of teenagers in the 80's I was madly in love with rollerskating. Every Saturday night my friends and I headed to the local rink for the evening disco! The best part was when it was the "speed skate" and everyone would step onto the rink and proceed to hoon around it to "Wipe-Out" blaring over the sound system! Oh, the memories!!

My friend Andrea had the most beautiful white leather (or maybe they were just vinyl?!) skates with red wheels. Oh how I envied her! My skates were red, blue and yellow! How retro - probably a collectors item now!

Anyway, I always have the Ellen show on at lunchtime for a bit of light entertainment, and yesterday she had an absolutely amazing husband and wife team of roller skaters on. Check out their You Tube clip below - OMG, it's superb! Now why didn't I ever look like that?!