ANZAC Day

My grandfather amd his brother after returning from WW1

My nephew during his graduation ceremony

Blog Book No. 4!

This is my 5th year of blogging! Each year I have my blog printed into a book as a permanent reminder of what's happened during the year both on the farm and within our family lives. A few weeks ago my 4th blog book arrived in the mail. Go to Blog 2 Print if you want to do the same with your blog - I can guarantee the quality is high, the cost is reasonable and you only have to wait a couple of weeks to receive it.

Getting Ready!

The last few weeks have involved preparation for sowing/seeding time. Farmer Phil and Ryan have sprayed the paddocks to kill any weeds or volunteer wheat and canola from 2011. Lime has been spread where the pH is on the acidic side. And yesterday we spent the day replacing points, liquid tubes and hoses on the air seeder.

We even conned Emma into helping and getting her hands dirty!!

Everything is ready to start sowing today or tomorrow! 6 weeks of tractor work here we come!!!

Easter and Nationals

I've been a bit slack with posting about our Easter week away at the Australian Water Ski National Championship held at Mulwala, NSW. I have no pictures of Ryan competing because the night before the competition was to start his collarbone broke during a training session! He was very disappointed and upset because he'd put a lot of work in during the season to be competitive in his Under 17 Boys division. Obviously the farm accident from the week before had actually cracked the collarbone and the extra pressure put on by skiing broke it. We had paid for our accommodation etc, so we decided to stay and watch the tournament anyway. It was a nice week away with lots of great families.

On a happier note the NSW Water Ski Team won.

The presentation night was held at the beautiful All Saints Winery.

Some family photos in the Cask Room.

Brother and sister.

Farmer Phil and I in a rare photo together!

What a Week!

We've had a rather interesting week here on the farm! Farmer Phil and Ryan have been busy getting ready for cropping time which will start in about 3 weeks. There are bags of wheat (almost 4,000T of the stuff!) still laying in paddocks - the market for wheat is very slow at the moment and selling it will take some time. There is a lot of spraying to be done in preparation for sowing, and we've also got about 250T of lime to spread on some paddocks where the pH level is a bit high.

Over the weekend we had the NSW Waterski Championships in Albury which included a presentation night for the 2011/2012 season. Emma was the entertainment for the evening where she sang while everyone mingled and had dinner. It was rather lovely with her singing quietly in the background - "Sweet Home Alabama", "Landslide", "American Pie" to name a few of the songs.

Ryan came home with a couple of trophies - 1st in jump and 3rd in trick. It's rather surprising that Ryan does so well in trick because it's much easier if you're on the short side whereas Ryan is nudging 6'2"!

Ryan also took home one of the major awards for most improved in the jump event. There are 3 most improved awards given out for slalom, trick and jump and also an overall. Two years ago Ryan won the slalom award, then last year the overall, and now this year the jump.



This year the prizes were Samsung Galaxy Tablets! Ryan was super excited to receive one of these!

1st in Jump

3rd in trick with Brodie and Riley taking the other places

As you can see in the photos, Ryan has his arm in a sling! This is what made the week very interesting!

He was changing a flat tyre on Farmer Phil's ute when an accident happened with Ryan ending up pinned underneath the vehicle! I won't go into detail about how it happened but let's just say inexperience, soft ground and a 17yo boy not thinking played a big part. Farmer Phil pulled out some super-human strength to lift the ute off Ryan with the help of an adrenalin hit!!

I took Ryan to casualty where an x-ray showed no broken ribs or collarbone, but he's got some soft tissue damage and a very sore collarbone. Needless to say he was very lucky that he wasn't injured more or even killed!

The sad part for Ryan was that he missed skiing in the state titles over the weekend. But worst of all is that the Australian National Waterski Championships start on Thursday this week at Mulwala, NSW. Ryan qualified in all three events (slalom, trick and jump) for Under 17 boys.

We're off to the physiotherapist this morning to talk about what strapping and precautions he'll need because he's determined to ski over the weekend! Let's hope it all works out okay in the end!!

I'm not surprised that farming is classed as the most dangerous occupation in the world - accidents can happen so easily when you mix machinery, animals and humans together!

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!!