Busy, Busy Emma .........

Emma has had a busy first 2 weeks back at school. Last week she had a 3 day excursion to Sydney to see Mary Poppins - she said it was fantastic!

This week she was at the Riverina Choral Camp and the video of Emily, Emma and Courtney singing "Jar of Hearts" was recorded at the end of camp concert yesterday. I think all three girls did a fantastic job!

Now, this weekend Emma is at Morundah attending a Children's Workshop with Victoria Opera. She attended this weekend 18 months ago when they performed "Brundibar". This year the workshop is "A History of Music" so Emma should have an even better time as it's all singing!

So next week Emma will actually be at school for the whole 5 days!!!

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!!!!!

What a huge weekend for Australian Sport!!!

• Cadel Evans wins Tour De France!!


• Casey Stoner wins US Moto GP


• Mark Webber places 3rd at German Grand Prix


• Wallabies beat South Africa 39-20 in the Tri Nations


• Sally (McLennan) Pearson wins 100m hurdles at Monaco


• Australia wins mens 4x100m freeestyle at the Swimming World Championships

And of course our favourite sport water skiing:

• Australia places 4th in the team overall at the World Water Ski Championships


• Ryan Green is 3rd in mens overall


• Timmy Bradstreet and Jacinta Carroll both win jump silver medals

Aussie Sport

What a great weekend for Australians and sport!!

First of all it looks like Cadel Evans will be the first Aussie to win the Tour de France! Superb effort in one of the world's most gruelling races!

Cadel Evans in the Leaders Jersey

Secondly, the Australian Water Ski team currently competing at the World Championships in Dubna, Russia are in second place overall with one more day of competition to go. With Ryan and Tim in the jump final, and Cap and Michale in the trick final we could very easily win the World Overall Championship!

Ryan Green (captain), Karina Nowlan, Jacinta Carroll, Cathryn Humphrey, Michale Briant, Sally Morris (manager) and Tim Bradstreet

We've had great results from all the team with each member competing in a final or two. Karina finished 5th in womens slalom, Ryan was 10th in mens trick, and the fantastic Jacinta "Rabbit" Carroll winning silver in the women's jump event at only 18 years of age and at her first World Championships - way to go Rabbit!!

Microfinance Loans

Towards the end of 2010 our Ag n Chat group decided that we wanted to become involved in microfinance loans for women in poverty stricken countries to help them either start or continue their own business to support their family. Today we finally made a decision on who to help and through which agency. We chose to donate through Kiva which is a well-established organisation based in the USA.

The photo above is of Rosine from Rwanda who we chose as our recipient. She is a 35-year-old entrepreneur that is married with two children, ages 3 and 6. Her husband is a technician and both of their children are in school. For three years, she has been running a business buying and selling fruit. She plans to use this loan to purchase oranges, tree tomatoes, citrus fruits, and mangoes that she will sell to meet the growing demand of her business.

Once Rosine has repaid her loan to us we will then choose another worthy recipient to help - and the cycle will continue!

Our Dream Residence

This photo represents what our ultimate dream home would be like - sitting next to a private ski lake surrounded by prime wheat growing farm land.

These lakes are called Mystic Lakes in Kansas, USA and we've discovered that there's a home for sale for only $995,000 at the moment! Just makes us want to sell up here and move!!

Not really - but we'll keep dreaming and maybe our dreams will come true some day!!!

The Biggest Kid of All!!!

Ryan, Emma, Farmer Phil, Jayme and Jenna - thanks for the photo Carol!

I met Farmer Phil nearly 24 years ago at a water ski day and it's been a huge part of our lives ever since. Farmer Phil absolutely loves to water ski and couldn't wait to teach the kids as soon as they were old enough. We are now very involved in tournament skiing with both Ryan and Emma competing in the slalom, trick and jump events. We've met fabulous people and made many great friends all over Australia.

Last Summer we had a day out with friends who all have teenage kids. Farmer Phil decided he wanted to have a ski with the kids because they're always having a go at us "oldies"! The above photo is the result - all 5 on trick skis. Farmer Phil held his own and wasn't the only one to fall off!

Something to Sing About 2011

In May Emma performed in the Riverina Conservatoriums fundraising concert called Something to Sing About. It is a bi-annual event and helps raise much needed funds for the Con's scholarship programme of which Emma is a recipient this year. It's held at the Civic Theatre in Wagga so Emma was singing in front of a large audience.

These photos were taken during the final dress rehearsal. Emma sang a really lovely song called "Who Painted the Moon Black" which was chosen by her teacher Heather who is the head of the vocal department. She had 6 dancers around her which made for a very special performance.

Rain Expected

The weather forecast says that we are to get rain for the next three days so Farmer Phil is madly spreading urea on the crops so that the rain will wash the fertiliser into the soil and give the new plants a boost.

He spreads the urea at 24kph so that means he gets over a lot of acres in a day - 800ac done in about 6 hours yesterday.

The spreader flings the urea over 30m so while taking this photo I was getting peppered with little white beads!

Crop Update

Farmer Phil and I re-sowed about 900ac of canola after the mice decimated the first sowing. Farmer Phil has been spreading bait across the wheat and canola crops constantly in the past few weeks. We think that we are finally on top of the problem but must still be vigilant.

The photo of the canola above shows one large canola plant which has survived from the first sowing, and 2 smaller plants which have emerged after the second sowing. So you can see how behind in development the plants are after being sown late. Hopefully with a wet Spring the canola will not show any effects of the mice problem.

This is the wheat crop in the paddock just north of our house. As you can see it's coming along nicely although Farmer Phil has baited it twice for mice and you can still see some activity scattered across the paddock from them.

Silo

Farmer Phil has told me that I'm not blogging enough and to get my act together!! His best friend Farmer Andrew is also of the same opinion so these next posts are for their benefit - updates on what's happening here on the farm!

The new 300T silo was finished a few weeks ago so here is a photo of it. Apparently there are 2,000 nuts and bolts in the cone alone! It took the builders Grant and Willy 4 1/2 days to build it. We're thinking of ordering another one to be built before harvest so that we have our own small grain storage facility if the big local one we deliver to is filled before we finish our harvest which is what happened last year when we had to fill 10 grain bags.

I'd like to climb to the top of it and get some photos of the farm but it's blowing a howling wind so I wasn't about to do it today!