Pool Progress Report

Farmer Phil and I have been very busy the last few days installing the swimming pool. This is how it looks at the moment. We are waiting on the vinyl liner to be manufactured and when it's ready we'll get all the waterworks installed and then put the liner in. It'll then be a big job to backfill around the walls with crusher dust. We're both a bit weary after a lot of hard work, but it'll all be worth it in the end!

Birthday Girl

Yesterday was Emma's 13th birthday - I can't believe she's a teenager! I just hope we don't get the attitude to go with it from now on!

Emma had 2 school friends (April and Vanessa) over to stay for the weekend and she was the first to fall asleep last night so guess what happened!?

My New Toy

I've finally bought myself a Kitchenaid Artisan mixer. I've wanted one for a long, long time but it just wasn't a priority to buy one. It's been on layby for about about a month and I just had to pick it up yesterday because I couldn't wait any longer! I tried it out last night by making a chocolate slice and dough for a pizza. I guess I should enjoy cooking more now!

Jim and Tom

My dad, Tom was the youngest of 11 children when he was born in 1940. He had a non-identical twin brother Jim. Mum came to visit last week and she bought this dressing table set that belonged to Jim for me to have. Dad and Jim's godparents gave them a set each and my sister, Lisa has dad's set. Dad always said that I looked more like Jim so I'm very happy that I have something of my uncle's. I never got to meet Jim as he was killed in a car accident when he was 18. Dad is the baby with fair hair - they were about 4 1/2 months old in the picture. Next is a photo of dad, Jim and their sister Dot going to church. The last photo is of Dot's wedding in 1956 - dad is on the left and Jim on the right.

Update on Squirt

I told you a few months ago when Squirt was about 3 or 4 weeks old that he had a sore leg and I took him to the vet to investigate. I had Squirt de-sexed last week so I asked the vet to take another look at this leg while he was there. She x-rayed it again and found that he did in fact have a green stick fracture on his left femur. It's obviously healed now but it has twisted slightly so that the femur doesn't fit into the knee joint properly so that is why he limps on it still. He'll always have a wonky leg, but it doesn't give him any pain.

Here is Emma spoiling Squirt as usual! He loves Emma's dressing gown because it's really soft towelling. He digs his claws in and sucks it!

Swimming Pool

Yesterday we had a 22 tonne excavator come to dig the hole for our pool. It took most of the day to get it done as the pool will be 20m long by 3.5m wide and 1.7m deep when it's finished. I've always wanted a lap pool for exercising in. The pool guys are coming next week to start putting the pool together, so hopefully by the following weekend we'll finally be able to swim in the pool we've wanted for the past 7 years!

When I went to give Jack his breakfast this morning he was nowhere to be found. I walked around the house calling his name but he still didn't come which is very unusual. I walked over to the pool hole and guess where he was? In the bottom looking very sheepish. Farmer Phil had to climb down to rescue him.

Seed Cleaning

Yesterday the seed cleaner came to grade all our seed ready for sowing season. It is the maddest contraption I've ever seen! It looks like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - you know, an old boot goes in one end and a gorgeous chocolate bar comes out the other!

James has been grading seed all his life and this truck is about 30 years old Farmer Phil thinks. It has all these wheels and pulleys and augers coming out of it everywhere. It's a real work of art!

It's a bit of a production line when the seed cleaner is here and lots of co-ordination of trucks and bins to grade into and out of. All the seed goes into the truck and is then separated into sowable seed and the rest (the seconds) are graded out. The seed is sometimes pickled or treated with a chemical to stop pests whilst it's stored in the silo and for when it's sown at cropping time. The barley you can see being augered out of the semi is bright blue!

Daisy Bean

Here are Daisy's favourite places to sleep! She's a real smoocher!

Birthday Boy!

It was Farmer Phil's 43rd birthday last week, so here's a picture to prove it, and yes he still says he doesn't look anywhere near his age!!

In the Wilderness

I'm sorry for the lack of blogging over the past 2 weeks. My internet connection went down last Wednesday and Optus said they'd send a technician out to fix the problem next week - that would be 2 weeks without the internet!!! That was too long to wait, so I had a fiddle and hey presto I got the thing to work this morning. I think I'll still get the technician out to have a look at everything though. We are using satellite broadband which is almost as slow as the old dial-up! I've got lots to tell, so I'll have to do a few posts to catch up!