Queanbeyan Rodeo

We spent the weekend in Queanbeyan and all of Saturday at the Queanbeyan Charity Rodeo.

We were there to help good friends at the BBQ tent to raise money to send their girls Jenna and Jayme to the Waterski Nationals in Perth at Easter.

It was a very long day on your feet and I don't want to see another bacon and egg roll, sausage sandwich or steak sandwich for quite a while!!

After the dinner rush was over Farmer Phil and I watched the final hour of the rodeo featuring the steer roping and the bullriding.

Happy Birthday Farmer Phil!

Farmer Phil is 44 today - Happy Birthday!!!

Busy, Busy!!

Ryan jumping with Jake crouching down under the jump ramp after bucketing water onto it.

Nice photo of Ryan mid jump.

The smile says it all after Emma landed a jump on her first attempt at jump skiing.

Jenna, Ryan and Emma on their trick skis.

Great bunch of teenagers at waterski tournaments - Ryan, Jayme, Emma, Taylah, and Deanna at the back with Jenna and Jess in the front.

The past 2 weeks have passed by in a blur they've been so busy! We've had:

2 family funerals - both elderly ladies who were unwell

1 weekend waterski tournament

3 waterski training days

1 trip to Melbourne for Farmer Phil and Ryan to watch AC/DC's Black Ice Concert

1 orthodontist trip for Emma to have braces fitted to her teeth
1 chemical users course for Farmer Phil and I
1 trip to Sydney to craniofacial clinic for Ryan regarding more surgery this year
1 40th birthday party
1 day helping friends butcher 30 lambs - yummo, fresh lamb to eat!!
2 appointments with a builder to start building our patio roof
1 ag n chat meeting
3 trips via school to Wagga for Emma's singing and music lessons

I travelled over 2000km in the car last week - I'm over it!! Thankfully this week is much quieter and I am home all day today!

Farmer Phil is busy spraying herbicide on the paddocks after 8 inches of rain fell in February. There are lots of weeds growing and they need to be eliminated before they get too big.

Flood Photos

The main road between Wagga and Coolamon was blocked and traffic stopped until the water stopped running. The school buses had a hard time getting home. The farmer who owns this land said it had been 30 years since he'd seen this much water rush through his property.

We went to check out one of our other farms but couldn't get there because of the flooding. These photos are taken on the neighbours land at the back of our farm.

Farmer Phil, Emma and Ryan checking out a fence that has broken and washed across the road and piled with straw. Farmers will be fencing for the next month!

The gate didn't stand a chance against the force of the flood water.

Rain, Rain and More Rain!!!

Yesterday we received more rain in one dump than we've ever had before - over 100mm or 4 inches. It fell in just over 2 hours and of course there was minor flooding afterwards.

Farmer Phil, Ryan, Emma and I hopped in the ute and went for a drive to inspect the damage. Our farms were lucky to have escaped the major damage with just a couple of fences down. These photo's are of the dirt road between 3 of our farms with our neighbours farm on either side of the road. The council will have some repair work to do on the culvert when it dries out.

Taken about 2 hours after the rain had stopped.

The damaged culvert after the water has subsided.

Holiday Time!

We've just returned from 2 1/2 weeks holiday in Renmark, SA. We camped in the caravan by the beautiful Murray River and waterskiied every day. We also ate and drank too much with our good friends Andrew and Michelle and their girls Lucy and Hannah.

The might Murray River.

The famous Murray River red cliffs.

Ryan, Farmer Phil and Emma at one of the many lookouts along the river.

Ryan's slalom style.

Emma's slalom style.

Daniel is 21!!!

Daniel turned 21 on Monday - I really can't believe it!! We had a small family BBQ with his grandparents on Monday night after a day of waterskiing. We are planning a 21st birthday party hopefully in February once we get the pool paved and fenced and a deck built.

Daniel and Ange.

Christmas Day

Here is the aftermath of present opening Christmas morning!

We gave Daniel and his girlfriend Ange, tickets to the AC/DC concert in Melbourne in February - he was impressed!

Ryan received a helmet for jump waterskiing, a DVD and some loud pyjamas - impressed with the helmet, not so much the pj's!

We gave Emma a new ipod after she lost hers at school during the year, the DVD to the P!nk concert we went to in August and some makeup now that she's 13.

Farmer Phil gave me 2 tickets to see Mamma Mia the Musical in Melbourne in March. Can't wait to see it as I loved the movie.

Christmas Preparations!

Normally I'm very organised for Christmas but this year with harvest interrupting proceedings, I was very unorganised!! I usually have all the presents sorted at the beginning of December, but this year I was still shopping 2 days before Christmas Day. It all came together in the end, but next year I vow to be organised early!!

Emma sang with her girls choir on 23rd December in an outdoor Christmas concert. As you can imagine, 8 teenage girls sound very angelic!

Harvest 2009 Wrap Up

After 6 long weeks our 2009 harvest finally finished about 10 days before Christmas.

In my previous post I said that I was to drive the tractor and chaser bin for the duration - well, plans changed when the header driver we organised had to cancel due to poor health. That left us in a bit of a pickle, so it was decided that I would learn to drive the header. I was a bit daunted to start with but once I got the hang of the 36ft front, I did okay!

We were stopped a couple of times due to high temperatures and wind which makes it too dangerous to continue harvesting because of the fire danger it causes. We also had a few days of wet weather which was really annoying, as Farmer Phil and I just wanted to get harvest finished and forgotten as it was another very poor year regarding lack of rainfall and well below average yields for the crops.

All we can do now is forget 2009 and look forward to a much better and wetter 2010!!!