Shearing day. Yikes naked sheep

Shearing day......

K slipped out very early to help in the shed. I lay in bed listening to the generator and the sheep noises. I wandered out after breakfast and between rain showers. By the time I emerged I was confronted with the sight of naked sheep. They are strange looking things with their coats gone and looked a bit shell shocked by the whole process. I tried to get close to get a really good photo, but they were not hanging around to see what this human would do to them and snuck off down the hill.

It was a changeable weather wise. Everything from heavy rain to bright sunshine. I managed to get this double rainbow just before the second one faded. Music blared from the speakers K had hung up the day before and at break times our daughter fed the shearers and other hangers on amply. Her custard slice was a hit.

Sheep can die in cold weather after shearing. Makes sense. I probably would too without a good coat. Since sleet, rain and wind are on the cards this weekend our son-in-law decided to shed the shorn ones. Wise move. Last night was miserable and today is not much better. Miss Four and Half helped her mom round them up again and kept the last few warm by shooing them around the pens while they waited for a space under the shearing shed.

After the shearing team left baby boy got let out of his stroller, from which he had supervised proceedings most of the day. I reckon it was a good thing that the generator was off or he might have got shorn like the other lambs. The crawling is a new skill. And he had a ball chasing his sister all over.


We had fun watching.




Cheers Sue


A Ferg on the Move

Farm life. A sunny "spring" day

Just had to share with you this shot of Miss Four and a Half rounding up sheep with her dad. The sheep need to be yarded ready to be shorn.  They came past our camp site with the dogs. Miss has it all down pat. Hat on, walking stick in hand and trotting along next to dad up and down the hill.

We are expecting inclement weather ( posh way of saying cold and stormy and maybe snow)  before the weekend. K  has  delayed our run up to Newcastle in case there is a proper snow fall and we need to dismantle the caravan annex. A deep snow fall might be too much for the annex roof.

I had bought provisions to make a few meals today to take with us and decided to have  cook  up  anyway. So there is a  lasagne cooling on the kitchen bench, a crust less quiche cut into three, and two serves of chicken and mushroom pasta sauce in the freezer. I baked in my hooded BBQ as always. Then I decided to use the twin tub washer while there was sun to dry clothes so I am feeling quite like the proper homesteader.  I drew the line at a walk down the hill and back to the chickens so no cake ... I used the eggs in the quiche. Maybe I will con K into  taking the scraps down and snagging an egg for me. Mind you the chooks owners might beat me to it as they are here today as well.

After my busy morning  I am  now enjoying the sun watching the baby in the pram. He is supposed to be asleep but judging by the speed his feet are kicking that's not likely. He is playing his favourite peek a boo game  by pushing the sun cover out with his legs and grinning at me.  Not crying though so
its all good.



Down the hill at the shearing shed things are being set up for a day of shearing weather permitting tomorrow. There is hammering happening too. Mr Fix It is wiring speakers and attaching the wires to the rafters. Music is an essential part of shearing.it seems.



The horse has her coat off and is enjoying the sun as well.



Pretty good life.





Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Modifying the storage in our Jayco Stirling caravan. Inside the cupboard

K modified the insides of the storage cupboard as well as the doors. Now I have two levels with the shelves just the correct height for my boxes of gluten free flours and tubs of spices, sugar and rice and stuff. So much better than before when the baking ingredients were off to the left hidden begin the cupboard front and I had to unload all this on the bench and then pack it all back in.

I did banana bread to take down to the shed for the men who were dealing with sheep. So good, the bread and the storage as well. Just lift the hatch, grab flour and coconut, coconut milk from under the sink where the cans are and mix.

Light the BBQ, drop the lid and wait 45.

The hardest  thing was letting it cool before I snagged my piece.

Here's the recipe. I use gluten free flour, Has No Aldi brand if I can. http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/21067/coconut+banana+breadCheers

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Modifying the hatches in our Jayco Stirling caravan. Mr Fix It at work



New left hand cupboard door in our Jayco Stirling kitchen

Before....left hand side is solid.

We have generous over bench storage lockers in our 2007 Jayco Stirling caravan and I manage to stuff all my baking goods and spice stash in there. But access to the third of the space closest to the door has been difficult. The designers were not cooks that's for sure because they only put an lift up hatch door over two thirds of the metre and a bit wide space leaving a sizeable section of the cupboard behind a securely bolted in cover. Deciding to cook a cake meant pulling everything out of the middle section and scrabbling round on tip toe  to reach the necessary items  while trying not to fall into the door step well and out into the annex. That hurts. I know cos I have done I a few times.





Items were stacked on top of each other in containers and restrained when travelling by a couple of heavy cardboard pieces cut to size and fitted inside the doors. Things do move around in the overhead lockers during the flight...or bumpy road travel.

Anyway on one of our trips to Canberra lest season K bought a cabinet set of hinges and a button lock with the intention of turning that bit of solid locker front into a lift up door sometime.

I came home a few days ago to find the contents of the storage hatch in our caravan kitchen spread all over the bed and Mr Fix It's head in the locker. The offending solid bit of cupboard front was sitting in the sink.



"What you doing?" I said. There's nothing like asking about the obvious.
" I was going to give the door a go, but I put the hinges in a safe place."

This statement always engenders dread. Safe place is code for turn out every hiding place in the ute, the sedan,  the caravan and now the storage shed. K never, and I mean never, remembers where the safe place is.

After running through the list of places to check I send the huffing man off to start cutting and put on my investigator hat.



Hinges in a plastic bag next to the BBQ with a lighter and some wire and button lock in a cup next to the microwave. Years of marriage paid off.

My revenge was to suggest quite mildly that a shelf would be good since everything was out anyway and there was an ideal bit of wood left over from framing the shed door.



By dinner time I was the proud owner of a pantry locker complete with a full length shelf at just the right height and angled back slightly to address movement  in transit  and a  new hinged cupboard door. Looks like it was always there. Mr Fix It had split the solid cupboard face and created a solid bit on the end and a new door, installed hinges, not easy since the new style had to be fitted differently to ones in the rest of the van. He finished the edges and put the shelf in as well. Did this sitting on the bench contorted into a pretzel shape using his short handled screw drivers in tiny spaces.




Got a new pull down blind for the kitchen window too. But that is for another post.



Love my man.



Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

A lament for high heels

This post is somewhat of a lament, a sad longing for the good old days when there was always something stylish between me and the pavement.  Before outback dirt and Crookwell weather got in the way of
a good shoe.



In my opinion shoes are just footwear if they don't have a heel. Before I became a caravan living women I had quite a collection of shoes. l had stilettos, wedges and square heels. Not a flat shoe in sight. I could stalk the halls of the school I taught at with the best of them. The extra height didn't hurt when fronting high school boys either.



Then I moved into a caravan.



Instead of a whole wardrobe floor to store my shoes I have one triangular shelf and a bit of floor space on my side of the bed. Oh the agony. K had trouble getting rid of his collection of bolts, wires and electrical bits. I had trouble ditching shoes.



So one best pair black wedges. A white and a black casual heels and my wedge heel  thongs..flip flops for non Australians....made it into the cupboard. I managed with  these everyday in NT.  Pretty heeled thongs on my feet, colour on my nails, a colourful pendant, cool bohemian top... Got to keep up your standards.



I did have flat thongs for safer walking to the hot springs and back.



Then we spent winter this year here in Crookwell.  Now I have boots, flat heeled boots, two good pairs bought locally and a couple of thrift shop soft tops. My daughter bought me some uggies. I think she was sick of seeing my cold toes. I put thick socks and boots on everyday. My few summer heels are in the cupboard and the boots rest in the annex to ambush me every morning.



I have been walking town in flat footwear. What is the world coming to?



I recently found in one of the boxes we had in storage my long high heeled boots. I must have decided they were too precious to discard. With joy in my heart I popped them on to find that not only was the zip knackered but that  I have slipped so far into low heeled-ness that I needed the heel lowered a bit so there is some hope that I can wear them again. A nice man in Bankstown altered and repaired them for me while K was in hospital and I have instituted a regime of daily training to get back into shape for their elevated wonderfulness. One can only hope.





Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move.

Ignored by a wallaby. Not so interesting after all.

Chunky black wallaby on the hill.

Much lighter finely built
wallaby outside our camp at Mataranka NT

Thursday  as I pottered around doing my morning jobs as well as a few of K's since he is on light duties for a bit longer, I was kept entertained by a wallaby. It was sitting in the middle of the hill above our van intently digging at something and lifting it to its mouth. I moved in and out of the van and shed for over and hour and it sat up once or twice to check me out. I was dismissed as not at all noteworthy and it returned to its breakfast.

The wallabies here are chunky and dark, a complete contrast to the delicate ones at Mataranka in the Northern Territory. I have posted about these before. There were a couple that K made friends with and would come to our van to forage when their tourist food source ran out. Tourists think it is great to feed them up in the breeding season and then we have to  watch them starve when the weather gets hot and the  grey army move south. The wallabies get so hungry they eat cardboard boxes.

Anyway I will just climb back of my high horse and get back to my Thursday morning.

You may have asked yourself why there is a picture of a bottle in a mug at the top of this post. Well that's my chilli infused olive oil defrosting in a mug of warm water. I store my heavy food stuffs in a box under the sink down low for safe travel. It must be cold in that spot at night cos my oils solidify and I can't get them to pour out of the bottle til I heat them up a bit. So three mugs at breakfast Thursday. One for K, one for me and one for the chilli oil for K's omelette.

We did quite a bit of preparation for the few weeks while K is on light duties.  He filled the gas bottles and set them up so I can switch between them and not have to lift them in and out. The wood pile is quite big and covered by the tarpaulin to try and keep it dry. Our son-in-law came in and set up the fire for us to light ready for when we limped in from Sydney  ( thankyou so much. I was not looking forward to building the fire late at night. ) and cut lighter wood and kindling that I can carry since K is restricted to under 5 kg for a bit longer. Both the Crookwell grandkids are over 5 kg.....guess he will have to get down on the floor with them instead.

Anyway enough rambling. Morning duties. Set the fire, look at wallaby, grab more wood, get ignored by wallaby, cook breakfast and eat my toast while being ignored by wallaby, pull out toilet cassette and muscle it into the ute to take down to empty while being laughed at by wallaby....you get the picture.

I think my life is quite interesting. Obviously the local wild life disagree.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Mr Fix It post op

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Just a quick update on Mr Fix It post operation.

He is out of hospital and resting at our Sydney home away from home. Friends are a blessing aren't they.
The surgeon is happy with the work they have done and reasonably confident that as time processes the atrial fibrillation will diminish and so will the need for medication.

K isn't allowed to drive for a week or two. That will be fun. I am tempted to install a toy steering wheel so he can hang on to something and help me drive.

Today he is sitting at the table and engaged in his favourite activity. Fixing things. There are three clock mechanisms spread out. The idea is to create one working one out of the bits. So kind of our hosts to provide appropriate entertainment for his recuperation.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move