Tornado...!

The end of the storm.

This picture shows the end of a tornado that went directly over our house this afternoon. You can still see the end of the tail touching the ground. When the storm passed over our house it was about 20 to 30 metres wide. [Edit: Storm chasers said it was more like 100 metres wide in places]

Our front gate.

Our great tree that welcomed people to our home.

We were all inside at the time of the storm. I had just laid down at the front of our house for a rest with Tank and Skipper. Christian and the other children were at the back of the house, also resting.

The storm took less than two minutes to pass, but the damage it did was incredible! Our saddest loss was that of two of our geese. Both our females were thrown about by the storm and died fairly quickly from injuries. Our gander was quite bereft.

Barely a tree was left unscathed in it's path. We lost one garage that was housing our unpacked things from the move. My car, the blue van was damaged. [Edit: The van took over 3 weeks to fix]

There is going to be a lot of cleaning up to do!!! But there are many things to be glad about:

We were not outside!

This was once a large pepper tree,
probably 130 years old, with a large amount of
shade (and termites no doubt)

Our neighbours were not outside! (We saw the storm go directly over their house also, they lost some sheds and have some house damage but were all safe).

We have loads of wood for the coming years!

We finished our renovations to the termite damaged area (this storm would have knocked down the house, as it is we have now found more termite damage because of the storm).

We are insured. They have been called...and now we just have to wait for that to pan out.

We arrived home at midnight today instead of midnight tomorrow. Not knowing how it all happened would have been quite shocking!

Emergency services clean up

We have WONDERFUL emergency services people. They were out within an hour clearing our roads.

We have a fantastic community! One neighbour (and parishioner) dropped everything and came right around to help. Another called the footy club to alert them of the storm and we were given the leftovers from todays footy match (We don't even know a lot of these people!!). Three other parishioners dropped over and helped clear out Christian's books from the downed garage so that they wouldn't get damaged from the rain.

Our beautiful home...Christian is near our gate.

We are so grateful to God for His wonderful protection. When all the hooha had settled down, we gathered together in the lounge room and read Psalm 46:1-3

Around our sheds.

Looking up to the back paddock.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

 though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

The trail of disaster to our neighbours place

Pepper

Pepper being hugged by Tank and fed by The Man

Pepper taking Tank for a walk
(although he says it was the other way around)

 Pepper, our beloved horse died today.

Pepper knew she was a horse, but was very gregarious. She loved being around us. She thought she could walk right in to wherever we were, including our house (if we let her, we kids did, but were careful not to let Mum see). She was always very gentle, and yet she was feisty too. She knew full well that she was the queen of the horses we owned. She was the boss horse, but a graceful elegant one at that.

She was the last of Grandma's hand reared horses, trained to both saddle and harness.

As a saddle horse she was good, but as a harness horse she had no equal!

She pulled our little sulky on a four week adventure from Sydney over the Barrington Tops mountains to Inverell. Our route was well over 700km. We even made the Tamworth newspaper and had a small spot in the local Win News.

That was quite an adventure! But she was such a good horse that we didn't have to hobble her at night, she stayed near our camp (and her horse friend Sam) and happily munched away.

Recreating my Mother's five kids on a horse photo.

As kids, when we lived in the western suburbs of Sydney, we had so much fun with her. Who else at our school could say they lived on an average 1/4 acre block and had a horse!? We would agist her down next to the Great Western Highway. We would ride her up in the George Street bush in Mount Druitt, which is where I finally got the courage to go against the dogs and chased a nasty dog that was scaring her all the way back to it's home.

Pepper walking inside...again.

Like all horses, she could occasionally get a bit flighty, but I distinctly remember driving with Mum down Pennant Hills Road in Sydney and so long as we kept singing she wouldn't flinch at the huge semi-trailers zooming past (it was highway status even at that time).

The singing was one of Grandma's great tricks with all her horses. It would distract them from whatever they were worried about and they would listen to the song. Grandma used to sing all sorts of hymns to her horses. We did too.

Travelling with horses can be a bit touchy. But not with Pepper. So long as she knew we were going she was happy. My favourite floating memory was the time we took Pepper in the double decker bus that my folks used for ministry in the Presbyterian Church in NSW. We drove up the highway to the central coast. Pepper standing next to one of the downstairs windows. It was so funny to watch the kids in the passing cars looking so bored by the trip (no DVD players in cars back then) and suddenly seeing Pepper and yelling and screaming to their parents about the horse in the bus!

We thank God for the wonderful memories we all have of Pepper. All my children have precious memories of her, and my childhood memories of her are unsurpassed.

Riding Pepper and Sunshine at Geebung Flat
(that's a young Tiger on board too)

The End Of Renovations!

It is finished!

I do love the butterfly my beautiful family gave me for Christmas

It's feels so good to know that it's finally all done!

Yes, there are still projects. I would like to have some raised veggie beds, and there are a few walls that need a lick of paint. But the renovations are done. So what did we do? First there was the pantry by Tiger and Grandfather, then there was the fixing of the termite damage and at the same time the electrical work and landscaping at the back door, then there was the fitting out in the laundry and now finally the tiling is done.

















I still think my favourite renovation is the laundry. So practical, so usable, so sensible and so well done! A few years of thought was put into it, and if there was a next time I would put the drier over the washing machine (or the other way around) but it didn't work with my plumbing.

Local Wildlife

We've seen a bit of interesting wildlife at our place in the past few weeks.

Tiger and the boys were cleaning up a pile of corrugated iron and found this little turtle. Yes, we are glad it was such a benign creature, but the weather has been pretty cold so I would have been seriously surprised to see a snake.

We released him into our dam, after taking note of the beautiful pattern the creator made on his back and the lovely way he could scrunch up in his home.

Granny came to visit and deliver some much needed cupboards. As she was unpacking the cupboards we discovered she had a stowaway!

This beautiful, tiny bat travelled with her from near Inverell, in the north of New South Wales, down to us on the southern border of NSW.

We don't know much about bats, except that even my children know that they carry disease. We used to be concerned about Hendra Virus when we had horses in Toowoomba. Thus we got gloves before touching.

We emailed our friendly scientist Dr Danny Wotherspoon, who's always been part of our family. He said: 

"That is a most exciting find indeed! Bats are really hard to identify even when holding one in the hand. There are many small features to look for. Good to see that you had gloves on. That one is in the Evening Bat family, or family Vespertilionidae."

Unfortunately the pictures we took were not clear enough to be able to identify it definitively. But we know that this one belonged to the suborder of Microchirotera or microbat. And he certainly was small, the body was no bigger than a mouse.

Uncle Danny believes that he has probably found other bats in his species and gone into hibernation now for the winter. So it possibly ends well.

Quote from Dr Danny Wotherspoon 

BSc, Dip Ed, Grad Dip Bushfire, MA, PhD, 

MESA, MASH, MEIANZ

Councillor, Ecological Consultants Assn NSW

Abel Ecology

Burrumbuttock Babies

We have had our first baby at Burrumbuttock. We came home from church today to find this cute little lamb.

Tiger is our shepherd. He did a great assignment learning all about our breed of sheep a few months back. For the past two weeks he has been carefully feeding our little herd of 12 dorper ewes (and one Ram) every two days, whilst wearing a bright coloured jumper. He has trained them to recognise his voice, so that they happily come whenever he calls. However, whilst they are coming closer to allowing him to touch them, this ewe was not ready for us to go any closer to her and her baby than 5m or so.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Travel Day(s) Part 2

This morning we got on the train and went to Albury where we met mummy and the other kids when we got home we gave the kids presents and settled in. We have had a wonderful time in Germany and I can't wait for next years camp.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Travel Day(s) Part 1

Today we got up and did a thorough clean of the house and then left for Frankfurt. We flew via Hong Kong to melbourne which took about 20 hours on the way we watched lots of movies such as Paddington and Captain America. We arrived back safely in Melbourne where we stayed the night at a budget hotel. Since today was ANZAC day daddy was supposed to be in Jindera but we couldn't make it.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 13

Aglasterhausen and Frankfurt 

In the morning we drove to Frankfurt to drop off the car and pick up a new car. Our new car is a tiny four seated Fiat with a sun roof, city mode (to help with stopping), and lots more. We visited Oma in hospital, and then went home and went for a swim but the pool was all booked.  It was a very busy day.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 12

Aglasterhausen

That's us with Herr und Frau Schulte

Today was a wonderful day (until the afternoon) but I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the morning we took Oma for a blood test appointment and then had lunch with a couple called the Schulte's in Aglasterhausen.  Daddy went to school with their son Tobias.

Then we went home and had a rest and then packed to go for a swim for after our visit to Oma in the afternoon.  But the swim never happened.

When we visited Oma the nurses told us that Oma had to go to hospital again because the blood tests that had come in said that there still might be an infection in her knee.  Daddy dropped Tiger of at home and visited Oma in hospital. And we never had our swim. We were supposed to fly home the next day but Daddy changed the flight and we have to take home the car tomorrow.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 11

Aglasterhausen and Mannheim 

Daddy's cousin Gwen

This morning we took Oma to church in Mosbach. Daddy thought the organ music was great.  There was a baptism, and the church was about three quarters full.

I'm listening to the audio tour in English

Then we went to see Daddy's cousin Gwen in Mannheim.  Gwen lives in Giessen, just north of Frankfurt, which is not far away. When we got there the traffic was horrible. There was some kind of protest going on and police were everywhere! There was so much of a delay that you could get out of your car and not have to move it for a long time!

We had lunch at a Turkish restaurant and then went to look at the palace there in Mannheim. On the way back to the train station there was police every were! Normal police as well as riot police with awesome suits. We think they were there because of the football match that was going on.

Apparently there are some bus companies in Germany that go interstate for only €15,00.