Renovations Part 4: Landscaping

Work begins...better than TV!

At the back of our house there is a lovely covered area...it would be a deck if there was a wood floor. It could be a patio. We call it "The Green Room" because it is covered in green corrugated fibre glass and green shade cloth and as such it has a rather green glow about it.

But our green room had a decidedly brown floor. No grass was growing there, and it appeared that grass would struggle to grow. When it was dry...it was dusty. And when it was wet...it was muddy. And dear little Skipper just loved to go outside and play in the dirt and if ever the door opened was outside in a flash and off to eat as much of it as he could manage before he was caught.

After much debate, and talking to three different landscapers...we decided to pave. We also decided to have the retaining wall redone at the same time since it was looking shabby and made of wood (and we clearly don't want to attract termites any more than necessary).

So our green room is now paved in red pavers the colour of the old red bricks that were used to do that latest addition to the 130 year old house. We have grassed the areas around that. We pulled back a lot of dirt from in front of the retaining wall to make our slope a little more gentle and used the dirt to help create a contour bank to redirect water that we found coming off the paddocks in huge downpours. We also added two drains to our paved area to help with getting rid of water in those big downpours.

My dirty, hard workers!

Simple is good! I love the space we have created with all that green grass (it will be all grass once we have finished with it!).










It's been a very dusty four weeks. This morning the grass arrived...and our little workers laid 100m2 of grass. It looks fantastic. We are so glad this is now done.

Busy Takes On New Meaning

Electrician, landscaper, and builder...on the day the Boarder
Mail arrived to take photos

Lent...the 40 days before Easter (not including Sundays) where as Christians we focus our thinking on repentance. For a pastor's family, Lent rivals Advent (the 4 Sundays before Christmas Day) for the busiest time of the year.

This is normal for us. So generally during Lent (and Advent) I try to keep things as simple as possible in the home. We reduce our extracurricular activities to the absolute minimum so that we can allow for the extra events that happen in this time.

Somehow I forgot about all that this year. So how has Lent been busy for us? Let's see:

• I finalised our registration for homeschooling in NSW (currently considered the most difficult state in Australia to register...although I would dispute just how difficult it is)

• Our landscaping started at the beginning of Lent...and took all four weeks to finish. Dust...

• The builder came to fix the termite damage...MORE dust.

• On the day our landscaping and building began the kids and I took part in an interview for our local paper about homeschooling (flick through the photos, there's some great ones of the kids).

The Man enjoyed taking photos of the photographer who
came from the Boarder Mail.

• The electrician came to make safe and fix up some electrical issues in the house.

• My laundry was built  (I think this was my favourite thing!)

• We laid out 100m2 of turf.

• For three weeks our phone and internet weren't working. It's only just now back to normal. 

And at the beginning of Lent we discovered that Christian's mother is very unwell in Germany. So we have been praying and planning about his travelling to Germany to help assess her care. Tiger is going to accompany him, which is both exciting and nerve wracking. We look forward to reading Tiger's blog posts whilst he is away.

Renovations Part 3: Termite Damage

When we bought Stoneleigh we had the usual building and pest inspections. This turned out to be a great thing, because we discovered termite damage in the wall between the old part of the house and the latest addition to the house...which is a good thing because everyone needs a good reminding to have pest inspections on a yearly basis...and this was ours.

It took quite some time to get a reasonable quote to fix the damage, but we eventually found one. It took a week to fix. And since there was a lot of dust we decided that the kids could sleep on the verandah for that time. They LOVED it! It was loads of fun, the weather remained just right for this kind of activity and it really was like camping in your own bed. I have a funny feeling that this might become a bit of an annual event!




As you can see from the photos, some of the termite damage was quite severe. The top hardwood lintel that was above a window before renovations was completely eaten through. The builder could literally put his fingers through it. It was paper thin. Considering these were load bearing walls, it was a wonderful blessing that we didn't have any disaster on our hands.

Renovations: Part 2...The Laundry

When we arrived, the laundry renovations had been started by the previous owner, but there had been a dramatic halt in all renovations so it was unfinished. A bench lined one wall and under the window. and two Bunnings kit cupboards were up on another wall. The floors were just the concrete slab. Most notably, I had a sink in the corner of the laundry...with a bench in front of it so access was leaning over a bench to get to it. It was awkward.

At Christmas time I discovered what Bradley did for a living after he mentioned that he had spent the afternoon whipping up the manger scene for one of our major Christmas services. So we had him round for dinner and dreamed up a fantastic laundry. This new laundry has eight deep drawers so that each person has a drawer for their clean clothes as they are folded up. It has a bench down just one wall but cupboards are up to the ceiling, and covering three of the walls in the room. I don't think I could have added anything more into this room. 

Happy?? VERY! Bradley has worked so hard...best working tradie by far! And the happiest disposition!

Best Concert Ever!

We love Colin Buchanan's music!

The Man and Tank on stage.

It started for me years ago (1999) when I saw Colin play on the Today Show for his "Edge of The Kimberley" Album when he won the Golden Guitar (Australia's top country music award). Brilliant music...and very Australian.

Tiger and Princess helping out for The Mummy Song.

Then I saw his kids music at Koorong. I started using his music in my teaching at school.

So my kids have been brought up on Colin. I've bought pretty much every album. I love his country stuff and his kids praise stuff, and his adult christian music is fantastic too. His christian music is not just fluff, and it's all great theology...more than that it's deep theology. My kids are singing stuff that in years to come when it comes to their mind (or to mine) they will continue to have "Aha" moments.

We've been to two concerts indoors...they were great.

Joybug thought he was just great!

But this concert was outdoors. Colin was on the back of a semi trailer, the kids had plenty of grass to dance around on and more than that our church was organising it. So...PK perks (PK is short for Pastor's Kid)!!! All of our kids (except Joybug and Skipper) got up on stage to help at different parts of the concert. And Daddy got up at the end to do a quick thank you and to wind up the concert (Colin said he did a great job tying it in and keeping it short).

We all lined up and got Colin to sign our CD's, and Tiger had his cap signed. And of course there were photos. We had so much fun!!

Praise God From Whom ALL Blessings Flow

What an evening!! What a cascade of events!!

Yesterday was Harvest Thanksgiving at all our congregations. Our little family has been so blessed with the harvest from our orchard that we did not plant and the grape vine that we did not tend, we really do feel like we have come to the promised land in so many ways. That and our veggie patch that we planted has kept us well supplied.  This was our opportunity to formally give thanks to God for the wonderful and great blessings here.

So I brought along a platter of my grapes, thinking I would be giving them away. What I didn't know was that here they give all the produce from Harvest Thanksgiving to the pastor's family! I came with my small offering and ended up with 50 fold back!

Massive zucchinis

So today was a preserving day. The kids and I spent the afternoon making "Harvest Jam" - grapes (from Thanksgiving), apples and figs (from our own trees) and making Tomato and Zucchini chutney.

After all that it was time for a break, so we went out to feed the sheep and Mum's horse. It looked like a storm was coming so we decided to head into the paddock and up the hill to check it out.

Have I mentioned our property is over 130 years old? We have plans to do some archeology at the old school site, which we think we have found through looking at the topography in the old school area. We have had a few minor finds in our walks, like a glass drink bottle from a cordial company that closed in the mid 1950's, or a piece of coloured, patterned glass that may have been in a window above a main door. But today Tank made a major find.

Our archeological finds.

Tank found an uncovered brown coloured glass bottle in amongst some old bits of flat tin. Tiger gave it a bit of a clean with his hands and found a date "1925". So right up front we dated our find. A wee bit of hand digging and lifting a few bits of the tin and we discovered an old tin pot and then an old cast iron cooking pot. We also found a number of tins stacked inside each other, and so we think that this was one of the old house rubbish tips that we have been looking for.

At which point Christian arrived home...and the storm did too. We quickly bundled the kids out of the paddock (away from a bucking horse) and into the house. Then managed to get the clothes off the line just as the first big drops started.

The "pool"

It was a great downpour. We walked around our verandah as we cooled down from the day. The paddocks were all misted from the rain, our down pipes were overflowing and when we got to the back of the house we discovered the area we are about to pave was flooding. 

What a blessing! We had heard about this kind of downfall from my brother, but now we got the chance to see it and work out what we could do to mitigate it before we pave our back area!

Our back door.

There was much fun for the kids building dams to save the unpacked boxes of books in the garage, building dams to redirect the water into the veggie patch and away from the laundry door...digging trenches. We were all thoroughly drenched, so the kids had a play in their "pool"...an area thats a part of a large contour drain to stop the flooding.

All topped off with a dinner off the land. What a fantastic day!

2014's Review

Harvest 2014 - The storm clouds were rolling in so we
headed off down our road to watch the headers.

Yep, I know, we are now in February of 2015. But the last few months have been so incredibly hectic that any thought of a review of our year was simply out of the question!

So what were we up to last year. Well you could trawl through our posts of 2014...but never the less here are our highlights.

So many good photos...we saw the header enter the paddock
and then put his comb down...and shortly after passing us the
first time another header came into the same paddock...
a rare treat!

Our year began with preparations for the birth of our delightful baby, Skipper. The kids and I spent much time going through each room and culling the excess. Simplifying is such a beautiful thing. But it was a slow process, with my growing belly causing significant tiredness and getting in the road of too much bending.

My pregnancy was punctuated by regular contractions that concerned my doctor. And then our little Skipper decided to start labour before our set caesarean date. He was born 3 weeks premature, but only 8 hours before he was intended. The poor little man spent a week in the special care nursery, and then we struggled to breast feed for 2 and a half months. But our struggle has proved to be just a blink, with time since then flying past.

Christian bought me a much longed for camera this year. I have enjoyed honing my photography skills, although with that comes the need to delete a whole heap of unnecessary photos. It's a great hobby to have with kids, they are constantly coming up with new things to photograph and I think even Christian has enjoyed taking photos this year too.

Our last Sunday in Toowoomba...Enoch's Confirmation.
After this we went to Lunch and then began our drive to
Burrumbuttock.

And then Christian was given the call to Burrumbuttock Parish when we were 2 months into our feeding struggle. It came at an interesting time. My parents had retired from Wagga (2 hours from Burrumbuttock), and would be moving to Inverell (4 hours from Toowoomba, but 11 hours from Burrumbuttock) and at the same time my youngest brother was just about to put his Burrumbuttock house and 13 acres on the market. We had to visit...and of course then we were in love with the place!

Christmas on the front verandah

We took our holidays to Tasmania for a friends wedding and had an amazing time travelling around and exploring. So much history! We made a wonderful journal of our time there.

Saying goodbye to Toowoomba was hard in some ways and easier in others. We made some wonderful friends in the homeschooling community there and we all miss them.

Since arriving in Burrumbuttock I have sewn curtains for 8 windows, planted a veggie patch, preserved fruit from our orchard, and made a good dent on the many renovations we have to do to the 130 year old house. Christian has really enjoyed taking up woodwork again, with making another set of large shelves for our growing library, repairing gaps in the floors, making a sign for our property, a cabinet for Tank and a treasure chest the Man. There is still much to be done, but we are pretty much enjoying each bit as it comes. This year holds much change for our property "Stoneleigh".

Birthday fun

Bonnet by Tiger and Mama.

Happy 10th Birthday to Princess! All she really wanted...has wanted for some time...was a bonnet. The kind worn by Laura Ingalls Wilder of "Little House on the Prairie" fame, or Mandie from her favourite adventure girl books (by Lois Gladys Leopard). Then of course there is her love of Jane Austin, Anne of Green Gables and all things old fashioned...so much like her mother. And yes, we had to make one for Joybug so they could be beautiful girls together. I truly enjoy indulging her

And for a fantastic lunch we had a homemade lunch...home made buns (thanks Sal), homemade mayonnaise (thanks to Mrs. Patmore - our Thermomix), and homegrown tomato and cucumber. Delicious! 

Clearly we are in our element! The veggie garden is growing great, as is the orchard. We are inundated with cucumbers, zucchini, plums, grapes and soon tomatoes. We are preserving, preserving, preserving. The kids are loving the idea that we are saving up for the winter, just like we have read about in the "Little House" books.

Tiger's 2014

This year Daddy got called to the Burrumbuttock Lutheran Parish in NSW. Burrumbuttock is in the Albury-Wodonga area which is right on the NSW-VIC border. Our new home, ''Stoneleigh'' is 5 minutes out of Burrumbuttock and the West Burrumbuttock School is on the property and so is the teachers house which has had extensions added and is where we live. We are still doing our own renovations and so far we have built the pantry, made curtains and a whole heap of other stuff. We have  1 horse Lorien, 2 ducks: Mopsey and Flopsey, 3 Guinea Fowl: Bash, Dash and Crash, 7 Silver Sussex and 20 Sheep, 3 of them have names Bob, Jim and Moo Moo.

This year on April 24th we welcomed our new brother Skipper into our family. It was really fun feeding him with the bottle and holding him. I like watching him do different things and seeing him smile.







Earlier this year we went on a holiday to Tasmania.

We went to a place called Tasmazia with life size mazes, cubby house villages and even a correction centre. I liked all the cubby houses the best because they were fun to play in. The mazes were downright annoying because it took ages for us to get into the centre. Mama got completely lost more than once.

We also went to Port Arthur where we learnt about convicts and looked inside prisons and went to the Isle of the Dead. At the Isle of the Dead there were interesting stories of the people who were buried there.  The day we were there was freezing!

In Hobart we visited a replica of Mawson's Hut in Antartica. We got to dress up in the clothes they would have worn and write with their typewriter and read stories about them.

While we were in Tasmania we made of what we did and each of us kids, including Mummy and Daddy, wrote about what happened for every day. We still look at it. It has lots of great memories.

This year I got Confirmed on November 9 2014. Me and my fellow Confirmees stood up in front of the church and proclaimed our faith. Here is my faith statement: I believe that Jesus is my saviour. I am a sinner like all people, and that Jesus saved me by dying on the cross. I also believe that Jesus cleansed me, a bloodied person like every body else, so that I am now with as snow. I chose Deuteronomy 31:6 because it reminds me that I can be strong in God, faithful and trusting him no matter what, and that he will be with me to the end of the age.

2014 has been an adventurous year and I hope 2015 will be just as fun!


By the Tiger  

The Man's 2014

We went to Robinson Cabin at Boonoo Boonoo National Park. We went for a little holiday after Skipper was born. I liked the river and the big rocks called granite. I liked being able to light fires and going bushwalking. In this picture I was holding pure quartz.









When Skipper was born he was very cute and I like that I am his buddy. Being his buddy means that I have to help him when he needs help. Skipper struggled to breastfeed so I got to feed him using the bottle. I liked doing that. Now he has normal food. He likes sweet potato and rice with Korma (we all like Indian food).

 I like going swimming. This year I have got really good at swimming, but I still need a few more lessons.

I miss Toowoomba because I miss our church there.

In Burrumbuttock I like it best because we have a bigger yard and lots and lots of pets. My favourite pet is our chickens.