Our first Easter in our little piece of paradise.........................

Today is Easter Monday and our first Easter living in our property "SharpAz".
The weather has started to cool and we have had a couple of 4 degree mornings and it is not even winter time yet.
During the four day Easter break we have had lots of Family visit, stay and generally have a good time.
Good Friday saw the lighting of the bonfire which disposed of all the general rubbish collected from around the property as well as the remnants of the old shed.

Here is the pile before the lighting. Quite a significant amount to burn. I thought it would burn for at least 24 hours. How wrong you can be.

The bonfire was lit at about 1pm on Good Friday and started to smoulder before taking full flight

Smoulder for quite a while.

Just something hypnotic about a fire burning at full flight.

The next morning there was nothing left but the pieces of metal mixed up with the timber from the old shed.

Now to reinvigorate the firepit and construct an area that we can sit around quite comfortably.
Maybe something like this...... but without the water views.

We are not even half way through April........................

Easter is coming up and I think we might be toooooooo far away in the sticks for the Easter Bunny to find us this year.

This morning the Easter Bunny's feet would no doubt have been stuck to the ground as it was 4.8 degrees and we have not even entered Winter time.
I think the prediction of a really cold winter is going to come true.

This week we definitely have to sort out our heating situation.
So I think it will be out with the old wood stove and in with a pot belly or something that is similar so the whole house can be heated.
Then we will have to gather the stock of firewood to fill the wood box.

The other issue we are having is the irregularity of our VOIP. Our voice over internet phone is generally not working more often then working.
I am coming to the conclusion that we will have to put a Telstra phone line in. The cost is outrageous but to make sure we have a phone line that we can rely on..... we may have to bite the bullet and do it.
Either that or wait until Telstra launch the mobile phone tower they have put in place at Cooyar. This may give us mobile phone coverage as Cooyar is only about 10km down the road.
I guess time will tell which is the best route to take.

"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

The weeks just seem to rocket on by. We have much to do and it seems we are always adding things to the "To Do" list.
These last couple of weeks have been busy.
We have participated in the Thornville Trivia night and met some more wonderful people, started to look at what is happening in the Cooyar district and make moves forward to becoming a little more active in this region, taken a trip to Yarraman and Blackbutt as well as continuing with Morris's training.

This past week we have had to take a quick trip to Brisbane to sort out a few things as well as deal with our first brown snake.

It has been six months since we moved to Thornville and this is the first time we have had an upfront and personal interaction with a snake.

 

 

So this juvenile brown snake, we think, has come from a neighbouring property where there had been a lot of clearing activity taking place. The property is being prepared for sale so there has been much activity. We can only guess that this has stirred things up.

We thought we could just wait it out and it would go on it's merry way........... alas no, something kept drawing it back to under our house.

Boyd came across it sunning itself on the top of the septic system and got Morris inside. The second sighting was courtesy of Morris the Wonder Dog who alerted us to it's presence.
It seems Mr or Mrs Brown Snake came across a field mouse nest under our house that we knew nothing about.
Boyd found bodies of mice through the yard. The snake had gone on a killing spree and it must have been to wet and cold for it to eat and digest them.

So we are now about 6 days on from the first sighting and encounter. We have not seen it over the last few days. Morris the Wonder Dog has not alerted us to it being any where near the house.
Probably the wake up call we needed to not be so complacent in a bush setting. Also keeping Morris inside and contained has seemed to have calmed him down.
With all the rain we have had the grass is growing at an amazing rate. The tanks are close to full so we cannot complain. We just have to keep the grass in the house yard low to ensure we can see snakes if they decide to come venturing in again any time soon.

The next project we have to attack is the issue of heating the house in the upcoming winter season.
After attempting to clean and sort out the wood stove in the kitchen it looks as though it requires a complete overhaul and refurbishment.
Boyd conducted some research and it looks like we are going to have the wood stove replaced with a pot belly stove with a new flue. This will make sure we have the capacity to heat the whole house as I am sure it is going to get mighty cold here this winter.
Next week we are talking with a guy who refurbishes old stoves and pot bellies.
Hoping to have the Everhot Wood stove as pictured below, replaced with a Pittsburgh Pot Belly Stove. Will give us more room in the kitchen and will be able to heat the whole house with no leaks coming down the chimney.
Updates soon on the progress of this little exercise.

This week has also been a big week for Morris the Wonder Dog. Boyd and I have been lucky enough to meet a wonderful Woman by the name of Tanya who has kindly offered to help us with Morris and his behaviour.

Now Morris is not a bad dog. We love him dearly. Morris seems to have a problem with people and asserting his authority over people that are not Boyd or I.

Morris, (the not so little puppy anymore) can be unpredictable as we understand Australian Blue Heelers can be. As we do not know Morris's history prior to adopting him in November 2016, we can only assume that it was not that great.

We have tried a number of things from getting an dog behaviour specialist out, training at home, having people over to interact with him and taking him to dog obedience classes. A number of things have worked. Tanya has been able to give us so much insight into what Morris maybe thinking and how he will react in certain situations and what we can do to make changes to his reactions.

Over the next few weeks Tanya has kindly offered to do some one on one work with him to see how he goes.

We are now in the month of March.........................

My goodness, where does the time go to????
We are now in March 2017. It is now six months since we moved into our forever home and I have to say we are still quietly loving it.
So far we have made some wonderful friends within the community and we seem to be blessed with having such wonderful people surrounding us.

I have had a little set back health wise........ probably because I thought I could do much more than what I actually could.
Still taking small steps so to not go back to where I was.
That is all boring stuff............ let's get onto the good stuff.

Boyd and I have had some fantastic experiences in the last few months. We helped out at the local Cooyar Show, we have participated in some local meetings and last weekend Crows Nest officially became a Motorcycle Friendly Town.

We are also surrounded by such beautiful nature. The critters are just glorious and we enjoy seeing them up close and personal at every opportunity we get.
Just the other day we were driving into Crows Nest and on the side of the highway near the Historical Society there was a tiny echidna taking a stroll along the footpath, minding it's own business and having a lovely feed of ants that were scurrying around rebuilding after the recent rain.

Just delightful. What a lovely experience. I just had to make sure the little fella was not going to become road kill. We have seen echidna's three times the size as road kill on the highway.

 

The other lovely experience is having two beautiful horses acting as our lawn mowers in one of our paddocks. Morris loves having a chat with them, but the other day he was just plain naughty and grabbed one of them by the tail. He got an almighty kick to the head that sounded like it had cracked his scull. Luckily no damage.

 

 

Boyd has named them Rover and Cox...... (lawnmowers). LOL.
They are beautiful girls that we enjoy watching gallop across the paddocks and laugh when they spit water at Morris through the fence.

Little Morris is no longer little. He does not look like a puppy anymore. He is looking handsome but can be such a naughty boy.................

So things are moving along, life is wonderful in the country and we still believe that this is the best move we have ever made.
Till my next entry...............................let's hope Morris and Mr Beastie finally become friends and that we get some progress on the vegetable gardens.

Green Acres is the place to be. Farm living is the life for me............................

It is now 5 Months to the day that we purchased our dream property in Thornville.
So much has happened, changed, improved and we still love it as much as we did when we decided to pull up stumps and move from the big smoke to the country.

On the positive side of the score sheet, we have completed the majority of renovations and improvements to the property. Each day waking up to this beautiful landscape, fresh clean air and sounds of the native wildlife is nothing but spectacular.

We have met some wonderful people that have opened their arms to us and we look forward to forging long lasting relationships with everyone that has embraced us. It can be difficult moving over two and a half hours from your original neighbourhood where you have solid roots and friendships.
Boyd and I (just like everyone else in this world) may not necessarily be everyone's cup of tea, but we are who we are.
The beautiful thing is to get to the stage in your life where you have seen and experienced so many things, that you are just simply thankful for all that you have. Thankful that you have wonderful people around you and you are happy to give back all that you can.
The biggest lesson has been, don't sweat the small stuff and if you come across someone that doesn't treat you well, simply turn the other cheek.

So we feel that life has such a beautiful exciting glow that we continue to embrace.

We have also had some interesting experiences thus far.
Morris the Wonder Dog is a continual source of entertainment. We have had the dog whisperer out to see him and as we thought, all his reactions to people coming on to the property are all based on fear. We are confident that we can work this through with him and get him to a calm state.

Morris's herding instinct is so strong. The other evening he managed to gently pick up 5 green tree frogs in his mouth, one by one and place them in a circle. He then rounded them all and kept them together until he tired of the game.

Last night at about 1am Morris decided to bring a tree frog into the bedroom.
I heard it squealing and did think that he took it back outside and released it....... I WAS WRONG.
This morning I saw something out of the corner of my eye move on the bed under Boyd's pillows.
Was it a SPIDER???????? Was it a baby SNAKE?????????? No......... FROG.

Looked a little like this.

 

 



 After I got a bit of a shock and then had to wait for the adrenalin to stop pumping, I had to then find it as Mr Beastie the ginger ninja then started to chase it around the bedroom. All fun and games.

The next part of the adventure will be to plan our vegetable garden and sort out what we might be able to grow with the limited water supply that we have. We could do with more rain.... but in saying that..... we are luckier than some. Our tanks are reasonably full, the trees and land is a beautiful green and we are heading out of Summer. Time to do some research and planning.

A little while since an update has been posted..................

We are now in the third week of 2017. Over Christmas and New Year we had a few visitors come up and stay with us.

We organised a day trip to the Bunya Mountains which is only about an hour from our property.

We spent New Years Eve at the Cooyar Pub. It was a good old Pig on a Spit with live entertainment. It was a great night spent with good people and great food.
Cooyar is our local so I think we will spend quite a but more time there.
The Cooyar Show is coming up on the 25th of February. It will be our first local show.

Luckily we have been getting a bit more rain. The tanks are filling and we now are back to drinking lovely rain water rather than the water that we had bought in. We purchased 12000lt to ensure we did not run out of water. It is hard to describe the taste..... it was a little salty and slimy. That is the best way in which I can describe the taste.

With all the rain the grass is looking so green and lush.

The rain clouds still hover overhead. We are hoping for more rain.

This week will also see the "Dog Whisperer" come out to our little part of the world to work with Morris the wonder dog.
Morris is certainly growing into such a lovely dog....... BUT..... he has a couple of issues. Morris is very protective of the house and of Boyd and myself. He does not like other people in the house and can get quite snappy and shows signs of aggression. He also has a little bit of separation anxiety and does not like getting into the car. So all of these things we will talk with Katrina about and see if we can put a plan in place to alleviate it.
Will update further after the first visit. ( Morris still loves chasing the cat, poor Mr Beastie)