"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)

A sleep in till 6am...............

This morning was a little bit of a luxury.

Morris let us sleep in until 6am.
He was rewarded with a meaty bone to demolish along with another toy which was a ball on a rope which he has taken to ripping apart.

Yesterday he also was given a squeaky soft plastic pig which grunts when chewed.
This kept Morris and us entertained for hours.

I still am at a loss why someone would dump poor little Morris.
I guess someone else's loss is our gain.
He is a lovely natured dog full of unconditional love and affection.
Morris is a typical puppy.
The on switch goes on and he is like the energiser bunny, then he has to come inside for a big puppy nap.

This afternoon I could hear him barking relentlessly.
My immediate thought was.........................SNAKE.
Luckily it was not a snake, but a plastic bag being blown around the yard by the fierce wind we are experiencing at the moment.

Just goes to prove that Morris has good instincts.
He kept his distance from it and simply rounded it up and kept barking until he got our attention.

He has also taken to trying to round the cat up.
The cat won't have a bar of it.
Mr Beastie has a hiss and a growl to let Morris know to keep his manners in check.
I am sure they will become best friends in the future.
At the moment Mr Beastie has enough high spots like the piano, dinning table, entertainment unit and kitchen stools to keep him out of Morris's reach.
For the time being, we just watch on, interfere when necessary and wait to make sure no one ends up with an injury.

Ohhhhh the fun and games of it all.

The Mexican Standoff that has been happening all week....................

As we announced, this week we had a new member of the family arrive unexpectedly.
Morris is a lovely puppy, currently at about 10kgs but with the way he is eating he will be about double that when we take him back to the vet to get de-sexed.

Now Mr Beastie (our Ginger Ninja de-sexed stray male 3 and half year old cat) is only slightly smaller than Morris at this stage.

Mr Beastie so wants to play with Morris but has to assert his AUTHORITAYYYYYYYYYY over Morris.

So this week has been the Mexican standoff.

Morris so wants to play with Beastie........

Mr Beastie watches from above......... He rules the roost.

Watch out........ He's behind you............................

Do you really want to go there Morris????

The Mexican Standoff in the hallway................................

Come on Beastie...... I wanna play.... I can get my head..... just not the rest of me.

Hopefully by this time next week they will have stopped growling and hissing at each other as well as waking up at 4am to get us to play.............. Well the early wake up may take a little longer to sort.

With the Super Moon in all her glory........ feels like new beginnings.

The last few days have been filled with some strange energy. It seems with the Super Moon casting almost day light over the property at night, the birds are a little confused.
The Willie Wagtails have been singing all night with the Butcher Birds joining in around 4am.

Our household has been turned upside down with a new arrival to the farm.
Please meet Morris, the 6 month old Blue Heeler Cross. ( Well it is a guess on the age and can only guess he is a Blue Heeler Cross by looking at him)

Morris has not had the best start to his young life. He was found by a lovely lady on the side of the road near the Gatton rubbish tip wrapped in a towel. This lady could not keep him as she has 2 dogs. 
So...... after finding out he is not desexed or microchipped, we adopted Morris. 
We took Morris into Crows Nest Vets for a check up, microchipping, worming, vacinations and all the things you should do as a pet owner. 
So he now has all the vet work completed and is booked in to be desexed in a months time. 

Mr Beastie (the ginger ninja cat) is obviously not happy. He is not afraid of Morris as Beastie spent the first almost 2 years of his life with 2 dogs. There will be a rumble in the jungle at some stage but I am hoping that it will be a little later rather than sooner.

Boyd has been kept busy with cleaning up the wee and poop. Lucky we have loose lay vinyl planks is all I can say. I am sure Morris will get the house training of weeing and pooping outside before to long. He is only a puppy and these things take time.

So on today's agenda is a couple of not so pleasant things. Boyd has to deal with the Hire place that we hire the Kanga from as they are trying to charge us for damage that we did not do to the machine. This should be an interesting one.
The second not so pleasant hing is that despite agreeing to refund part of the labor costs of laying the floor, the flooring guy has not paid. He had 2 weeks to get it sorted but true to form, he has not come through again. So 3pm this afternoon the mediation process starts.

I will update the outcomes from today when things are finalised.

On a positive note, we have been actively recycling everything that we can. We bought a brick maker so we can make paper and cardboard bricks for the wood stove. They are drying at the moment under the house.

Today is going to be a big day. So best to get on with it.