Farmboy Hits Year 1. In The Path Of A Storm.

Farmboy had his first ever day of Year 1 today.  He was very excited until we were half way into town when he suddenly said.

"I feel a bit scared.  And a bit sick"

I tried to be as reassuring as I possibly could.  Farmboy is at a smallish country primary school and so his Year 1 class is largely made up of the same kids he went to Pre Primary with.  I pointed this out and told him it was "just like Pre Primary but with your own desk".  This seemed to settle him.

When we arrived his teacher (who is fantastic - another upside of a country school is knowing all the teachers) was very matter of fact about settling the kids into their desks and then lining them all up for Assembly.  Parents were encouraged to leave quickly and he was completely happy when I left.

He is super exhausted this evening.  He has already told me he is not keen to go tomorrow in case there is "any fun stuff" at home he misses. I pointed out that home will be exceptionally boring tomorrow and school would be a better option.  He seems happy enough with this.

Apparently the most exciting bit of the whole day was being allowed to bring home a reading book.

J Is Obviously The Letter Of The Day

On a completely different note, my thoughts keep turning to all the people in North Queensland who are facing Cyclone Yasi as I write.  I am sitting in our solid old farmhouse on a hot, still summer evening and it feels a world away.  Like the rest of Australia I can only hope that people stay safe and the damage is not too great...  Queensland is a beautiful part of Australia and it seems to have suffered far too much already this year.

Evening

Home Again

I am loving being home on The Farm.  Yesterday was spent unpacking, washing and catching up on paperwork.  I also spent what seemed like hours labeling Farmboy's school equipment.  By the evening my head was spinning from all those permanent marker fumes... So I grabbed a glass of wine and went for a wander outside.

Look what I saw.

Homestead Driveway

Treehouse

Home.  There is no place like it.

A Cloudy Sunset For A Monday Morning

There has been a cool change in the weather here on The Farm.  It has been overcast, windy and nowhere near as warm as it would usually be at this time of year.  (Poor Farmboy is doing swimming lessons - the kids all have blue lips by the end) It is going to warm up on Christmas Eve apparently, with the Christmas Day forecast still in the early 40s celsius (well above 100 F for you overseas readers).

Due to the abundance of cloud, the sunsets have been stunning.  Here are some photos I took when we were out walking on Saturday evening.

Looking South East

The Setting Sun

South East Again

I love the way the clouds reflect the light in the photos taken in a more easterly direction.  The clouds had a pearly luminescence that just doesn't show up well in the photos.

I love this photo too.  I wish I had it when I did my gum tree post.

Sunlit White Gum

Amongst The Gum Trees

When I was a child, we sang a song at school called "Give Me A Home Amongst The Gum Trees".  I think most Australians of my vintage could belt out the words without much prompting.  As a song it is on the daggy side.  Not least of all because it was the theme song of Burke's Backyard for many years...

This evening I went for a walk with The Farmer and The Farmchildren and realised that I had my own home amongst the gum trees.

I love gum trees.  They have a wonderful spare elegance.  I am fortunate enough that whoever planned the original Farmhouse garden planted rows of them.  I lie in bed at night and feel like the trees are standing guard around my home and family.  I find it oddly comforting.

Side Lawn, The Farmhouse

They line our driveways, making gorgeous arches that envelop you as you walk.

The Farmer and The Farmchildren, Main Driveway

Their spreading canopies are majestic and stand out, stark, against a turquoise summer sky.

Lone Gum Tree, Paddock On The Home Farm

Close up you can see the subtle glimmery sheen of their trunk.  And the beautiful lines of their branches.

Young Salmon Gum, Edge of House Paddock

I love their smell.  The smell of fresh young gum leaves when you crush them. The smell of dead leaves on the ground as you walk through them.  The smell of blossom from a lemon scented gum as you walk underneath it, and hear the gentle whir of bees.

The Farmchildren play happily in their shade.

Treehouse Under The Trees

The trees are part of our day to day existence on The Farm.  Always there, always beautiful.

Addit:  For anyone who is interested I have posted about Farmboy's special treehouse, seen in the last photo,  here.

For those of you who are not Australian, a gum tree is a common name for a eucalypt.

A Weekend Visitor

My gorgeous friend F has been up from The City.  We have had a lovely weekend.  She bought me these pretty Christmas tea towels as a present.

Pretty Christmas Tea Towels

We drank lots of coffee and spent lots of time chatting and catching up.  F has been living overseas for a while so it has been a long time since we have been able to spend a decent amount of time together.

I decided that she could be the "blog star" today.  Here she is enjoying our evening drinks.

F With Essential Evening Equipment

F was worried because she thought being a blog star sounded a bit like being a porn star.  I told her it was OK as it is actually more like being a rock star.  She was happier after that.

She had to spend lots of time with The Farmchildren doing very important things like jumping on the trampoline and colouring in pictures of Ben 10 Aliens.  I have been reliably informed by The Farmchildren that she is a very good "colouring inner".

She was also required to read "The Night Before Christmas" to The Farmchildren.  The Farmer  has read this story so many times that he has become a bit bored and has come up with a version that involves Indian takeaway which he reads in a terrible Indian accent. (As you do...)  In it Santa gets to have mango chutney and papadums.  Poor F was very confused when The Farmchildren kept asking when she would get to the papadum bit.

One thing F did mention to me was that she had commented on the blog.  I have never received her comments, so if this has ever happened to anyone else feel free to email.  The address is on the side bar.

F has just left to drive back to The City.  We miss you F, come again anytime!

A Furry Babysitter

My dear friend Fussy Eater's Mum posted recently about "Panasonica" who is her in-house babysitter.  On The Farm we do utilize our version of "Panasonica", however we have also got an excellent babysitting candidate in Molly.

Molly is our gorgeous border collie/kelpie/huntaway cross.  She is excellent at keeping an eye on The Farmchildren when they are outside.  She regularly runs border patrols around the house and has scared away more than the odd snake over the past few years.  Molly has good sheep dog instincts and has been known to "round up" Farmgirl if she ventures too far from the house....  Molly is regularly smothered with love and is used to being sat on, bear hugged and generally children-handled.

Yesterday evening I was able to take this gorgeous photo of Molly doing her duty with The Farmchildren.

Farmgirl, Farmboy and Molly

Fields Of Gold

This time of year always reminds me of the old Sting song "Fields of Gold".  For the simple reason that we are currently surrounded by them.  I haven't posted about our harvest for a while.  Mainly because I was finding the harvest process a bit hard and trying.   I always hit this point in harvest and then get over the metaphorical hump and on it goes.

We are at the point now where we have almost finished harvesting our barley crop and will move onto our wheat crop.  Hopefully we will finish mid December.  For those of you who came in late, we harvest with a machine we call a header.  To see a photo either click on the word header in the label section or click here.  The headers have been doing their job beautifully and we are getting there.  No more incidents with "wingy bits"

This year we are incredibly grateful to have a half decent crop to harvest.  Many farmers to the east of us had so little rain this year that they have either a very poor crop or none at all.

This harvest we have also baled up our barley straw and will sell it to piggeries.  They will use it for the pigs bedding. This is a good way for us to use what would otherwise be a waste product.

Last night The Farmchildren and I went to deliver The Farmer his dinner.  On the way we passed these bales, all stacked up and ready to go to cushion the pigs.

Bales of Barley Straw, My Shadow

My shadow is such a funny shape because I was wearing an apron.  It had been a busy day and I hadn't had time to change out of my clothes from my day job.  This meant I headed out to the paddock with my husband's dinner in a black top, black and white flared skirt and cute wedges with bows on the toes.  Oh, and an apron.  This was very Stepford of me.  I am OK with having Stepford Wife moments.  For two reasons: 1.  They are few and far between and 2. They are one rung up the ladder from moments of the fishwife variety at least.

Anyway, I digress.  Sorry.

There are lots of these little stacks of barley straw all over our paddocks. Here's some more.

More Barley Straw Bales

I like taking photos on The Farm using the evening light. It makes it all look so much more glamorous.  I am all for finding as much glamour in farming as I can.  The burning midday sun and the dust and flies just don't really cut it in the glamour stakes.

Anyway, I digress. Again. Sorry. Again.

We have been carting most of our harvested barley to the CBH storage facility in town.  This is just a big wheatbin with a weighbridge and stuff.  We have smaller storage type arrangements on The Farm.  Here is a photo of a truck being loaded from our on farm silos (big metal bins for grain storage)

Truck Being Loaded From Glamorous Sunset Type Silos

On the drive to deliver The Farmer his dinner I also saw these cars whilst peaking over the neighbours fence.  They are not ours, but I kind of like them, and so I took a photo.

Very Old Cars, With Sunset Added Glamour

We will keep working away at our harvest.  We still have the wheat to go.

Wheat Crop, Patiently Waiting to Be Harvested

Anyway, I started this post by referring to a Sting song.  I think I will finish with a Slim Dusty number.

Here is my photographic version of "Looking Forward, Looking Back".

Barley Straw Bales, From Car Window

Evening Part Two

People often ask me if I ever get tired of the views from our house.  I don't get tired of them but often forget to notice.  I get caught up in the tangles of day to day life.

Then sometimes I go outside in the evening and it looks like this.

Evening From The Back Garden

Driveway, From Homestead

Looking West

So I remember again.

A Long Day

Today was a bit frantic.  The kids were grumpy and whingey.  The Farmer is doing extremely long days at work at present and so I have been running the home side of things on my own and today was no different.  I also had a full day at my "day job".

I kind of knew today was going to be busy.  On busy days with lots on I tend to feel like I am half an hour behind all day.  Today I decided to get ahead and get up half an hour earlier so I was on schedule.  Alas I obviously live in some strange fold in the time-space continuum thingy because I was still half an hour behind.  Not sure how that happened but it does raise the question of whether this actually meant I was a whole hour behind all day.  I have decided against pursuing this line of reasoning any further for the sake of my worn out brain.

My work day eventually ended and I got the two tired, grumpy and tantrum prone Farmchildren home.  I got them in the bath and they seemed happy enough.  I headed to the kitchen to cook dinner.  The Farmchildren have obviously been stealthily reading my back copies of House and Garden as they proceeded to turn the tap on, slowly enough so I couldn't hear it from the kitchen.  They then managed to turn our big old enamel bath into an infinity pool, complete with the overflowing water feature edge.

After a mammoth effort at mopping up I managed to get them fed and in their pyjamas.  I then did what all Good Mums do after a bad day and parked the kids in front of a DVD.  They chose to watch "Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakel"  This improved my day no end as I have always had a secret wish to be a Chippette.  Unfortunately I lack the musical ability and innate chipmunkness required for that gig.

Anyway after everyone had settled down we decided to head outside to recharge with some evening peacefulness.

Cute Farmboy, Cute Farmgirl In Fairy Dress and Cute but Useless Sheepdog

All seemed much better with the world after that.

Sunday Evening aka Harvesting the House Paddock

Evenings are often my favorite time on the farm.  This is because I can take one of these outside.

And enjoy the view.