So we woke up early Saturday morning (4:30am)to a thunderstorm. David had to get up and drive to the pump sheds that are at opposite ends of the farm and turn off the pumps. It is not the best job to do in the middle of the night where you cannot see the nasty big spiders.
Later on in the day we were invited to go over to Len Hinkley's (the man we tagged along with on the trip to Midland with the sheep). He was going to be slaughtering a sheep to give meat to a friend and he thought it would be a good experience for us to join in on the experience. Len's property is beautiful and his house is situated on the side of a hill (it was built by a polish, 1 and a half arm man). He took us over to the shed where he was keeping the Mutton..haha. We will not get into the detail of what happened as we do not want some of you to lose your lunch but it was actually quite fascinating to watch. If anyone is interested, I took a video because I am morbid and twisted like that...lol. David got to help out in the slaughtering of it by sitting on the back part of the mutton so that he would not jump up and make it harder and more painful on himself (The mutton that is). We also have lots of photos of Len skinning the mutton and all that. He actually made it very educational for us, telling us what he was doing step by step and why he was doing it. He even let David join in on the skinning. David was weirded out by the fact that it was still warm. It was really cool when he cut the insides out and then gave us an anatomy lesson of the sheep. He took the lungs and blew into them filling them up with air, I guess that is his little party trick that he likes to show off when other people are helping him out. When all the skin and insides were out I helped him bag the mutton and we took it to the cool room. He took the remains in a tractor and set them up high so that the foxes could not get at it. I had no idea that they even had foxes here. Len gave us the liver, a kidney and the heart home with us to cook and try. I have never had kidney and heart before so it will be interesting.
After our big exciting afternoon, Len and his wife, Judy, took us down to the end of their block where there is the Moore River (which is way Moore of a river than Catherine's). They reckon its the best part of the Moore River. Part of it has little rapids where we hope to one day go swimming. Back in the day, when there were no roads, this was a main crossing for men on horses. Now, during marron (big crayfish/small lobster) season they let people onto their block to fish and camp. In return they usually get gifts of marron in return for letting people use their land. Len figures this is easier than having people trample through the bush to find the river.
After a tour of the property we went up to the house and fed all their pet sheep/lambs. This helps them when wanting to herd the rest of their sheep. They also have an amazing sheep dog that does all the work for Len. I got to feed all the sheep and rams with Judy and learned about all of them and how they turned out to become pets. They will not be slaughtered anytime soon. We were then invited in for another yummy aussie bbq with some of Len's yummy lamb. They would like us to come over and help them again in the future. We look forward to the next time we can go over there. We have nice chats with them whenever we get the chance and have come to appreciate their company.
Yesterday we went over to Darryll's to help him move furniture in his house...He is getting Vinyl (?) floor that looks like wood getting put in today and tomorrow. When we finished that we drove his UTE into Lancelin to get some Gas (LPG...do we have that in Canada for cars?), watched the sunset, then headed back to Daryll's house where we watched Australian Idol with him (we are hooked to it...much more exciting than Canadian Idol...we actually know one of the guys on it as well). The lightning storm was coming our way so we had to get back to the farm in time to turn off the pump sheds. Oh, I might add..we had a hot 34 degreees day inbetween two rainy days...starting to seem like Saskatchewan weather over here..Random days.
Today is a rainy day and we have the day off ...so we cannot even go to the beach or anything. We spent the morning driving around and opening and closing fences for the horses and turning on the pump sheds. I am in the middle of reading a book about a famous dog in this area that Len lent us. Tomorrow Daryll has no work for us to do.....yet..... The work is getting pretty scarce...He even tried handing us off to the neighbour but he doesn't have any work either.
Ta ta for now.
Holly and David...
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
How Many Avacados?!
G'Day,
We met our next door Neighbour on Tuesday, Oscar. He's from Zimbabwe and was a victim of Mugabe and his army of angry farmers. He had a Tobacco farm on which he also farmed cereal and kept sheep & cattle. A very interesting man, we talked for a while as he regailed his life story and how greatful he was for Australia taking himself and his wife in. After our Zimbabwean experience we played with the Mango trees for the rest of the afternoon. Pruning and removing a disease called Anthrax Nose (I think) The branches of Mango trees smell like Mango's, just an interesting little observation.
So that was Tuesday and wednesday we were invited to Daryll's to do some garden work with him. So we spent much of the morning attacking rogue weeds, removing leaves from paths and pruning climbing vines. Daryll has the most amazing front garden, the previous owners planted a host of useful herbs and such. There is a Bay leaf tree, Verbagne (A lemon Sherbet smelling herb. Good in tea) Aloe Vera, Asparagus, Lemons inclkuding an orchard out back which has a heap of stone fruit trees, fig trees lemon and orange trees. Daryll gave us some oranges, we bit a chunk and emptied the insides. Just like a blast of orange juice. So yummy!
After our lunch we headed to se Daryll's Mango trees. After a frost a few years back his crop of 300 trees dwindled to just 40. Such a shame but his trees are flourishing and are much bigger and healthier than the ones at the farm. Daryll has a series of cave openings near his mango plantation. Limestone litters the ground and in a few areas there are openings which he thinks may lead into a chamber. This area has heaps of caves, 600 in Yanchep area and a load more around here in the bush.
We then took a walk back though his neighbours Avacado plantation. He said that we could take a few from each tree, there were heaps of trees! We have so many Avocados now, There are photos of how many we got. Interesting though, some of the trees were so weighed down with these fruits, it never occurred to me that they grew like that. After clearing his porch area of a rogue climbing vine to which we had to climb up to and over the roof. Yes Holly made it up too and was clearing the guttering. We rolled this vine over and threw it to the ground.
As a small thankyou for helping them out Daryll and Donna treated us to our first genuine Aussie BBQ cooked by Aussies. We had lamb from our farm which was killed and butchered by our friend Len. And a porterhouse steak from Daryll's own herd of cows. With some Asparagus from the garden and a great potato gratin. We had great fun swapping stories and putting the world right over a meal. Donna, who is the co-owner of a renound observatory and the Southern Hemisphere's largest telescope, treated us to a free presentation of the sky. She has this pointer which shoots out a green laser 22kms into the sky. She showed us Jupiter the newest and oldest stars, the fastest spinning star, the two galaxies that look like clouds in the sky. We learnt the differenences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere skies, also learning some basics of Aboriginal Dreamtime Story constellations. Fascinating....
As of our night last night Holly now wants a Kangaroo as a pet. Donna and Daryll raise Joey's that have lost their mothers due to being hit by a car. They take the Joey's home and nurse them, bring them up and release them into the wild. Donna says that they are like Human babies, they like to be cuddled and need to be fed every four hours during the night. We saw pictures of them lazing on the couch and cuddling the kids. They are very gentle and loving animals. They also had a pet Emu, which are very cure when they are young. But the Emu sadly died last year due to its curiosity. Curiosity did indeed kill the Emu.
Special Birthday wishes are sent from the both of us to Ken, (Holly's Dad) Happy Birthday we do hope you had a great day.
We had a slow day today doing some domestic work, preparing for Catherine's return tomorrow. We have an early start preparing black olives for packaging. And tonight is our last night with Prince who is sulking in his little cage. It'll be sad when he goes. I think he'll go home a little fatter and worse behaved than when he arrived (Nothing to do with Me :/)
I think that's it for now, we'll go and play with Prince and get some sleep to combat our early morning. Makes sense doesn't it? hehe...
Thanks for reading,
David & Holly
We met our next door Neighbour on Tuesday, Oscar. He's from Zimbabwe and was a victim of Mugabe and his army of angry farmers. He had a Tobacco farm on which he also farmed cereal and kept sheep & cattle. A very interesting man, we talked for a while as he regailed his life story and how greatful he was for Australia taking himself and his wife in. After our Zimbabwean experience we played with the Mango trees for the rest of the afternoon. Pruning and removing a disease called Anthrax Nose (I think) The branches of Mango trees smell like Mango's, just an interesting little observation.
So that was Tuesday and wednesday we were invited to Daryll's to do some garden work with him. So we spent much of the morning attacking rogue weeds, removing leaves from paths and pruning climbing vines. Daryll has the most amazing front garden, the previous owners planted a host of useful herbs and such. There is a Bay leaf tree, Verbagne (A lemon Sherbet smelling herb. Good in tea) Aloe Vera, Asparagus, Lemons inclkuding an orchard out back which has a heap of stone fruit trees, fig trees lemon and orange trees. Daryll gave us some oranges, we bit a chunk and emptied the insides. Just like a blast of orange juice. So yummy!
After our lunch we headed to se Daryll's Mango trees. After a frost a few years back his crop of 300 trees dwindled to just 40. Such a shame but his trees are flourishing and are much bigger and healthier than the ones at the farm. Daryll has a series of cave openings near his mango plantation. Limestone litters the ground and in a few areas there are openings which he thinks may lead into a chamber. This area has heaps of caves, 600 in Yanchep area and a load more around here in the bush.
We then took a walk back though his neighbours Avacado plantation. He said that we could take a few from each tree, there were heaps of trees! We have so many Avocados now, There are photos of how many we got. Interesting though, some of the trees were so weighed down with these fruits, it never occurred to me that they grew like that. After clearing his porch area of a rogue climbing vine to which we had to climb up to and over the roof. Yes Holly made it up too and was clearing the guttering. We rolled this vine over and threw it to the ground.
As a small thankyou for helping them out Daryll and Donna treated us to our first genuine Aussie BBQ cooked by Aussies. We had lamb from our farm which was killed and butchered by our friend Len. And a porterhouse steak from Daryll's own herd of cows. With some Asparagus from the garden and a great potato gratin. We had great fun swapping stories and putting the world right over a meal. Donna, who is the co-owner of a renound observatory and the Southern Hemisphere's largest telescope, treated us to a free presentation of the sky. She has this pointer which shoots out a green laser 22kms into the sky. She showed us Jupiter the newest and oldest stars, the fastest spinning star, the two galaxies that look like clouds in the sky. We learnt the differenences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere skies, also learning some basics of Aboriginal Dreamtime Story constellations. Fascinating....
As of our night last night Holly now wants a Kangaroo as a pet. Donna and Daryll raise Joey's that have lost their mothers due to being hit by a car. They take the Joey's home and nurse them, bring them up and release them into the wild. Donna says that they are like Human babies, they like to be cuddled and need to be fed every four hours during the night. We saw pictures of them lazing on the couch and cuddling the kids. They are very gentle and loving animals. They also had a pet Emu, which are very cure when they are young. But the Emu sadly died last year due to its curiosity. Curiosity did indeed kill the Emu.
Special Birthday wishes are sent from the both of us to Ken, (Holly's Dad) Happy Birthday we do hope you had a great day.
We had a slow day today doing some domestic work, preparing for Catherine's return tomorrow. We have an early start preparing black olives for packaging. And tonight is our last night with Prince who is sulking in his little cage. It'll be sad when he goes. I think he'll go home a little fatter and worse behaved than when he arrived (Nothing to do with Me :/)
I think that's it for now, we'll go and play with Prince and get some sleep to combat our early morning. Makes sense doesn't it? hehe...
Thanks for reading,
David & Holly
Sunday, October 18, 2009
National Parks & guacamole
Good Evening Blog World,
So today was a tourist day and after a lazy morning of little productivity we jumped in our Ute and made the long trip (Long for David) and Headed to the beauty of Yanchep National Park just a little North of Perth. I'm not sure I was prepared for what was to come. Not in any bad sense only it doesn't resemble any national park area I've ever encountered before. This place had a hotel, a lake, Paddle Boats (awesome!!) and a host of cultural experiences to do with Aboriginal tribes.
We arrived at around 12:30 and headed straight to the Information area to book some tours get some postcards and have a look at some of the handycrafts that these places churn out. Some of the stuff was really good. After this we made the mistake of heading to their cafe area where they sold their own made chocolate. We made a hasty exit and didn't look back.
So we booked ourselves on the Crystal Caves tour and the Aboriginal Cultural exprience. We headed straight over to the caves and waited in the midday heat for our guide. Naomi came out and introduced herself and led us down to the cool humid cave below. This place was awesome, stalactites littered the ceiling of the first chamber and there was a cool damp in the air that condensated on your tongue. We headed through the caves stopping occasionally to look at the dwindling water table and so Naomi could show us some mineral formations. It was interesting to note that rather that just having pointy stalactites and mights, different water flows and surface tensions cause a huge variety of formations. Some look like Table cloth edges and some look like glaciers.
After our cave experience we headed over to the Aboriginal section to do our next tour. We were taken through a small garden and told the different uses for certain plants and seeds. We then headed back to a small amphitheatre to have a demonstration and a talk about Aboriginal tools, weapons and customs. The guy made some knives out of sticks of wood and some sharp rock. He glued them together with a mixture of Charcoal from the grass tree, Resing from the grass tree and Kangaroo poo. When he burnt it to soften the mixture it smelt like burning marshmallows and solidified into rock. Crazy stuff!! Of course we bought one from him.
After our cultural experience we headed to the Koala area for a chat about them. Not quite as detailed as the others but entertaining. Koala's aren't native to WA but their programme of breeding leads them to ship these Koala's to all areas of Australia and Japan. We saw some pictures of wet Koala's too, during the talk the lady touched on bush fires and extreme drought and brought out these photos. Cute and soo funny..hehe
We headed over to the BBQ area and cooked our chicken & vegetables sharing our meal with a parrot and a scavenging big black bird. Then headed onto a walk around the lake through burnt bushland. It was a beautiful afternoon. We stopped and watched Kanga's playing scratching and bouncing around untill it got cold.
After returning home we made guacamole and played around with the dog untill about an hour ago when the chocolate came out. Then it got serious...
Untill next time,
David & Holly
So today was a tourist day and after a lazy morning of little productivity we jumped in our Ute and made the long trip (Long for David) and Headed to the beauty of Yanchep National Park just a little North of Perth. I'm not sure I was prepared for what was to come. Not in any bad sense only it doesn't resemble any national park area I've ever encountered before. This place had a hotel, a lake, Paddle Boats (awesome!!) and a host of cultural experiences to do with Aboriginal tribes.
We arrived at around 12:30 and headed straight to the Information area to book some tours get some postcards and have a look at some of the handycrafts that these places churn out. Some of the stuff was really good. After this we made the mistake of heading to their cafe area where they sold their own made chocolate. We made a hasty exit and didn't look back.
So we booked ourselves on the Crystal Caves tour and the Aboriginal Cultural exprience. We headed straight over to the caves and waited in the midday heat for our guide. Naomi came out and introduced herself and led us down to the cool humid cave below. This place was awesome, stalactites littered the ceiling of the first chamber and there was a cool damp in the air that condensated on your tongue. We headed through the caves stopping occasionally to look at the dwindling water table and so Naomi could show us some mineral formations. It was interesting to note that rather that just having pointy stalactites and mights, different water flows and surface tensions cause a huge variety of formations. Some look like Table cloth edges and some look like glaciers.
After our cave experience we headed over to the Aboriginal section to do our next tour. We were taken through a small garden and told the different uses for certain plants and seeds. We then headed back to a small amphitheatre to have a demonstration and a talk about Aboriginal tools, weapons and customs. The guy made some knives out of sticks of wood and some sharp rock. He glued them together with a mixture of Charcoal from the grass tree, Resing from the grass tree and Kangaroo poo. When he burnt it to soften the mixture it smelt like burning marshmallows and solidified into rock. Crazy stuff!! Of course we bought one from him.
After our cultural experience we headed to the Koala area for a chat about them. Not quite as detailed as the others but entertaining. Koala's aren't native to WA but their programme of breeding leads them to ship these Koala's to all areas of Australia and Japan. We saw some pictures of wet Koala's too, during the talk the lady touched on bush fires and extreme drought and brought out these photos. Cute and soo funny..hehe
We headed over to the BBQ area and cooked our chicken & vegetables sharing our meal with a parrot and a scavenging big black bird. Then headed onto a walk around the lake through burnt bushland. It was a beautiful afternoon. We stopped and watched Kanga's playing scratching and bouncing around untill it got cold.
After returning home we made guacamole and played around with the dog untill about an hour ago when the chocolate came out. Then it got serious...
Untill next time,
David & Holly
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Feelin' Hot Hot Hot
The past couple of days have been pretty busy for us. So today was a wonderful day of relaxation.
We have finally finished up the irrigation that we needed to do for this week. We have been working in the heat...with flies that are very intrusive. But we finally wrapped it up and had the two Irish couples over last night and watched The Shawshank Redemption. They sat there and drank 24 beers between the 4 of them and seemed totally sober. I do not know how the Irish do that. I guess it could be their upbringing...But I feel that any normal person would not have been as calm and sober as them. It was a good night. We enjoy hanging out with them.
We are also babysitting Prince for the week. Catherine and her three daughters are in Tasmania for two weeks visiting their rellies (relatives). Catherine's mom dropped him off. She is a nice lady. We talked to her for about two hours and then had to shoot off back to work. Prince is a small version of Abby. But not really as playful. As soon as you reach out to him he rolls on his back sprawled out expecting you to pet him. We got a little stint of energy out of him tonight for about 10 minutes and that was it. He is now sleeping next to David on the couch.
Today was the hottest spring day that Perth has had in 30 years. It reached 37 degrees. David and I headed off to Lancelin to cool off in the ocean. (The farm has easterly winds that blow extreme winds that are hot...and the westerly winds do not reach the farm til late in the night.) It is the first time since I have been here that I have spent an hour straight in the water. It was marvelous! I spent most of the time at the beach in the water because as soon as I dried off the thousands of flies that were flying along the beach decided I would be a nice stopping point for them. It's actually 11pm right now and 20 degrees still. Apparently they weather is supposed to cool down though. Not enough to get rid of the flies though. There are spiders all over the house ...and I am determined to not get rid of any in hopes that they will reduce the number of flies that are constantly buzzing around in the house. haha.
Also, after 4 hours of patience. I have been able to upload an album of photos. They are the last photos from Sydney. I will not try to work on another album..so stay posted!
Last Week in Sydney
UPDATE: Here is another Album...This is it for a few days...
Indian Pacific...away we go!
That's all for now.
Holly and David
We have finally finished up the irrigation that we needed to do for this week. We have been working in the heat...with flies that are very intrusive. But we finally wrapped it up and had the two Irish couples over last night and watched The Shawshank Redemption. They sat there and drank 24 beers between the 4 of them and seemed totally sober. I do not know how the Irish do that. I guess it could be their upbringing...But I feel that any normal person would not have been as calm and sober as them. It was a good night. We enjoy hanging out with them.
We are also babysitting Prince for the week. Catherine and her three daughters are in Tasmania for two weeks visiting their rellies (relatives). Catherine's mom dropped him off. She is a nice lady. We talked to her for about two hours and then had to shoot off back to work. Prince is a small version of Abby. But not really as playful. As soon as you reach out to him he rolls on his back sprawled out expecting you to pet him. We got a little stint of energy out of him tonight for about 10 minutes and that was it. He is now sleeping next to David on the couch.
Today was the hottest spring day that Perth has had in 30 years. It reached 37 degrees. David and I headed off to Lancelin to cool off in the ocean. (The farm has easterly winds that blow extreme winds that are hot...and the westerly winds do not reach the farm til late in the night.) It is the first time since I have been here that I have spent an hour straight in the water. It was marvelous! I spent most of the time at the beach in the water because as soon as I dried off the thousands of flies that were flying along the beach decided I would be a nice stopping point for them. It's actually 11pm right now and 20 degrees still. Apparently they weather is supposed to cool down though. Not enough to get rid of the flies though. There are spiders all over the house ...and I am determined to not get rid of any in hopes that they will reduce the number of flies that are constantly buzzing around in the house. haha.
Also, after 4 hours of patience. I have been able to upload an album of photos. They are the last photos from Sydney. I will not try to work on another album..so stay posted!
Last Week in Sydney
UPDATE: Here is another Album...This is it for a few days...
Indian Pacific...away we go!
That's all for now.
Holly and David
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Baby Joeys!!!!!
Yesterday, approximately 11,500 trees have had their irrigation systems flushed, small pipes and big pipes with some really really big pumps. David has sore wrists and I have blistered thumbs. It was good for us to finally get some hard work on the farm. We also came across the emus again and chased them through the grove until we could at least get a photo of them. They run so funny. We also listened to a lost lamb whine for awhile. We do love nature. haha. Daryll had the day off to get some errands done in the city, so we had the farm all to ourselves.
After we were done all the hard work for the day (a full 8 hour day), we went down to visit Lamby. David wore him out. His idea of playing around is butting. So he chased David all around the field trying to butt him over and over. Videos available on request (David seems to laugh like a girl when he is being chased by a sheep). After the fun and games we retired to the farm house and were properly exhausted for the first time.
Today was a HOT day! It got to 27 degrees. We don't even have to have the fireplace going tonight. We spent the morning finishing off the irrigation system and the afternoon picking Paddison's Curse. This is a weed with purple flowers that is a weed that farmers do NOT want to spread through their paddocks. So, because this is an organic farm, we got to have the fun job of going out and hand picking them all off. We finally finished a whole road of them after 3 days of working on it. I also relearned how to drive a standard and drove the UTE (aka truck..lol) around the farm by myself...
We called it a day at 5pm sharp so that we could head over to a wildlife reserve to see some people that we have met (2 irish couples). We arrived there just in time to feed the kangaroos...not just any kind of kangaroos, CUTE red ones! They were very small. About half of them had little Joey's in their pouches. We hung out with them until it got pretty dark out. Pictures did not turn out to well but we got some good video footage of a joey hopping out of the mom's pouch, hopping around, goofing around with him mom and then hopping back into the pouch again! SOOOOO CUTE! When we left the reserve we could see kangaroooos everywhere! We also got our first glimpse of a Western Australia sky. The milky way was shining nice and bright.
Finally, we just finished watching an Australian "The Secret Millionaire" and he just so happened to go into a place called Redfern. This was a suburb close to where we lived back in Sydney. We walked through there when we walked to Hillsong. He went to a women's shelter and a children's drop in center. David and I now know where we will be volunteering when we go back to Sydney! We have been encouraged! It has been a great night all in all, feeding kangaroos, seeing the beautiful night sky, and getting excited to go back to Sydney and do some volunteering! :)
Tata for now!
Holly and David
After we were done all the hard work for the day (a full 8 hour day), we went down to visit Lamby. David wore him out. His idea of playing around is butting. So he chased David all around the field trying to butt him over and over. Videos available on request (David seems to laugh like a girl when he is being chased by a sheep). After the fun and games we retired to the farm house and were properly exhausted for the first time.
Today was a HOT day! It got to 27 degrees. We don't even have to have the fireplace going tonight. We spent the morning finishing off the irrigation system and the afternoon picking Paddison's Curse. This is a weed with purple flowers that is a weed that farmers do NOT want to spread through their paddocks. So, because this is an organic farm, we got to have the fun job of going out and hand picking them all off. We finally finished a whole road of them after 3 days of working on it. I also relearned how to drive a standard and drove the UTE (aka truck..lol) around the farm by myself...
We called it a day at 5pm sharp so that we could head over to a wildlife reserve to see some people that we have met (2 irish couples). We arrived there just in time to feed the kangaroos...not just any kind of kangaroos, CUTE red ones! They were very small. About half of them had little Joey's in their pouches. We hung out with them until it got pretty dark out. Pictures did not turn out to well but we got some good video footage of a joey hopping out of the mom's pouch, hopping around, goofing around with him mom and then hopping back into the pouch again! SOOOOO CUTE! When we left the reserve we could see kangaroooos everywhere! We also got our first glimpse of a Western Australia sky. The milky way was shining nice and bright.
Finally, we just finished watching an Australian "The Secret Millionaire" and he just so happened to go into a place called Redfern. This was a suburb close to where we lived back in Sydney. We walked through there when we walked to Hillsong. He went to a women's shelter and a children's drop in center. David and I now know where we will be volunteering when we go back to Sydney! We have been encouraged! It has been a great night all in all, feeding kangaroos, seeing the beautiful night sky, and getting excited to go back to Sydney and do some volunteering! :)
Tata for now!
Holly and David
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Emmmmmmus
So the weekend didn't totally turn out how we had planned it. When we arrived at the campground it poured all afternoon. While we were staying dry, David forgot that he had left the lights on in the car and so when we went to take a little trip in the evening the battery was dead. We tried to get help from the others but they could not help us. Long story short, from my experience of leaving the lights on in the car, haha, I knew that they were not putting the cables on properly and so the next morning they tried it the way I offered the night before and sure enough the Toyota Hilux 4x4 off-roader came back to life.
That afternoon David and I were due to visit Yanchep national park and have a walk in the Bush but the weather wasn’t playing our game so we opted to come back to the farm and cook a thanksgiving meal.
David- I never knew that the Canadian’s celebrated it on a different day to the Yanks but it was Bloody good!!Pumpkin Pie is the best! We had sweet potato’s with Marshmallow, Roast chicken and heaps of veg. It was like Christmas. I’ve been eating it for lunch every day since and every time I get the need for a nap afterwards.
Yesterday when we were driving into the house from the olive grove we finally saw the three emus that live on the farm. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera but we saw them off in the distance again today when we went for a morning run! Yay!! They run very funny. They actually reminded me of the duster girl from Beauty and the Beast. The sheep were also in the groves today. It is so funny seeing tons of lambs with long tails on them. When they are running away their tails glide along behind them....haha.
Tomorrow, the big boss is away and we’re cleaning the irrigation systems, so lots of turning on big machinery turning on big taps and racing around on motorbikes. I'm excited! We will see how it goes.
The days are warming up here which is nice. I think I got a little bit of a burn today. Also, we think we can start uploading pictures...very slowly...so we will do that in the next few days!
Bed time,
Holly and David
That afternoon David and I were due to visit Yanchep national park and have a walk in the Bush but the weather wasn’t playing our game so we opted to come back to the farm and cook a thanksgiving meal.
David- I never knew that the Canadian’s celebrated it on a different day to the Yanks but it was Bloody good!!Pumpkin Pie is the best! We had sweet potato’s with Marshmallow, Roast chicken and heaps of veg. It was like Christmas. I’ve been eating it for lunch every day since and every time I get the need for a nap afterwards.
Yesterday when we were driving into the house from the olive grove we finally saw the three emus that live on the farm. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera but we saw them off in the distance again today when we went for a morning run! Yay!! They run very funny. They actually reminded me of the duster girl from Beauty and the Beast. The sheep were also in the groves today. It is so funny seeing tons of lambs with long tails on them. When they are running away their tails glide along behind them....haha.
Tomorrow, the big boss is away and we’re cleaning the irrigation systems, so lots of turning on big machinery turning on big taps and racing around on motorbikes. I'm excited! We will see how it goes.
The days are warming up here which is nice. I think I got a little bit of a burn today. Also, we think we can start uploading pictures...very slowly...so we will do that in the next few days!
Bed time,
Holly and David
Thursday, October 8, 2009
I have lots of mango trees....in my backyard.
There is a song that I love that I learned of being over here by Angus and Julia Stone called Mango Tree. It talks about having a mango tree in the backyard...and well..I have about 60 mango trees in my backyard at the moment. Unfortunately, they will not be ready by the time I leave to go back to Sydney.. Boo.
This week was pretty basic..nothing to spectacular happened. Chris and I spent a few days in the cool room labelling and jarring while the guys spent their time outside digging and rolling up electric fence wires. It is finally nice and hot out. One down side to it getting warmer out is the flies. They warned us about them when we started to get them a little bit. But everyday it is like they triple in numbers! We thought of maybe getting some sort of catcher but Daryll says its not worth it.. We just have to suck it up and let them crawl all over us while we are working. Ah, Last we I did lots of bottling and I had very sore wrists from turning all the lids onto the bottles. The four of us went pruning with Darryl and I was in charge of twisting the stakes out of the ground. I tried not to complain but I think my lack of enthusiasm showed in my efforts. I will never live that day down. Daryll's nickname for me is now Canadian Princess. We had a nearby farmer working with us for the week and Daryll introuduced me as Miss Canada 2005. Psh. Luckily, yesterday I had a few hours to redeem myself digging trenches to stick wire into all over a paddock.
Some sad news, Daryll has two beautiful huskies. He usually keeps them chained up when they come over to the farm because they do not stay or listen very well when off the leash. These two huskies happen to be sisters...and you know what happens when two sisters have to spend the whole day tied up to each other...So one of the dogs, Fatty, is well behaved enough to come off the leash...While China moans because it is not fair. Well last night Fatty kept running away on us and this morning Daryll woke up to a phone call from his neighbours saying that his dogs had mauled half a dozen of his sheep. Fatty and China were no where to be found. David and I ended up having the day off and Daryll waited around only to have China return home. Sounds like if a farmer hasn't already shot Fatty, he will have to do it himself. It's sad really, Fatty was the well-trained one of the two. We will see what happens.
Tomorrow David and I are off to check out Yanchep National Park (click on this to check it all out), just 45 minutes south from where we are. We are really looking forward to it. There are a bunch of different walks and caves. I bet its going to be beautiful!
Anyways, nighty time! Will let you know how the weekend goes when we get back.
Holly (and David)
This week was pretty basic..nothing to spectacular happened. Chris and I spent a few days in the cool room labelling and jarring while the guys spent their time outside digging and rolling up electric fence wires. It is finally nice and hot out. One down side to it getting warmer out is the flies. They warned us about them when we started to get them a little bit. But everyday it is like they triple in numbers! We thought of maybe getting some sort of catcher but Daryll says its not worth it.. We just have to suck it up and let them crawl all over us while we are working. Ah, Last we I did lots of bottling and I had very sore wrists from turning all the lids onto the bottles. The four of us went pruning with Darryl and I was in charge of twisting the stakes out of the ground. I tried not to complain but I think my lack of enthusiasm showed in my efforts. I will never live that day down. Daryll's nickname for me is now Canadian Princess. We had a nearby farmer working with us for the week and Daryll introuduced me as Miss Canada 2005. Psh. Luckily, yesterday I had a few hours to redeem myself digging trenches to stick wire into all over a paddock.
Some sad news, Daryll has two beautiful huskies. He usually keeps them chained up when they come over to the farm because they do not stay or listen very well when off the leash. These two huskies happen to be sisters...and you know what happens when two sisters have to spend the whole day tied up to each other...So one of the dogs, Fatty, is well behaved enough to come off the leash...While China moans because it is not fair. Well last night Fatty kept running away on us and this morning Daryll woke up to a phone call from his neighbours saying that his dogs had mauled half a dozen of his sheep. Fatty and China were no where to be found. David and I ended up having the day off and Daryll waited around only to have China return home. Sounds like if a farmer hasn't already shot Fatty, he will have to do it himself. It's sad really, Fatty was the well-trained one of the two. We will see what happens.
Tomorrow David and I are off to check out Yanchep National Park (click on this to check it all out), just 45 minutes south from where we are. We are really looking forward to it. There are a bunch of different walks and caves. I bet its going to be beautiful!
Anyways, nighty time! Will let you know how the weekend goes when we get back.
Holly (and David)
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Take me to the Show
So after a wonderful weekend in Perth we are finally settled back at the farm. We just finished a yummy Sherwood Pie (Vegetarian Sheperd's Pie, lentils instead of beef...very good)
Ok, so our first week-end back in the city....
We were told on thursday night that we could have a lift to the city and Catherine would pay for us to go to the perth Royal Show. Good deal we thought, so we did a short days work on friday labelling and headed off to the city. We were dropped off at Joondalup, the place we originally met Catherine and got the train to the city.
We wanted to get a mobile broadband deal so we could use skype etc.. from the farm, but the only providor that works in our area is one called Telstra. Now Telstra charge you $60 a month for 750mb, you can pay a similar amount with say 3 Network or Vodaphone and get around 10gb. Crazy people...
So when we arrived in Perth we met with Juli and went to find a Hostel to stay the night. We decided to stay at a hostel for the first night and asked if we could stay with Juli for the second. So the Hostel night was a first for Holly but it wasn't a bad hostel. Very tame and relatively clean. Nothing like the working hostels of Northern Queensland. Shudders....
Saturday morning was spent eating a Picnic Brunch by the Swan River in Perth met up with Juli and relaxed in a park for a few hours. We spent some time in the Bell tower after our Brunch. The Bell Tower contains 12 of the oldest bells in Australia and rung constantly during the day. We played cards and ate Olive's in the shadow of Perths Skyscrapers. We headed to the Perth Royal show around 3 and joined the queue. To entertain the waiting customers the show hired a guy to play the Didgeridoo and Bongos. He was an Asian with Long Dreads and only stopped smiling when someone walked past and threw him a compliment, he laughed and smiled even broader.
The show was as Holly says a mixture between Agribition and Exhibition from back home. For me it's like the royal Welsh but very Australian. We had a great time looking around the stalls for the agricultural part of the show, then hit the animals section where Holly had a connection with a Wombat. There were heaps of Animals there, baby ducks chickens, a new born calf, Crayfish and a whole section dedicated to dogs. We saw tonnes of different breeds of dogs and even some of those poodles that have the bad haircuts. They're really ugly!! But the stealers of the show were the glorious Golden Retreivers.
After leaving the Animal section we headed towards the pavillion to see where our boss had her stand during the week. On our way David noticed a friend walking by, this sounds relatively ordinary but he comes from my home town which is Tiny (There are less than 2,000 in my home town). And this was the second time I have bumped into him in Australia. THe show ended in a fireworks display with neon glowing horses which we watched huddled under a towel to keep us from freezing. We then joined the crowd to catch our train back to the house, we met some lovely people on the train for me putting a perfect end to an awesome day.
And so this morning we took a trip to Scarborough beach and spent some time relaxing with Flat stanley. Yeah...he was there. We only spent a little time here because we needed to get back to Joondalup to catch our lift back to the farm.
Bed time now though guys, thanks for reading :)
David & Holly
Ok, so our first week-end back in the city....
We were told on thursday night that we could have a lift to the city and Catherine would pay for us to go to the perth Royal Show. Good deal we thought, so we did a short days work on friday labelling and headed off to the city. We were dropped off at Joondalup, the place we originally met Catherine and got the train to the city.
We wanted to get a mobile broadband deal so we could use skype etc.. from the farm, but the only providor that works in our area is one called Telstra. Now Telstra charge you $60 a month for 750mb, you can pay a similar amount with say 3 Network or Vodaphone and get around 10gb. Crazy people...
So when we arrived in Perth we met with Juli and went to find a Hostel to stay the night. We decided to stay at a hostel for the first night and asked if we could stay with Juli for the second. So the Hostel night was a first for Holly but it wasn't a bad hostel. Very tame and relatively clean. Nothing like the working hostels of Northern Queensland. Shudders....
Saturday morning was spent eating a Picnic Brunch by the Swan River in Perth met up with Juli and relaxed in a park for a few hours. We spent some time in the Bell tower after our Brunch. The Bell Tower contains 12 of the oldest bells in Australia and rung constantly during the day. We played cards and ate Olive's in the shadow of Perths Skyscrapers. We headed to the Perth Royal show around 3 and joined the queue. To entertain the waiting customers the show hired a guy to play the Didgeridoo and Bongos. He was an Asian with Long Dreads and only stopped smiling when someone walked past and threw him a compliment, he laughed and smiled even broader.
The show was as Holly says a mixture between Agribition and Exhibition from back home. For me it's like the royal Welsh but very Australian. We had a great time looking around the stalls for the agricultural part of the show, then hit the animals section where Holly had a connection with a Wombat. There were heaps of Animals there, baby ducks chickens, a new born calf, Crayfish and a whole section dedicated to dogs. We saw tonnes of different breeds of dogs and even some of those poodles that have the bad haircuts. They're really ugly!! But the stealers of the show were the glorious Golden Retreivers.
After leaving the Animal section we headed towards the pavillion to see where our boss had her stand during the week. On our way David noticed a friend walking by, this sounds relatively ordinary but he comes from my home town which is Tiny (There are less than 2,000 in my home town). And this was the second time I have bumped into him in Australia. THe show ended in a fireworks display with neon glowing horses which we watched huddled under a towel to keep us from freezing. We then joined the crowd to catch our train back to the house, we met some lovely people on the train for me putting a perfect end to an awesome day.
And so this morning we took a trip to Scarborough beach and spent some time relaxing with Flat stanley. Yeah...he was there. We only spent a little time here because we needed to get back to Joondalup to catch our lift back to the farm.
Bed time now though guys, thanks for reading :)
David & Holly
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