I looooove a good clearing sale......

Ian and I went to a clearing sale on the weekend, I love these sales, usually they happen when someone sells a farm so there's some great old goodies. This sale didn't have much, but we did get a couple of things, including this table.
We salvaged these great weatherboards from our old house. They still have some of the original green paint on them. Ian cut them to size for me and fitted them as a shelf for the table.
A good drink of linseed oil to revive the timber and it was all done! We think the table came from an old school house, it is covered in kids names lol..... I love having bit of history like this in our home.The table is in my kitchen, we have so much more serving and preparation area now, it's fantastic! Please excuse the washing up on the bench lol, I was a bit busy lol...... No doubt the stuff I plonked on the shelf below the table will be rearranged, but for now I reckon it looks pretty good! Not bad for $55 and a couple of hours work.....

Enamelware & more......

I love old enamel ware. I have been picking up enamel goodies for a while now, mainly from op-shops, and have acquired quite a collection..... so much so that perhaps I need to find another spot for some of it..... I do love it on this old dresser though, especially with the rusty stuff and the prairie doll.......... I think my favourite piece is the measuring jug, it's certainly had some use!

The old cheese grater has a tea light candle in it and looks really pretty when lit. I picked up the shortbread press (centre bottom shelf) from an op-shop a couple of weeks ago, it has Scotch thistles on it. The spice carousel came from an oppy too!

How gorgeous.....

Just had to share this. After an afternoon of planting we were lucky enough to get 4 mms of rain, not much but enough to give everything a drink and create this lovely double rainbow......

How cute is this?

I was lucky enough to receive this gorgeous piece of family history for my birthday recently. My Oma (Grandmother) was given this from her brother in 1953! He made it from cardboard and painted it..... I have always loved it and as Oma is getting on she is giving her goodies to those who loves them. She is 86 now and amazingly her brother Franz who made it is 92 and still going strong.... It is great to watch, when the breeze catches it the couple cut the wood. I have to find a suitable stick for them to cut to complete the scene. I feel so lucky to have such a gorgeous piece.....

A tad chilly!

It's been a little chilly here of late with many days below freezing....the kids thought it was hilarious watching our outside cat Rascal trying to get a drink from the horse's trough this morning, poor boy was ice-skating lol........

Blossom and Vixen proving the theory that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - or should that be whiter?

Poor Victor shivering... he does have a little house to go in I promise!

My vegie garden, thank goodness I planted frost hardy vegies lol.......

All these pics were taken through my windows, I wasn't going out, too cold for me!

Tank garden update

Ian and I have finally sown some seeds in one of our tank gardens. Ian built a teepee structure out of wattle saplings and wired them together at the top. This is the support for our broad beans. Around the edge we have planted carrots and radishes. As you can see we used well rotted compost on top of the straw. The plants will germinate in this and by the time they get their roots down to the straw and manure layers below the 'lasagne" will be well rotted too. That's the theory anyway!

We will probably plant potatoes in another tank, but will leave most of the gardens empty until spring. By that time they will be really ready for action and we will have more compost made in our pallet heaps. The compost is working beautifully, it's really hot when we turn it and is smelling quite sweet.

You can just see my tiny radishes emerging here....... this pic was taken 9 days ago so they are about an inch tall now. What am I going to do with all these radishes? I only grew them because we got the seeds free with our Digger's Seeds membership, I don't even know whether I like radishes lol..... I will plant some more carrots in the next few days to make sure we have a constant supply, can never have too many carrots. I read somewhere that broad beans make good wine so I will have to investigate that further lol.... Tom and Barbara Good (The Good Life BBC TV) used to make pea-pod wine so I reckon we might give it a good go... Ian cut an old hose up to make a safety cover for the edge of the tank- don't want to cut ourselves after a few vinos! Thankfully we have had 55mm of rain here - over 2 inches, so the place is really greening up. Hopefully our oats will have time to establish before the winter frosts, that is if the galahs don't eat the sprouting seeds first!

More pics of our place.......

Caramel is my gorgeous Jersey cow. This pic was taken when she was about 18 months old, that was about 2 years ago. Since then she has had a calf and my hubby Ian milked her. She has the creamiest milk - yummo! She needs to go back to the bull very soon, she keeps chasing Ian with an amorous look in her eye!

Why buy new when recycling is so much more fun? We made our letter box from a tiny old electric oven that we picked up for a song from our local junkyard. We bolted it to a post and put a tyre filled with dirt at the base to make it more stable. A few succulents in the tyre garden and it was finished. At least my kids know what I mean when I ask the to check the stove..... The neighbours have an old drum painted in spots like a fresian cow for their letter box. I love looking at all the great ideas people come up with, must be fun for the postie!

We used an old stock crate and recycled corrugated iron to build our chook shed. We bought old army issue eskies for nesting boxes and even used old paint to do the sign. If you look closely there is a little galvanised tin rooster on the top of the cage. The girls are off the lay at the moment so we need to get a few extra hens from the battery egg farm down the road. The owner lets us have his older hens cheap, and boy do they love coming to live with us! Their poor little claws are so bent from being locked in tiny cages, with us they are free range for most of the day so they must feel great. We only lock them up at night to protect them from foxes. The neighbour gives us scraps from the restuarant where she works in return for eggs, it works out great for all of us.

The gypsy wagon and our lovely girls.....

We love to go out in our gypsy wagon and cart. The girls are such darlings, very quiet..... Blossom is 11 years old, her daughter Vixen is 5. We don't get out nearly as often as we would like, but it's fun when we do....

Monica's menagerie...

On our little farm we currently have 5 horses, a jersey cow, 3 dogs, 3 cats, 6 chickens, 5 birds, a pet magpie, a goat and a sheep. That's 26 pets at last count. Here's a couple of my babies.........

Victor the goat

Pearl the lamb

and last but not least, my girls, Nutmeg and Cinnamon.

Of course our numbers change all the time, we recently sold my calf, and one of the ponies. And sadly one of our dogs was hit by a car and died not long ago. But we always seem to come home with more animals, tomorrow we will pick up 4 pregnant ewes to add to our menagerie.........

My sewing shed - The Doll House

This is where I do most of my creating.I was lucky enough to find an old Telstra exchange shed for sale. All we had to do was bring it home, hook up the power and paint!

My hubby sanded and sealed the floors for me and put up a few shelves, most of the shelves were already there.

I have my stereo, a kettle, oil burner and armchair- all the comforts of home. It's a great spot to have some "me time" when the kids are getting a bit rambunctuous! We still need to finish painting the outside, and have to replace the timber around the windows, but there's plenty of time for that. We call it the Doll House because I love to make primitve cloth dolls. Aren't I spoilt?