Rainfall this week : 0mm

With a decent frost this week and below zero temperatures it has quite frankly been bloody freezing. With frozen fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee our morning walks have started a little later than usual each day. Listening to the sound of what little grass we have left crunch beneath our boots we can feel the cold wind seeping into our bones.🥶 Admittedly we have yet to have a really big frost like we usually do this winter. You know the ones where you wake up to the paddocks actually looking like they are covered in a smattering of snow and icicles hanging off the garden furniture. Even the dogs water bowl has yet to completely freeze over. But technically there is still time for that to happen with several weeks of Winter remaining.

Friday night was around the fire with friends night. Charles, Ashleigh and their friend Peta stopped in for sleepover before heading further south. Expecting guests gave us the opportunity to work on our new fire pit area. (Yes I know shedding has been pushed back again 🤪) What was once quite a steep slope with yes you guessed it a few rocks and a burnt out tree stump is now our new flat fire pit area. Jason pulled out the annoying rocks and built a little retaining wall which he then proceeded to back fill with several trailer loads of dirt that had been removed from the Arbour area. We also created a small garden within some of the rocks that I will fill with pretty garlic chives. ( I have discovered that not only do they have lovely flowers, not one animal has tried to eat them👏 Win!) With just a little more tweaking on our levels and more collecting of rocks to circle the fire pit itself it should endeavour to be a rather relaxing area to enjoy a beer by the fire and watch the sun go down. Keeping warm by the fire on Friday night with friends was the perfect way to end the day.🔥

After enjoying a slow Saturday morning with friends and a breakfast fit for a king we sadly waved goodbye to the travellers and wished them a safe journey south.

Let’s knock some vege beds together we say to one another once our guests have departed. Oh yes, it will only take us a couple of days😆. Weren’t we just a little WRONG! After collecting the 100 year old timber posts from the back boundary fence that had burnt down in the fires, we miraculously had the perfect amount for our five large raised beds. We also discovered we had just enough roof sheets for the walls, some of which had come all the way from Straddie and some old rusty ones from Yamba. It definitely pays to keep everything as eventually you will use it.👍 Gathering all our materials we set about constructing our future food supply area. Three and a half days later we managed to complete stage 1 of the project. Well that took just a little longer than anticipated 😳. Drilling into 100 year old timber IS NOT EASY.

Bigger and better than we had imagined, a cold beer was just what the doctor ordered as the sun slowly set. With weary bodies and sore bones from kneeling in the dirt for almost four days (who knew it would be so difficult to get up off the ground once you hit 50😳) we raised our 🍻 and yelled cheers. Five raised beds at five metres by two metres long. Huge you might say. Massive actually. Suffice to say we didn’t envision them being quite so big. But the plan is to grow as much fresh produce as we can so they have turned out perfect really. No chemicals or pesticides. All organic. Food with flavour, vitamins and minerals. Now to fill them, that’s going to be the mammoth task.

Stage 2 is to prepare the beds using the ‘Hugelkulter’ technique. Originating from Germany and pronounced hoo-gul-culture meaning hill culture or mound culture. Basically a permaculture practice. The idea is to fill your beds with layers of cardboard, logs, branches, leaves, compost, coffee grounds, and anything else that is biodegradable, essentially just like making a lasagna. Each layer needs to be watered thoroughly as you go and it’s best to avoid to many air pockets. This process helps dramatically with water retention, (very important here) and soil fertility. Once two thirds of the beds are filled in this way it will be time to top them up with Sheep Poo (from the shearing shed down the road) and Mushroom Compost (from the mushroom farm at Ballandean). After allowing the manure to settle for a few weeks we will then be able to top them up with some lovely top soil and start planting.👏 While it may seem like quite a lot work at the beginning, once completed there will just be a seasonal top up of manure and compost. I’m already imagining juicy red tomatoes, lots of leafy greens, thirst quenching cucumbers, ruby red beetroot, brightly coloured capsicums, plump eggplants, zucchinis, onions, shallots, edible flowers and much much more. Fresh organic produce to pick daily for our dinner😋.

Stage 3 will be fencing it to macropod proof it🦘.

With shedding once again on hold🥴 it’s far too windy☹️. We promise to have more progress on that next week. (Fingers crossed the wind drops off ) As usual the week has wizzed by at a super fast pace and now layered to the hilt, eagerly awaiting the porridge bubbling away on the stove we are ready to brave another cold windy day.🥶

Rainfall this week : 2mm

Our morning walks now give Chilli ample opportunity to muster the macropods.🦘With absolutely no shortage of them on the property at the moment it seems that every walk starts and ends with ‘Chilli stop’, ‘Chilli no’ and ‘Chilli heel’. (And yes she has had training 😳) After having the neighbors stock on our property for the last couple of years they had well and truly mowed the paddocks down which seemed to keep the macropods over at all the neighbouring properties but now after moving all the stock back to Reg and Pete’s and after some rain we have acres of green new pick for the wildlife. Hence the Macropods have decided to move back in and surprisingly there is quite a variety of them:

-The Wallaroo: The Mike Tyson of the species.

-The classic Eastern Greys.

-The Pretty Face Wallabies: My favourite, they are petite and pretty 😍

-The Brush Tailed Rock Wallaby.

-The Swamp Wallaby.

-The Red-necked Wallaby.

I’m sure there are probably other species that we have yet to witness, and even though we realise that they are quite a pest out here in the country, they are still super cute and it’s always entertaining to see the Eastern Greys have a round in the ring🥊. And they definitely keep Miss Chilli busy, 🥴particularly when the neighbour calls in for a 🍻 and we bust her in the back of his Ute gnawing on a macropod leg that he had in a sugar bag for his working dogs😆, no wonder she didn’t finish her dinner.

While it may not look like we have made a lot of progress this week from the outset, we have been busy I promise. We have finished installing the wire mesh on the roof of the shed. This did take us longer than anticipated and boy weren’t we kicking ourselves for not doing this whilst we had the scissor🥴 (Lucky we had trestles and planks). This was completed so in the future it will prevent the insulation from sagging which seems to be a thing in large shed roofs. The flashing has been put on around the slab edge so as to keep those little nasties like mice and rats out of the shed, which is always a bonus🐀🐁.

Jason and his trusty Yoshi have spent quite a substantial amount of time re trimming and scraping and track rolling the house pad to perfection. Husband goes alright for a novice👍.

The profiles are in and now we are ready to start marking out and dig out the footings and piers. ( Whilst in between sheeting the shed🥴) We’ve also been cleaning out all the love grass clumps from around the boulders close to the house area and creating some garden beds which I will fill with a variety of succulents as they seem to survive any kind of extreme weather out here. What is this African Love Grass you mention? It is a highly invasive tussock grass native to South Africa. Originally introduced as a soil stabilizer and pasture grass it is now an environmental weed across Australia. Whilst it is noted to have negligible nutritional properties for stock they do eat it as long as it’s kept short. Therefore we try to keep it under control with lots of slashing which then also allows the native grasses to grow alongside it. We won’t ever be able to completely rid the property of Love Grass but we will slowly have more and more native grasses covering the paddocks in years to come.

Yet another week has flown by and finally this morning we saw the first decent frost of the season ❄️. Winter has certainly been mild thus far and with our fozen fingers crossed for some more below zero mornings and more visits from Jack Frost we are currently warming up beside the diesel heater holding a steaming hot cup of coffee and waiting for eggs on toast.🍳

As we are trying to fully get over this damn cold, our mornings have still been a little slow and our motivation hasn’t been at its highest. But we are soldiering on and keeping warm and are looking forward to our visitors arriving tomorrow 🔥.

Rainfall this week : 0mm☹️

Sharing is usually always caring except in a situation when your husband ever so kindly shares his man flu with you🤧. Living in such a small space together almost made it inevitable really. After going through around what seemed like 2000 tissues we are just about on the other side of it. Mornings have definitely been super slow going this week but we have still managed more progress than anticipated around the farm.

Jason had some more scraping of the house slab pad to finish first and then quite a few piles of dirt had to be moved over to the application area for the septic where it will eventually be retained and levelled. It’s surprising how much dirt appears from just a top scrape.

Shedding is happening once again. With the mighty duct lifter we installed all the roller doors with absolute ease👏 what a life saver indeed.

We decided to lay down roof mesh that will sit under the insulation to prevent it sagging in the future, so after a trip into town to purchase two roles we managed to get one side finished yesterday.

The Annual Poultry Show was held at the Tenterfield Show grounds on Saturday and after hearing Jason reminiscing about his childhood jaunts to the poultry shows with his Father Wayne and Sister Leanne it was only fitting that we headed into town to check out the local talent.🐓

We met a lovely local lady Jenny who won Grand Champion and First and Second prizes for her Barnevelder Hens and Rooster. Neither of us had ever come across this breed before but boy are they just beautiful. Immediately falling in love with them, fate introduced us to Jenny and next year when we are ready for our own chickens we will be able to purchase some hens from her. Yay! The Barnevelder breed originates from Holland and they have beautiful big dark brown eggs, and most importantly they suit our climate wonderfully.

With a full moon in Capricorn this week, and also the middle moon of the year (wow where did that disappear to🥴) it seemed a perfect time to reflect on what we have accomplished so far and think positively about the rest of the adventure ahead of us. Many people comment ‘oh isn’t that finished yet?’ or ‘haven’t you started that yet?’ and we wonder why is everyone else in such a hurry?🤔 Life isn’t a race. Life isn’t about getting things done to please others. Life is for living and enjoying and taking things at your own speed. We fully intend to enjoy this build and take our time instead of burning out and being on a race against the clock like we did the last time we built. We are going to enjoy our Misty mornings, our amazing sunsets, our wildlife, our occasional coffee in town, ball play with the dogs and a well deserved cold beer with the neighbors🍻 all the while plodding along and building our dream😊.

Half of the year is already behind us. I’m still unsure where that actually went. When they say time passes more quickly the older you become they are definitely correct. Looking back at what we have achieved so far brings silly smiles to our faces. What once was essentially a cow paddock with waist high grass, now looks much more loved and cared for. We can now see all the granite boulders on the property and we keep a well maintained area around the shed and house area. Our 40 Olive trees are growing nicely and with more to plant we will always have a supply of olives for hors d’oeuvres.🫒🍸 Several fruit trees were burnt in the fires a few years ago but we are slowly replanting and look forward to reaping the rewards in the near future….

Rainfall this week : 2mm

Ooh, what is that sound? Mmm it’s the sound of silence. As much as we love to visit Brisvegas and catch up with family and friends, it’s always lovely to arrive home to the solitude. Bored Brisbane boys hooning around on a Friday night, neighbors cars leaving for work early ( how dare they😆) and barking dogs, oh hang on that’s our dogs🥴 oops. Sandra’s neighbors always know when we arrive and when we leave😳.

After our visit to ABI Interiors at Carrara on Friday we have made a final decision on all the tapware for the house as well as all the door hardware for the house. What a lovely showroom they have. We collected our beautiful big timber posts that have come from the old wool stores in Brisbane that will be used in our front entrance (Thank you Liam). Carl Barron had us in tears Saturday night, what a funny bloke he is🤣. We caught up with all the oldies and on Sunday we were privileged to enjoy breakfast with Buckley😍 ( and Chrissy, Garth, Charles & Ashleigh)

We also happened to learn something new about Fern this week. Not long after Mum and Dad dropped Fern/Tiger off at the vet for her desexing on Wednesday, the Vet then phoned Dad with some interesting news. And no she is not pregnant 🤔, that was my first thought but apparently male cats can’t fall pregnant🥴. Yes that’s right, you heard correct, Fern is definitely a Tiger. We were all a little surprised considering we couldn’t actually find any little lentils. They were there, they just hadn’t dropped into the world yet🤣.

After a whirlwind few days over the border we have returned to below zero temperatures and a light frost🥶at the farm. A little different to south east Queensland 😆 But big blue winter skies are keeping us warm throughout the day and the sunsets just keep getting better👌.

Considering we spent most of the week in Brisvegas, obviously we didn’t progress with any shedding. Although Jason did manage to do some more work on the house slab prep once home, even with a head cold and we managed to get a lot of tidying up completed as well as all the boring chores of washing and cooking. We are now ready to jump back on the shed today and get it finished👏.

After marking out the exact position of the house and the big timber arbour that will run along the entire house on the western side, we grabbed a little garden setting to watch the sunset from the Arbour. It’s quite exciting to see how it is all going to sit and have a stroll around envisioning the finished product and the landscaping that will eventually surround the house. After already purchasing quite a few plants, we have been repotting them into larger pots in preparation for the garden later in the year. In particular quite a few climbing roses for some trellises outside the bedrooms and the ornamental grapevines for the arbour. Everything we choose has to be wind tolerant, frost tolerant and drought tolerant and surprisingly there is quite a lot more to choose from than I had anticipated.

With another magic Winters day is ahead of us I fear we may not be shedding today after all. Man flu is a real thing😳, apparently he is dying but I think he will be A Ok👌 with a little rest…

Rainfall this week : 28mm

Pulling the blanket further up over my face, I can’t help but giggle. This time next year we will be laughing about the times we would try and dodge the drops of condensation that always seemed to fall on our faces just when we were going to sleep in our cosy tiny home.😆 I imagine dancing around my lovely big kitchen with oodles of bench space to make bread, pickled goodies and big spreads for friends to enjoy😋 Meanwhile, in my teeny tiny kitchenette I have flour flying everywhere, tomatoes stewing on the stove and baskets of bits and bobs stashed on every available space and then woops, that would be me knocking my head on the cupboard again🥴. All you can do is laugh and then pour a glass of wine!

With a surprising but exciting 28mm last Thursday, Jason thought it would be a great opportunity to start making a mess. Obviously far to wet to work on the shed and while still awaiting the delivery of the extra flashing, we thought we might as well break some ground on the house👏

Surprisingly there wasn’t as many rocks as we had anticipated. And the ones we did discover weren’t actually that big. Jason and his trusty Yoshi removed them with ease and they have been set aside for our water feature that will be on the Western side of the house when we progress with the landscaping. We decided to continue with the slab prep this week and will return to the Shed next week once we have returned from Brisbane and we have a free run without any rain or other distractions.

Ironically our two house tanks arrived from Rapidplas on Monday, just after Jason had been cleaning out and leveling the area where we had originally decided to place the tanks near the house. Thankfully it was easier for truck driver to drop them in a different spot at the start of the driveway which actually made us realise that we would prefer to place them across the drive behind the Olive trees over towards the containers. This will now free up more garden space outside our ensuite and allow us to create a path to the orchid.🍎🍑🍒

With a few days away now in Brisvegas and hopefully a few showers over the weekend that are predicted at Tenterfield, the site should settle in nicely so we can start doing profiles, digging footings and drilling the piers once we return. But of course first up we will be back to the shed to sheet the walls and roof and hang doors. Fingers crossed for no wind🥴

After how dry it has been this year, the dog attacks on the sheep seem to have become much more frequent on the surrounding farms. It’s quite confronting and heartbreaking to come across a sheep with its back legs torn open and watching the poor bugger struggle to stumble around. It’s never a fun experience watching them be put down either but it’s definitely much more humane than seeing them suffer. Traps are constantly set and cameras are set up in hard to reach areas in the hopes of catching some of the wretched dogs. It’s been a relief to see a few new ones hanging in the Dingo tree in the last few months. You can’t ever say it’s wrong or inhumane because if you witnessed the carnage that they cause to the poor stock you certainly wouldn’t bat an eyelid either.

On a much lighter note, there are lots of new winter babies around😊 So super cute with their little knobby knees and mini Shrek ears🥰

As yet another week flies by we have had major progress with the house slab prep, more decorating decisions finalised, shed flashing delivered, more green grass and water, laughs and beers with the neighbors, lots of bare rooted fruit trees ordered for the orchard, tube stock ordered for the start of the shelter belt and the bank balance decreasing🥴 but dreams are slowly becoming reality.👏

And Brisbane beckons…

Rainfall this week : 28mm

Rainfall for May : 74mm

Temperatures have plummeted and the fierce westerly’s have arrived. Winter has officially begun. After an amazing blue moon on Sunday night we awoke to a brisk winters morning on Monday. Donning beanies, gloves and ski socks we braved the cooler temperatures with a coffee in hand to take our regular morning stroll down to the creek with the dogs.🐶

With big blue skies above, the property is starting to look a greener shade of brown. The macropods are certainly enjoying it, we’ve never seen so many on the property before, eagerly filling up their bellies before the frost arrives. We were extremely excited and very grateful to receive another 28mm of rain last Thursday and Friday. Not nearly enough to fill the dams but at least the creeks are looking better and we actually have some grass.👏 The monthly total also isn’t drought breaking. Whilst there is new green pick in the paddocks and more water in the creeks, the farmers still need to keep feeding their stock with dry food. I recently learnt that fresh green pick can often contain up to 90 per cent water, which can cause potential issues such as pulpy kidney, bloat and metabolic disorders when livestock transition suddenly from dry feed onto green feed. Therefore the farmers are still supplementary feeding with dry food which of course will continue through the winter ( which is normal due to the frost) until the drought breaks. (This is not a cheap endeavour) You just don’t realise how much work and money goes into farming so that the end product for everyone to enjoy lands on the supermarket shelves ready for your weekly shop. Something to consider before commenting about the price of meat.

A little bit of trivia for you, in case you didn’t know. Sunday’s Full Moon was a Blue Moon, not because it was blue but due to there being two full moons in the same calendar month. And as usual out here in the country it was spectacular.🌝

With two and half rain days ( yay ) we still managed to make great progress with the shed. The frame is now complete, the cross bracing is done and we are ready for doors. There has certainly been a lot more in it than we had anticipated, but it is coming along nicely. We also decided to add in two pedestrian doors which weren’t part of the kit, so that has added extra time and a trip to Stanthorpe for some extra C Channel. All in all between rain days, big westerly winds and bloody cold mornings, I think we have progressed quite well indeed.

We are still eagerly awaiting our Construction Certificate for the house from the council. Good old paperwork, it does always seems to take forever and a day. Meanwhile the champagne is chilling in the fridge in anticipation. 🍾 We have locked in the concreter, tentatively for early August which gives us ample time to get all the groundwork’s and drainage ready. We have chosen our tiles for the entire house. Some would argue that it is a little early to be thinking of tiles, but when you find something you love it’s best to buy it don’t you think. Doors and Windows are chosen also (Trend in Woodland Grey to match the exterior colourbond walls), as are the frame and truss supplier. Next will be scrolling through pages of lights and switches etc so decisions can be finalised. I’m exhausted thinking about it🤪

After many, many design changes we are building a very simple three bedroom, two bathroom house on the flat looking out over what we call Reg Rock (Reg our neighbor owns all the land behind us). Not that big but big enough for us and the crazy hounds. What will essentially look like a fancy shed in Colourbond Woodland Grey so it blends into the landscape surrounding us.

Another week has very quickly disappeared and to be fair we are just slightly knackered from working in the wild wind. Jason’s bionic elbow has certainly been feeling it and all I can think is thank god we aren’t building a steel frame house😳

Winter is here🧤🧣❄️🧦👏

RAINFALL THIS WEEK: 12mm

“What’s that green stuff?” Wondering around yet again in our pyjamas with a coffee in our hand, we marvel at the green stuff seemingly spreading across the paddocks right before our eyes. Gee, both of us had completely forgotten what grass looked like🤪 It’s quite amazing how a little rain and sunshine can make such a difference to the landscape. Waking up once again to the sweet sound of rain I feel the Black Cockatoos may have been right on Tuesday. Hearing their eerie calls down toward the creek we thought it was just the usual flock of 5 enjoying what banksia trees are still alive along the watercourse. Weren’t we pleasantly surprised to see about 30-40 of them soaring around letting us know that rain is on the way! Surely the Bureau Of Meteorology can not be correct with their predictions 🤣

Most mornings we seem to be caught wondering around in our pyjamas, watering trees, getting naughty stock in from the road, just savouring that first coffee and following the dogs down to the creek for a stroll.

Jason has progressed wonderfully on the shed considering his offsider disappeared for 4 days on a spa weekend with the girls. Great timing on my behalf 🤣 We managed a full day together on Monday and Tuesday and about half a day yesterday due to very welcome wet start to the day.

Whilst popping in to catch up with the oldies on my way to Tambourine Mountain it gave me an opportunity to see how big Fern is now. Back in February while out collecting timber down on the next terrace below the house area Chilli discovered a teeny tiny little kitten. Wondering what on earth she was so inquisitive about, I followed her over to witness this little ball of fluff climb out from a rock cave.

Absolutely tiny and oh so cute, we of course rescued her, figuring she had been abandoned by her mother some days prior. After spending about 10 days with us in one of the dog crates and keeping both dogs quite entertained I might add, it was decided that the best thing would be to send her to my parents so she wouldn’t be killed by any visiting dogs and also because Chilli had become completely obsessed with her.

We had determined that she was approximately 4 weeks old upon discovery according to Dr Google, and surprisingly she very quickly learnt to eat solid food and work out the toilet training business. Jason aptly named her Fern due to the little ferns growing inside the cave, but she has now been renamed Tiger by my mother. Tiger has definitely been keeping my parents on their toes but she is also highly entertaining and very, very spoilt😊

Tiger has definitely settled into life at the Matheson household. Who would believe that she was born in a cave on a farm.

As I finish writing this a few friends have messaged us hoping we are getting all the rain showing on the radar. Well we ended up with 9mm yesterday morning which was lovely and much appreciated and so far this morning we have had 3mm. While grateful for every drop, once again the majority of the rain has unfortunately just gone right around us. We are located 15km west of Tenterfield which we like to call the Mediterranean side due to the rocky dry landscape surrounding us. Hence why we have been planting plenty of Olive trees, Pomegranates and Fig trees after our trip to Europe. They definitely suit the terrain and the dry climate at Fatty Boy Run…