Not a Cat person or a dog person ??

Yep it's true, Izzy the border Collie I loved but she was frankly a pain and didn't listen to a word i said, see untrained no matter how much jolly dog whisperer i watched on the telly . Toby the cat well .... He definatley pee'd in our room at some stage as it smells like cat wee's only I don't know where so I will have to just clean all of the carpet I guess, and now that I have finally booted him outside after a week of hiding under a spare bed he has now spent a week outside hiding under the deck. How is it possible that neither cats nor dogs like me I thought you just automatically got one or the other. In young Tobys defence his previous owner did say he was a pretty independent cat who liked to spend much of his time outdoors and I did find half a mouse on the driveway this morning. Hurrah the farmers got a cat !! look out little mice. Perhaps I'm just a Goat person....

Looking foward to starting work I have my very own name badge and have met the lovely women I will be working for. Fins enjoying kindergarten but we are still having trouble with the whole me leaving part so hopefully he gets over the tears part soon becasue that is certainly not very nice.

Charlie has been sent packing from Fins room, as soon as I wrote he was doing well be promptly started waking up at 3 am to cry or grizzle for a couple of hours a night. Sunday night I was desperate for a good night sleep as I had some training the next day so I took Charlie back to bed with me when he woke. Big mistake for me in the fact that I did not get any sleep at all with Charlie the acrobat in bed but a good thing in the fact that I realised just how much he moves about at night and popped him in the bed in his old room the next night and he promptly slept through again after a week of interrupted nights. So who knows if it was the brother or the cotsides waking him up and frankly who cares I'm just happy to be getting some sleep again.

Young Nev is much the same working hard and very tired.

The house is much the same, did some grubbing this morning which needed doing those horrible thistles just keep coming back even though it's winter and I don't really want to stomp around in paddocks looking for them, Fin and I did the front paddock today and we will do the back paddock tommorrow.

I have made some changes to our diet in that I now only make the 50/50 white flour wholemeal flour bread,  the whole family seems to be used to it, so hopefully that will be healthier for us all and keep little tummies fuller for longer.... although we still eat white rice and ordinary pasta not sure if I'll be ready to trade either of those for the wholemeal versions any time soon. I have also decided to only buy the greek yoghurt yoghurt mix packets as all the flavoured home yoghurt sachets are way to sweet and awful tasting, I'm not sure if the greek yoghurt mix will be that much better for us but at least it doesn't taste as awful.

my 'baby Charlie' where has the time gone how is he old enough to be in a bed now I can i feel like i've barely blinked since taking this picture.

Jobs and stuff

Good week scored a job, only a couple of hours a week for now but that is just perfect to have my finger in a pie at least, it is with a homehelp, cargiving agency. Fin has scored a place in kindy for monday afternoon and wednesday afternoon, might change him to full day wednesday if he loves it. Charlie has a day homeday care with a local mum on the monday so yes that means I get mondays all to myself , apart from the couple of hours work but still I kind of look at cleaning without two kids as 'me time' anyway.  The other great thing about Fins kindy is that it takes children from 2yrs so Charlie will be able to join him next year which leaves me with two days .......to start preparing myself to re enter the work force when the boys start school. I need to be sure what is I want to do next.

Toby the cat has moved in however he hasn't started catching mice yet as he spends all his time hiding under a bed in the rumpus room hopefully he gets a bit more confident and starts exploring soon. He is happy with Fin and I, however still a little weary of young Charlie.

Home progress has kind of stalled at the moment to be honest I think I've been busy with things away from home and I guess with the stink weather I hardly feel motivated to get outside.

Boy roomsharing is going well , still no guests in the other room so that's another thing I need to organise/follow up on.

Fin is good we are still struggling with the 'whinge' if any one knows the answer of how to get a 3 year old to use his words and stop screaming and whinging the instant something doesn't go his way I would love to hear it. For now I will just try to carry on not letting it get under my skin and sending him to his room when I really need to breathe , the advice is always to pick your battle and I dont think I am being unreasonable with choosiong the two battle of not hurting and using your words eg not screaming. Also perhaps these issues will magically resolve when he starts kindy and we have a couple of breaks from each other a week.
Charlie is good however I have noticed he sets Fin of and Fin sets him off so it's either lovely and calm or a dual whingathon in our house .

Wet week

I have found the perfect Cat he is a four year old Tom fixed and vacinated,  who loves hunting mice and sleeping outside at night, he is free to a good home. Perfect he will catch the mice he wont try and sleep inside and upset Nev my dog loving cat hating hubby. 

I had some intrest from a job application this week, unfortunatley the hours were casual which doesn't really suit me as I need to know when I would be needed in order to arrange daycare. It was however a nice confidence boost to attend an interveiw and know that I still appeal to prospective employers. I really do think weekend or evening work is still best for our family as once I am earning our household income comes very close to the childcare subsidy cut off in which case it won't benifit us to have me working for a low wage if we are paying full daycare fee's. I am also in the process of getting our name down with a couple of language schools as the student I had interested a few weeks ago never came through.

The weather has been a bit grim hence no progress has been made with the moving of rocks in the driveway. Also it's a really really boring hard job. I am thinking about placing an advertisement for a helper some one who lives with you and works four hours a day in exchange for board, although I don't know how much intrest I'd have given it is such a stink job. I think it would only take about a week but I guess they couldn't do anything on the days when the weather was bad either ...

Finley has a new trick which no one in the house is to impressed with which involves moving furniture and scaling a bench and climbing down draw handles in order to gain access to the kitchen at 6 am. Where he helps himself to golden syrup, Jam, sugar etc Dad sat him down for a serious talk last night about how this is not acceptable and is punishable by 'time out' and it hasn't happened again today so fingers crossed a stern word will be the end of this new trick. We are also now using a timer for time out to ensure he stays there for the three minutes and this has made life much easier and time out more effective as it makes me follow through.

Charlie is still impressing us all with his speech and impress's me even more with how much he understands. The other day he ran off with a pair of pyjama pants and I asked him to put the pyjama pants in the washing basket which he did. He understands simple instructions now so this is great most of the time. Not so great this morning at playcenter when I asked "Charlie would you like to come inside for morning tea" and he responed with "no".

I finally have some pictures of our sheep . No close ups becasue as I mentioned they are still pretty skitty. Here they are playing sheep games in the evening they get a bit crazy at dusk and start running and jumping our 'pond' in the paddock. Ok that's a sheep photo about 2 minutes after they stopped playing sheepy games because I came outside to take a photo and interupted their sheepy games. Here is a photo through the window of sheepy games

Eggs !!

Very exciting as I sat in my office I peered out the window and spotted a chicken bottom in the goat paddock it wasn't moving , I called Nev to tell him I thought one of the poor old Bantums had accidently gone to bed in a paddock last night and died. He and Finley promptly went outside to investigate and came back with 8 eggs ! That's right she wasn't dead she was laying an egg. The eggs are about a size five at a guess.

Last weeks plan to kick the roosters out didn't quite go to plan, we got the old house out for them aka the playhouse/goat house/chicken house . Grabbed all the roosters and popped them over the fence within about five minutes a few of them had figured out how to walk around the main farm and were just running around in the front yard, by evening 5 of them were back in with the ladies and the other 4 were just sitting in the grass. So this week we need to come up with another plan , one is going to a neighbours as she wants to breed his breed, Gold Laced Wyndotte, They are a lovely looking bird with nice sized eggs. The rest we need to either build a high fenced enclosure to keep them in or get rid of them. Currently they are all back in the main chook pen bar the naughty rooster that was causing all the trouble in the first place, he is free ranging with his girlfriend the old bantum that is laying.

In other exciting news we wont be having any showers for a wee while as Nev mowed a cap of the end of the septic system causing a medium sized water feature to appear in the yard when the shower was used this morning. I haven't experimented with flushing the toilet to see if the same water feature appears ..... 

Charlie is almost well again a bit of a runny nose but no more sick tummy so that's a relief. He is a word machine at the moment with new things popping out all the time dog,cat, chook, goat, truck, boots, all sorts.

Finley has had a really happy weekend as he has caught up with both of his best friends, which means I'd be suprised if he spoke ten words to me all weekend as he was too busy with his mates.Mixing things in the sand pit, puddling around in some clay you name it he's been doing it.

Sick boy

Highly unexciting week in the household. Today started magically with Charlie walking in a circle around the front room whilst vomiting banana and milk. No playgroups for us today.
Charlie bean was a little cuddly yesterday so I should have suspected something was amiss. A day at home is a long day for a young Fin but he is doing OK, admittedly he has had the help of about one million DVDs. Fin does do pretty well at amusing himself but he does hanker for more company than I can provide, when Nev arrives home this evening he will be swamped with a bored wife and a bored three year old.

We are moving the boys out tomorrow , no not our boys the rooster boys. They will just be out in the main farm helping the sheep to keep the grass down and apparently not fighting, I'm under the impression they only fight when they have hens around to fight over so watch this space and see if the theory proves true for us. So that's the major project for tomorrow construct somewhere for the boys to sleep at night and kick them out. Sheep are just sheeping around their not very friendly so haven't really had much of an impact on Fin or Charlie. Charlie who refers to them as goats.

So that's us home projects with dad tomorrow and all going well and no more sick Charlie a catch up with a very special Aunty on Sunday. Weeks seem to fly by, our four year Anniversary was Wednesday we will go out for a coffee or a wine together next weekend while nanny has the boys for a couple of hours. 

Cockadoodle do

That's right our babies are all grown up we had our first cockadoodle do this morning, at precisely 5.22am. At which time it was still pitch black but Nev had just left so perhaps he woke him and he won't be so early tomorrow morning ?? The sheep arrived yesterday . They aren't used to people as they have come from 170acres so it's probably a good thing stop us from getting to friendly with them.

I have found anther great reason not to eat Billy yet, although he has no balls he still trys to jump Jean when she is on heat. So we need to keep him around so that he will let us know when Jean is ready to have the 'Billy' goat to come and stay for a few days. Nothing to do with the fact that he's my mate.......

I have found a lovely family that are keen for me to be their home daycare mum however they won't need me until January. So Yippee a Job great hours, great people, perfect fit just a little while away.
I've also had a response to a room for offer so if that comes through that might be perfect, supplement the income with the rent until I can start my work.

Finley and Charlie are pretty fun at the moment with Charlie following in his brothers footsteps and being a truck nut. He runs around the house saying trucks as he drives anything with wheels anywhere he possibly can and will actively seek out his favourite truck book and thrust it at you and plonk himself on your lap, plenty of new words coming out all over the show now. Finley is good, happiest when there's something going on,  he had had three timeouts before we even left the house this morning for brother bashing but once we were at playcentre he was too busy running around having fun with his mates to bash anyone.

Pizza Night

Nev's first week of new job has gone well. To be honest it hasn't really made any difference to the amount of time he has with the family as he is just getting up even earlier to go in to work in the mornings, he has always left before we are up. He is going to bed a bit earlier, but all in all says he is coping well so that's great news it will make life a bit more comfortable. The house seems to be running smoothly too so I must have found myself a nice routine.

I have started a family tradition of having Pizza night on Friday. A bit dorky to have a set meal but it's nice to have a tradition and Fin enjoys making it with me, we make the dough in the bread maker and just add what ever we have to the top.

Saturday will see us completing some chores, I'm going to build a little table to put the goat food on. I read somewhere it's not good for them to have to lean all the way to the ground to eat, and it should stop them from stomping in each others bowls. We have an old side table frame which I will just put some wood on top of . If the weather is better hopefully we can move some rocks out the front we have decided to try and tidy the driveway up a bit. Nev has drawn an awesome Birdseye view picture of the outdoors layout.

very cool he spent a while doing it , showing house, deck, planter boxes, gardens, water tanks sheds, driveways. I think it's still a work in progress but it's nice to have a bit of a plan in mind and it's easier to chat about it and move things around this way than building it and then deciding it's stink. Btw Russ, Ruth, Tilly and Fins veggie garden still stands but I think it's going to have a bit of an extension from young Nev. The line between my triangle garden and the deck is where we are planning on having the driveway finish, also going around the front corner of the house is just going to remain driveway metal for now but one day will become something a bit prettier and be called a path. The garden in front of the front window is already in just needs me to get around to barrowing a bit more dirt up to it and taking a picture. Again framed in wood pile wood and looking not to shabby.

Oh yeah the boys, Poor Charlie looks like a beaten child. He fell of the deck the other day and ended up with a great big graze on his noggin. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why on earth he would just go and head dive of the deck as he's really good at stopping before edges and going backwards when he does want to hop down. My answer was to come later that day when he climbed onto his trike. Great stuff that he has figured out how to ride his bike not so great that he hasn't mastered the art of going fowards, poor little lad must have done a backwards motorbike sumersault of the edge of the deck. Yes this is the deck with the rocks and clay around the outside, hence the grazed head.
Fin is great so happy to be back at playcentre , his confidence is really impressive and he is building great little relationships with the other children and mothers. Very proud of my little boy.

Worms

Just to add some more excitement to my previous gloomy rainy day post. The boys have worms !! Yep that's right it was previously suspected even joked about in our family. But I can confirm the family has worms,  I won't get any more specific than that otherwise someone will grow up and disown me but I have seen it with my own eyes.

Rainy days

Yep it's pretty grim at the farm. We haven't been outside in many days as it is too windy and rainy for the young men. The gas bottles ran out on friday which is pretty good, they do all of our hot water and the hob on the oven they have lasted well at almost 8 months. The power has been pretty good during the storm, there were multiple cuts on sunday but none of them lasted more than five minutes so I was happy. I did however pop a torch in my pocket just incase after it got dark.

We have all been sick over the last week as well with yet another tummy bug doing the family. That would be our third or fourth stomach bug this year. I am happy to report everyone is better now so we will be able to get back into our routine now that those pesky school holidays have finished.

Neville has taken on a cleaning contract so will now be doing 12hr days, 8 hours work, 2 hours cleaning and about 45mins each way on the commute. Poor boy I think winter will be tough for him as he certainly won't be seeing much daylight.

 

goldfish brain

I have a terrible memory I have just been outside and realized I've missed a few proceeds of the garden.

Daikon Radish's grew great I ate them no one else did and I haven't planted anymore. Beans, Nev is an amazing bean grower unforgivably the stink bugs agreed and ate them all, and then the trampoline flew through them and knocked over there bamboo sticks holding them up, at which point Nev pulled them all out, I'm hoping he grows some more next year as they were very yummy. Note the trampoline is also know tied down so we shouldn't have that problem again. Nev has chillies, Vietnamese mint, thyme, and rosemary in his herb garden. I have planted the mint in between the two water tanks and it is just settling in there too. I also have a round parsley plant in my garden which is yummy. The Garlic chives in my garden are very happy too they taste good in most things eggs and rice especially. I think that's everything we eat or have eaten from our gardens ....

this could work ??

OK I have just found this recipe online however I don't buy milk we only use powdered milk at home so I'm assuming I will just make four cups of powdered milk as per instructions on milk powder packet and then add the required amount of extra milk powder.  Also I don't own a cooking thermometer just a family thermometer for when we are sick I don't think I want to use this and I think it might not be suitable for use at those temperatures anyway, Do I really need a thermometer has anyone made yogurt without one ?? Off course next year I would like to be making our yogurt using goat milk but that is a wee way away so I think I need to figure this out for now and worry about that later . 

Homemade Yogurt Recipe

4 cups of fresh, organic 2% milk
1/3 cup of powdered milk
1/2 cup organic yogurt (this will be your starter)

Making yogurt begins with milk. Readers of 101 Cookbooks will not be surprised with the advice to buy organic milk that is fresh as possible. Slowly heat the milk on the stove over low-medium heat.

At this point you can choose to add powdered milk. Powdered milk creates thicker yogurt that takes less time to ferment. It's optional if you are using whole milk or two percent. Some skim and one percent milk include added milk proteins which make the product taste less watery and will behave the same way as if you added powdered milk.

For your first batch we are going to go with two-percent milk plus 1/3 cup of powdered milk. This combination of milk with the powder will produce a delicious, basic yogurt.

The most tedious thing about making yogurt is watching the milk get hot. You need it to hit 170 degrees, but not have it boil. So you want to pay attention to the pot and have a thermometer at hand. Once you've hit the target temperature, remove from heat and then wait for the milk to cool. Unless you put the pot in the refrigerator it will take some time to cool to 108-112 degrees.

If you are using existing yogurt as a starter, have it handy in a cup. When the milk is cooled to the proper temperature, mix a small amount it in with the yogurt. This will break up the yogurt and makes blending it with the rest of the milk easier. Once you add the starter, the milk can be placed in the pre-heated yogurt maker for four to eight hours. Refrigerate before serving. Makes one quart.

 A little mini update on food from home while I'm here. Still no chickens laying. We haven't eaten any roosters yet. We haven't eaten Billy(Goat) yet. My silverbeet is still awesome and we eat that regulary. One carrot grew but it took months and tasted horrible. I pulled out all the broccoli as it was covered in greeen catterpillars. The accidental Tomatoes are still growing under the pohutakawa tree , we have eaten one and it was a bit soft not quite the right texture. We still have four or five pumpkins to eat from my vine and they are lovely. Tree's we have planted are Tamarilo, Fejoia, Lime, Lemon, Orange, No fruit yet obviously. Although playcentre has a lovely hedge of fejoa tree's and we always take a bag home and the boys eat them whole .
Home made bread is the staple carbohydrate in our house along with home popped popcorn. I am going to buy one sack of wholemeal and one sack of white when our flour runs out and start making 50/50 bread with the idea of maybe moving to full wholemeal bread once we are used to that.
As you know homemade yoghurt is a work in progress and homemade cheese will start when we have a nanny goat.
The sheep should be here soon and we can start eating them next year. Need to keep talking to neighbors about who is killing what when with the hope of getting some home-kill meat in the freezer, just need to get the cash behind us to be able to spend a few hundred on meat in one hit rather than drizzling it away at the supermarket every week. 
So still buying groceries every week but the bill has decreased and the amount of packaging is getting lower.

I had a little case of feeling sorry for myself yesterday when visiting friends in Mairangi bay because they are able to walk to the park or the beach. Yes I miss footpaths , but we are able to do more at home so I guess Either way you can't have it all. There are positives and negatives to living rural or living in suburbia. Yes Fin is not so great as his suburban friends on his scooter but he is probably much better at feeding chickens and wearing bare feet on rocks or running in long grass. But ahhh how I longed to have the freedom to leave the house without jumping in the car.

 I am also considering a little project called an AFM,  auckland free month. Off course Nev will still go there everyday for work but I would not be going there for any visits that would force us to do more around the house on weekends and enjoy more of the local area. Save petrol money and reduce my big fat carbon footprint in the car.

Still hunting for part time work , Trying to remain positive I won't keep count of how many jobs I don't get because I only really need to get one .

Yoghurt

Wee hee I've made my first batch of yoghurt yum! Definatley the way foward I think packets to make yoghurt from are about $2 cheaper than yoghurt. Although I really need to learn how to make it properly from old yoghurt plus milk I think , will do some research and hopefully not food poison myself in the process.

My next food stuff to takle is going to be hummus the boys love it so if I can figure out how to make tasty stuff myself that's an easy quick snack for everyone.

This will be our first winter in the new house so it should be interesting to see how we go as we haven't installed a heat pump or fire place, we have a couple of those horrible column heaters,  hopefully we won't need to use them. Last winter Fin was suffering from asthma like attacks at night time so it will be interesting to see if he suffers again this year. He was never officially diagnosed as an asthmatic but he was prescribed an inhaler and did wake during the night unable to breath properly. We were however living in a damp cold home so it will be interesting to see how his health goes this year. 

Goats and Chickens are fine. Nev finds the occasional chicken on the wrong side of the fence and clips it's wing and then sends it back over the fence.  The sheep are not here yet but I'm looking foward to their arrival, the paddoks look a mess with long long grass everywhere. My dirt pile is probably about one third left after building my second garden under the front window frame, I won't photograph it until Nev and I have moved some logs up to frame it it looks a bit scruffy at the moment. I think the projects might slow down a bit over the winter as it really is quite windy and freezing in our little valley.

anyone need a kayak ??? Nev is popping it on trade-me this week

Compact year.......

Right looks like we are officially trendy and there is a word for us ! and a whole group of Americans did the same thing so it must be cool. I think they called it 'the compact year'. The basic idea being that you go a year without buying anything new, aside from food and toiletries.

I made my decision that I don't need to buy anything new for a year at my second consecutive weekend attending school galas. So much stuff that is still perfectly fine that people don't need/want any more. I filled two bags of kitchen bits and two bags of books for $4.00 , there were also a couple of rooms full of clothing and being a pretty average sized women I'm pretty sure I would have easily been able to fill a couple of bags in there too.

It's not going to be a true family year compacting because I'm guessing Nev is still going to buy his clothes new, but he's very tall and there tend not to be so many second hand clothes for men as there are for women. Men are more likely to avoid shopping at all costs and wear favorites until they die. Women however see shopping for new clothes as a hobbies so it's pretty easy to pick up near new items for me. I think the kids pretty much already live on hand me downs anyway, they are already so cool and living the compact life.

Speaking of Nev he has made the decision to sell his kayak , and spend the cash on wood for planter boxes, and a telly. Sad day for the kayak but as he pointed out he doesn't have time to use it anymore and it will just sit around and get sun damage anyway so might as well sell it while it's still worth a little bit. It will be really nice to get the planter boxes built around the deck as that will be the last of the clay gone before winter , hooray ! I'm also pretty excited about a telly too as apparently you can buy a little box for fairly cheap so that you can plug your external hard drive straight into your telly. So I can sit in the lounge and watch the telly all evening and Nev can sit in his office and play on his computer undisturbed all evening, ahhh married life.  

Nev and Charlie have just come out the other side of a cold and are both doing much better. I'm just starting to feel a bit run down so hope I can avoid it and Fins seems to be a bit whingey but one can never be sure if he's actually any worse than normal because he's sick or if I'm just less tolerant of his three year old whingeyness than usual as I'm feeling less than 100% .

Charlie wanting to help Fin and Soph's in the kitchen baking biscuits, I should have taken a photo from behind the bench too, he is standing on this little hippo footstool awww.

May I please be excused I am going for a poo

No that isn't why i've missed a week of blogging just Fins coolest saying at the moment that I wanted to share.
We missed last week because I was slack at the start of the week and than Nev took the computer away to a party with him over the weekend. 


Still busy applying for jobs no luck yet but will keep trying, rejection is stink. I don't think I have ever really had this much trouble looking for work before but that was before I moved to the middle of nowhere and had two dependent children. I'm probably not as attractive a perspective employee as I used to be. Will keep pursuing homebased child care and also look into taking on a lodger . These options are still limited by locality but I feel I might have some luck eventually . Currently doing a bit of a sell on trademe, It's great to know we are not having any more kids so as soon as Charlie grows out of anything I can get rid of it I guess selling things isn't the greatest answer to raising cash because eventually I might run out of stuff..... I will think about that when it happens.


The house is going well Chickens and goats are all behaving and staying where they should be. Nev took Fin to milk a neighbours goat the other night and they bought home 1 ltr of Goat milk both the boys drank it happily so that was good to know they do like it before we go and kid Jean and turn her into a milking goat. Chickens are still lovely .. no eggs yet ... I suspect we may not get eggs until spring or summer because they are just about to reach the age of lay about 5mnths but the days are also getting colder and darker and I think they need 16hrs of daylight to lay. The little black bantam is the tamest of all and apparently she flew onto Nev's shoulder the other night.

I am part way though my garden under the window I just need my lovely husbands help to move up the big logs from the log pile to use as frames and than I can plant some lovely little plants I picked up at the local kindergarten gala on the weekend. Small town gala's and fairs are fantastic, I had the lovely nanny with me and the lovely young Soph. Everyone had a great time purchasing toys and clothes for around 10c a piece and the highlight of the day was the fire Engine ride for $1 !!  Great economic way to take small children out for the day.

I also made my first batch of Laurie bread the other day yum ! Butter instead of oil is certainly the way foward. Made a couple of batches of fejoia Jam too, not sure if I'm a big fan or not but I don't love fejoia's either , will just carry on making Jam's out of whatever fruits happen to be in season and being given away or sold ridiculously cheap.

work ??

Neville is just completing his fourth chicken house building ! Goodness me he will be able to start his own business soon. We have just put the teenage chickens in with the first lot of chickens and it is going really well. Mum the old Bantam is beating anyone who comes anywhere near any of her babies so they should all be fine. We wont be purchasing any more fertilised Eggs from the Internet now just breeding our own. Although in saying that I'm not sure how old a rooster needs to be before he can fertilise an egg .. maybe I will double check that before I make any commitments. The first bunch of chicks we will try and hatch will be bantams because they are such good little mums and go broody every five minutes, some for us and some for the folk further north.
Even though none of our chooks are laying at the moment I am really enjoying having chickens. Even if I ever have to move back to the burbs I will make sure to have a couple of chickens in the back yard they make lovely pets and are the best little waste disposal units for kitchen scraps.

I'm currently on the search for part time work and did some CV dropping last week just shop work a couple of nights a week and a day of the weekend. I hope I hear back from somebody . I'm really looking forward to having somewhere to be a few days a week and bringing in a little bit of cash of my own even if it's only a little it will be nice to be bringing home some bacon of my own. I am really enjoying spending the little bacon I do on locally grown produce at the moment at a honesty box type arrangement up the road. My silver beet is on the table most nights and pumpkin is making a fairly regular appearance on the menu too.

Finley is well, the brother bashing has all but ended and the whinging is on the decrease. The new sneaky trick is to squash the brother or hold onto an arm or a leg so we will need to get tough on these too.

Charlie has reached an age of trying to be fussy. I'm doing my best to ignore this in the hope that he gets over it when he figures out he is still hungry and he's not going to get anything else just because he is silly enough to spit the food offered back out. Fin is the opposite at the moment eating a ridiculous amount of food , he started his day with four weetbix this morning just to give you an idea of the portions this small man is consuming.

I've also got to say I'm really enjoying not having a dog at the moment. Dogs are kind of messy , and they require quite a bit of time .....  but ....... wasn't she lovely

Gardens gardens gardens

As the title suggests it's gardening time. My beautiful triangle is beautiful but I have decided I want a nice little garden under the front window and to start shelter belting. My under window garden progress so far has involved digging up some rocks (metal) what ever you want to call it. I now need to get Nev to help me move up some logs from the wood pile to use as framing and then start filling it in from the ready compost that has accumulated in the same pile (that must be why we haven't done anything about that pile of logs for the last three years). My shelter belt preparation so far has involved instructing Nev to leave his grass clipping piles next to the fence line. Granddad will be bringing the plum tree cuttings some time in the autumn perfect time to plant. I will then need to source some bark to scatter underneath to avoid needing to weed or needing to keep bother Nev about where to put his grass clippings. I also really really need to start killing the grass on the wrong side of my triangle garden as this really should be driveway and looks very scruffy.

Big money projects coming up in order are sheep, planter boxes. The sheep will arrive next month wowee 10 sheep. Four to fatten and 6 to start a heard from. Luckily we have a good neighbour who is pointing us in the right direction along the lines of what our acerage can support etc etc.

Planter boxes will be a biggie in smartening the place up as the will cover up the final clay spaces !! and we will trellis the back of the one on the side of the house to block out the veiw  of our working area, septic system, water tanks, chicken housing, compost bin, incenerator. All the ugly stuff that you need. Will photograph ugly area's for you next week but I assure you the whole lot just looks a bit scruffy.

On the note of spending all this money, I am still searching for part time work here is my advertisement on a local website . I also need to get my bottom down to this puhoi playgroup I keep blabbing on about and put up a little add there too. I am still looking through trademe and seek from time to time but there really doesn't seem to be much that interests me. I'm looking to either start doing more home based childcare or maybe a part time job say one evening and one weekend day. I guess I'm being quite fussy but I really have no interest in paying someone else my intire wage to look after my children so that I can go and work in a dead end job.

Quick family update. Fin is good our current big battle is the whinge , we have decided to adopt a no tolerance policy either stop that noise or go to your room because nobody wants to hear it. Hopefully it works better than the previous approach which was todays pc parenting advice of ignore the negative behaivour, (translation ignore it for as long as you possibly can before your head finally explodes due to listening to someone whinge and whine and generally make much unpleasant noise for 99.9% of their waking hours and then you shout at them and have a little tantrum all of your own to add to the atmosphere of the household.)

Charlie is still mainly crawling with the occasional few steps when he's certain he has an audience. He also applauds himself and says wow over and over every time he does this.

Nev is well a little stressed about money or rather lack of money.

missing marble

We're back. After the madness that was Fins big day we decided it might be nice to escape for the rest of the week. We ventured even further north . To visit family and friends. At the start of ninety mile beach is a fantastic spot we might as well have been in Rarotonga the humid air the banana trees and the quiet quiet streets, yes we were lucky enough to miss all the Christmas new year holiday crowds. Finley had his first driving lesson. Yes with dad not me steering an ATV on the sand. Not something I would even think to show Fin to do but he understood what was going on and did a great job, ah the joys of boys. Charlie was his usual self at the beach and crawled as fast as he could in which ever direction took his fancy not one to be deterred by a little something called a surf beach.

opse looks like I didn't get a shot of Fin driving exciting that he fell asleep he found it so exciting that he fell asleep


Then our surprise visit to the family farm where progress has been great the gardens put my garden to shame and make me want to get digging and planting,  when I see the vast nirvana's that have been created in such a short time by my industrious relatives. My fathers orchids which could feed the local school over summer, the happy chickens the bonny pigs. Ahhh the good life in the real north our queen street farmer eyes were green with envy. Upon questioning on our return Fin revealed his favourite part of his holiday was 'grandma glens house' upon further questioning 'what did you do there' the response was 'eating coco puffs' hmmmmmm I'm sure that wasn't really his highlight of the holiday but there you are apparently it was memorable . He was most impressed by young Dash a dog whom actually returns the ball when you throw it, he was also very interested feeding the fish in the pond oh boy I think we need a pond. Young Charlie decided to show us all his first steps on the last evening of the visit. Charlie also snuck home a little souvenir from grandads house revealed on our first evening home a blue marble in the nappy.

Project for this week include weeding my garden and putting down a band of something around the inside of fence in preparation for shelter belt planting probably just some cardboard and tarpaulin just to kill all the grass and weeds it will have to be a rather wide band as I don't want to plant to close to the fence as otherwise sheep or cows or horses or whoever happens to be munching the grass in the paddocks might help themselves to a little of what ever I plant.

Nevs projects are still fly screen construction and chicken house building. How ever the lack of funds will mean he will have to be very creative and use what ever we have around the home, more fun that way I say.

My brain is a little tired this morning after the late night arrival home on Saturday and the preformance that was Fin's sleep last night. I think he quite enjoyed sharing a bed with dad on holiday as last night he woke from 2 till 4 just lying on the floor whinging I'm not one to do night service to children unless it's life or death so needless to say I was not happy . Only to wake this morning and find all the coffee drank. Luckily for me I like to take home all the coffee teas and soaps from hotels. I had one packet of instant coffee left and have since had three decafs. I love my sleep and I love my coffee so feeling hopeful about an afternoon nap today and my dariling husband bringing home some more coffee for me.

Hare ra Izzy

OK so not sure about my Maori spelling but there you have it she's gone !! We phoned her old family to let them know we were thinking about getting rid of her and her old father phoned back to say how happy he was and that he will have her back. He is no longer working away and has joined the fire service so has plenty of time to devote to her. The reunion was great Izzy jumped into his arms and licked his face. Going by email dates we had had her since October so we gave it a good shot. He also told us he'd been up all night because he had been so excited to see her again.

Also must note the last straw with Izzy was the two chickens she ate on Friday ! luckily for her they were both roosters that needed to go. I have found another method for ridding ourselves of excess roosters, a partner of a play centre mum works at reptile park and they will happily take roosters of your hands for you. I think in the future we might have to only breed chickens that are easy to sex because roosters really are just a waste of chick food.  Current chicken statistics just for interest 2 old bantams, 14 teenage chickens (born in December so should start laying soon then we will really know who to get rid of) 9 chicks(born midfeb) 12 eggs in the oven (due 15th march). Will have to start getting into breeding and selling I think as chickens are quite fun and you can get a little bit for a pure breed chicken.

Teenage chickens in their run they do free range completely during the day and just run around the yard. 

Young Fin really enjoyed his party on Saturday. I'm very impressed by just how much fun he had and how cool and confident he was with all his little mates at his house. All presents were opened virtually on arrival so he's defiantly got the idea on that one. He giggled madly while everyone sung him happy birthday which is fantastic because I think even a few months ago he would have more inclined to hide behind me and cry at the prospect of singing and being the centre of attention. All of the kids just played really well together with no tears or tantrums. I didn't organise any games but all the kids seemed pretty happy checking out chickens, feeding goats, bouncing on the trampoline and off course eating. BBQ food was great as all the salads were prepared earlier and the men took care of the meat. Fin also especially enjoyed the fire twirling and pyrotechnics. No he didn't have a turn :) and all the other children had gone home to bed by that time but Fin stayed up late to watch Thanks uncle Grant. I don't think I know of any other 3year old parties that included pyrotechnics and fire twirling, I'm sure there is a much cooler word than fire twirling.

Beautiful Wenderholm where I am thinking about having Fins party next year.

Lastly my final life goal for the moment is to fly proof my home ! that was the only downside to the party was the decision to just leave the doors open so that all of our guests didn't roast. The flies decided to join the party too. I purchased a little glade plug in that did nothing, it kills a few when all the doors are closed but I'd say our living area is too large for it to have much effect. Yesterday we popped out to mitre ten and purchase some insect screen and wood and Neville is currently building some screens for me. He also purchased me a little zapper which I am having fun electrocuting flies with today. Much better than an old fashioned swat which leaves a horrible mess. Off course the ultimate goal is to stop them getting in at all. Ahh the joys of country living.  

Good luck monday

I have just found a patch of four and five leaf clovers next to the driveway out the front door. Lucky me ! It started at Christmas time when one of my mothers home stays gifted everybody with little laminated bookmark four leaf clovers she had found. She told me once you spot one you will keep seeing them and if you spot one always look around it as they are usually a patch of mutant clovers . Over Christmas I found my first five leaf clover but it happened to be in the same paddock as a pushy pig so I didn't get a chance to have a proper look for more and this morning I spotted this patch. They are drying in the back of a cookbook at the moment I'd like to copy this young lady and get some pretty backing paper and laminate mine so I can gift them to people for good luck. I will take a photo when they are dry, hmm i wonder how long that will take ??

All is well around the house spent Sunday home doing some tidying up around the outside in preparation for Fins birthday BBQ next week. Defiantly not going to be doing it this long after his birthday if we do it again next year because he has probably forgotten it was even his birthday, 3 weeks is a long time especially for a 3 year old. Will just be doing a BBQ and a cake maybe some lollies and chippies but nothing to fancy.

The second lot of Eggs hatched on wed last week, We purchased 12 fertilised eggs from them two didn't start to develop at all and one didn't make it out of it's egg under mother hen. So we now have nine new baby chicks, and they are all being looked after by their mummy bantam. Half of the eggs were Barnavelder and half were Brown Leg horns. Not sure how many off each we have but good stuff more chicks, and even better stuff I'm not having to do anything. We left 6 in the incubator to hatch and put the other four under mum. Here are some of our little friends in the oven we haven't seen much of any of them since we put them all under mum.

Bread making is super and I now am the proud owner of 40kgs of flour for $40 doesn't get much better than that. I think the whole family eats less bread now that we have to go to the physical effort of taking out a chopping board and a knife and slicing our bread so that's another bonus. I think we will have to start growing our own potatoes I can't seem to bring myself to  buy them at the shops at the moment as they are just so dear compared to what they used to be.

Charlie is well walking around the house on his knee's quite happily funny boy. He has a bit of a reputation at play centre as he likes to give all the other mothers cuddles, little cutie.

Fin is well although we have decided to put monsters the DVD away for a few years. He really enjoys watching the movie how ever ...... he now prefers to sleep in the hallway .

 Worlds most utilised shipping container now the home to our mummy and chicks


Pumpkins have produced plenty this year however the vine now has white stuff on it so might just pull it out and start again next year. Silver beet is still awesome as are garlic chives they are flowering now. Planted the mint between the water tanks.

Still having trouble with the dog she came home covered in horse poo Friday night after harassing the neighbours horses. Decided I wanted to get rid of her and have had a couple of people say they might be interested. Off course since then she has been fantastic and I have been having second thoughts. I think I just need to put in more time if I do want to keep her. We played a little fetch this morning and she was returning the Frisbee as I was using treats. Otherwise she just plays haha look at me I've got the ball after one throw which is pretty frustrating. Kindergarten should have a place for Fin by next term which would mean I could definitely take her for a couple of walks a week then ............ decisions decisions

Happy Valentines

Happy valentines. Have had a lovley week with family visiting now settling back into routine.
 A fantastic neighbour friend took us to an excellent park this morning huge fields and a great playground and best of all no people . Between us there were 3 children 3 dogs and 2 adults so we did pretty well not to lose anybody. I must take Izzy out more often so she is not so bored and I can gain confidence in keeping her under control.

Playcentre is back in full swing and I have sent away my course one booklet and have my first official duty day tomorrow. I plan to do building with the children and have saved up many beer bottle caps to use as wheels for the cars we will construct. Fin is nowhere near getting a place in a kindergarten they are all packed for at least 6 months, so instead we will join the puhoi playgroup to fill up the rest of our week. Pluses being that we will met some families closer to home and I won't have to drive the 20min trip to warkworth everyday of the week.

Chicks are due to hatch tomorrow. Yes more chicks and yes the last lot only went outside last week but thankfully one of our hens has gone broody so Nev has constructed a second chook house over the week in which she can be there mum and not me thank goodness. May I add that the second chook house has been constructed using the most utilised shipping container in the history of the world. It came home from Nevs works rubbish pile and started it's life as a play house, it later moved outside to spend some time as a doghouse, from where it moved to another paddock to do some time as a goathouse and now it rests as a motherhen house. The things some people would throw away goodness

half finished goat house

Fin and Nev adding Fins name to the deck

I have a new project which is to build another garden under the front window of our house. It's going to be a bit of a pain as I will need to remove all the rocks under there and drag some wood from the woodpile to build a frame and wheel barrow some dirt from the dirt pile up there. Hopefully I can trick a few people into coming up to help as it's going to be a pretty long term project. I'm also very keen to get a shelter belt planted this autumn just trying to think of ways around spending money on the plants and how to kill all the grass easily. Still on a lookout for a great cheap source of bark for under and around all these plants and trees. Also thinking about purchasing myself a weedwhacker in the near future so i can keep the place looking tidy. I wont start a list of all the things I want for around the place or I'll never stop .... ahh  we will get there .

Mr 3

Happy Birthday young Finley. Gush,Gush I can't believe my baby is three ! Goodness I'm now in charge of a young man. Master Finley had a great day with presents from mum and dad,  a digger (as requested) and a bag of marshmallows, because it was his birthday and why wouldn't you eat a bag of marshmallows for breakfast? We popped into playcentre and had a cake there, and another cake with dad at dinner time. He shall have his third and final cake at a birthday bbq in a couple of weeks. Goodness me 3 cakes, i certainly won't be following on with four cakes for his birthday next year.

All chickens are well and living outside . Thank goodness they really are much too dusty and stinky for in the house. When our next batch hatch they will be going straight into the shed. Izzy has been making a nuisance of herself and spending all her time under the chicken house, we  will have to board it up so she can't get under , I have heard fleas like to live in dry area's like under houses and i don't want her constantly re flea'ing herself. Apparently this year has been especialy bad for all pests flea's flies etc etc. Considering getting our house sprayed for flea's and flies, but not sure how harmful that is or how expensive but goodness me I don't like flies !

Jean is still escaping but can only get into the main paddock and not into the yard anymore so it's not too much of an issue, as long as she's not munching my gardening or pooping all over the deck I am happy.
Neighbours horses are in the paddock at the moment as all the sheep have gone back to their farm for now. Hopefully will be getting some sheep of our own when those friends purchase some more so that we can get a better price.
Izzy is no longer on heat,  but not sure if she has accidently gotten pregnant to the neighbours lab ... anyone for border collie labradors ? hopefully not.

Have lovely visitors coming to stay this week so really should be cleaning the rumpus and office out and turning them into acceptable guest rooms.
Gardens also need attention need to find somewhere that sells cheap bark so i don't need to weed .

Also very exciting news Gilmours sells 20kg sacks of flour for $20 so good stuff we will be saving even more dough (hahahha sorry) by making our own bread .

Finley and Charlie doing some busy work (birthday digger)

The square in the back ground is Nevs amazing goat house will photograph properly next week 

jean the jennie

Is it tuesday , it's so close to being a tuesday that it's not even funny. Also in my defence we did have impromptu visitors pop around yesterday afternoon and stay for a bbq so i didn't really get a chance.

Jean is a very naughty goat and has decided she is quite bored of her paddock, She has spent the morning eating my garden and pooping on the deck she is now on a teether. She can still reach plenty of grass and can reach her water and her new house, which I must get a photo of I am very impressed with Nev's building skills running talley Chicken house, Deck, Goat house. Hopefully she decides to stay in her feild of her own accord because i'd rather not have to have her on a teether. Her brother Billy has never escaped , have i mentioned he is my favourite, however he is destined to be a curry , not sure how i will cope with that. But I guess there isn't much point in keeping a male goat is there .

Chickens are well again !! Hurrah we lost two light sussex hens but the rest are very happy and healthy again.

I need to have a quick boast post apologies but I am very proud of myself. For christmas my lovely mother purchased me a bread maker. So since christmas that's a good month I have been making all of our bread in it. It's very quick and all you have to do is put the ingredients in the tub and three hours later you have tasty fresh bread. Other plans are yoghurt making and cheese making, goodness these products are expensive at the moment perhaps making my own butter would be good but i haven't looked into how much effort that would take . So I am the queen of the 'small appliances' at the moment with the bread maker and the popcorn maker getting a spin at least every two days . Hopefully all of these endevours should be good for our pocket and our health.



Boys are boys Fin is pleased that playcentre is back in action and we are still pondering what to commit the rest of our week to. Nev has his root canal tomorrow. Charlie just keeps growing with out me noticing, apparently he took his first step on saturday night when Nev had him, and again two steps while Tom and Mike looked after him yesterday while I had a quick exciting trip to the supermarket with the girls. Perhaps i will get to witness one of these elusive steps today if i am lucky.

rip little chickies 

Sick Chicks and busy days

 Ok so here is my tuesday blog and it is friday , must post next tuesday , will even pop it on my calender. When I get myself a calander for this year that is and oh dear it's almost february !

: ( We have a had a week of farm sickness. Tuesday a sheep was looking unhappy so we brought her into the lawn only to discover she probably had mastitis. First time hearding a sheep by the way and the help from Finley , Jean (the goat) and Izzy (the dog) was invaluable (note sarcasm). We phoned her owners and they came and collected her to take her home and give her antibiotics.

Wednesday morning I awoke to a dead chick in the box. That being the first night we had left there night light of I assumed that was the problem. The day before Fin had feed the older chocks some food and the younger chicks had gotten some so Nev assumed that was the problem. That day I also noted the droppings of the remaining chickens were red, a quick type into dr google and we are assuming they have 'Coccidiosis' , which means horrible little bugs in their intestines. They are on chick starter feed which has some medicine in it but clearly not enough. This combined with the fact that they may have been eating the big chickens poop whilst outside and the fact that there inside box isn't big enough for them anymore has made them sick. 
I feel quite horrible that because we are not experienced farmers we have made these mistakes and the little chick has lost her life for no good reason. I am hopeful that we don't lose anymore and Nev will try to pick up some medicine at a feed store or vet today. Oh just another note about chickens I promise I'll stop talking about them soon ! Nev has bought more fertilised eggs hmmmm . So I am back on Egg turning duties sigh, He must of assumed because I complain about getting bored at home I wanted more work to do sigh. 


Billy and Jean are lovely and well. As I mentioned earlier Jean joined us in the main paddock whilst "herding" ( I use the term very loosely) sheep. The only times Jean has left her paddock have been when I am in the main paddock and she wants to come with me so that is nice, but shows that sheep netting isn't really goat proof. I'm happy that she however chooses to stay home normally. I missed the photo opportunity of Jean and Finley walking along the fallen tree together. Very very cute and those two are great mates. I love how confident Fin is with all his animal friends. 


Izzy is in heat at the moment so we are keeping her inside as the neighbours labrodors and jack russell all have their nuts. We would like to breed her with a collie when she is a bit older so the dogs will be wanted dogs and we can make a little pocket money for some projects around the home. I am normally very pro desexing animals and may desex her after breeding her once but am looking foward to giving it a try . Probably next time she comes in season which I guess will be around six months from now ?? We will keep one of her babies for company for her and sell the rest.


 Charlie is also fantastic, still not walking but very proud of himself when he stands up. Nev is a bit stressed with trying to fix his motorbike himself. I am looking foward to the end of school holidays next week, playcentre starting back up and deciding whether we want to do kindy, puhoi playgroup or Ahuroa school three's and fours fridays. I have reason for wanting to do all of the above but obviously cant do it all as there aren't enought days in the week. Will go in to them next week but I feel I have rambled enough to drive anyone batty this week. If you are still reading congratulations here is a cute photo for your efforts :) 

Oh help oh no It's a Gruffalo !!  

Neviles "HOLIDAY"

ok starting next week i am definatley making tuesday my designated blog day because i am quite rubbish at doing these regularly.

Poor Nev. He is on holiday this week . I use the term very very very loosely. He took a weeks holiday because of the new laws that you may be payed out for a weeks holiday as long as you take one. We are not going any where due to dogs, chickens and goats. The excitement of bonus money was great until the next day when his motorbike promptly exploded, and also three days after that when his dentist announced he would like $650 for a root canal. See you later bonus money.

Now the holiday , "HOLIDAY" . There has been more deck building, more garden building, more goat house building, rumpus room tiddying and off course motor bike repairs. All in all very little relaxing. I have to say not at all my idea of a holiday but there you go. I must admit it does feel good to get stuff done around the place.

I also want to do a quick boast about my marvelous boys. Charlie can stand !!! no walking yet but independent standing is very very cute. Charlies second trick is rasberries, yes my one year old blows rasberries and it is absolutley adorable and he thinks he is most hilarious too ! Finleys cute trick for the week is to ask " are you two getting married?" every time Neville and I have a cuddle or rarely  even a kiss.  No he did not create this theory on his on we have wedding photo's in our room and young Finley asked who is this and what are you doing ? I explained it to him and now every cuddle is met with the question "are you two getting married?" ahhhh ridiculous how lovely and sweet children can be.

Chickens and more chicken pox

Not again . It can't be. Yep it is. More chicken pox. So I thought both the boys had the chicken pox over christmas and it was all over and done with. NO wrong ! Finley had chicken pox over christmas, Charlie has chicken pox now. Another week in isolation. Well at least until Charlies pox scab as thats when he is no longer contagious according to dr internet. With beach plans for today and tommorrow definatley cancelled. Birthday party plans for saturday will most probably be cancelled too. The positive is he doesn't have many and doesn't seem to bothered and when they do scab over I can be sure there will be no more chicken pox for us. Thank goodness.  Can't wait to get back into playcentre and join the local playgroup so that i can get to know some more mums closer to home. Giving them all the chicken pox probably wouldn't have been the best first impression . 

  Chicken , I did say i'd write about our chickens too.I am in the process of figuring out who's a he and who's a she. Yes if I were an experienced chicken rearer I should probably have been able to figure this out before, perhaps when they were 1day old. Alas this is my first time so i'm still here trying to figure it out 5 weeks later. Again care of the internet I have learnt boys have bigger stronger taller legs, a bigger comb and they are more aggressive! I think trying to take this photo was a pretty good indicator nice hen hiding on one side of the shot and cocky cock trying to attack my camera on the other side of the shot. In my defence there are 4 differnt sorts of chicks in the same box which makes it a bit trickier to compare them. The next thing I need to do is figure out when we have to start executing the boys so they don't all beat each other up. The chicks now spend days outside in the chicken run which they are absolutley loving. The two older hens outside are not too happy at the moment and have both stopped laying and coming out of there box. I am suspicious it has something to do with a certian Dog. 

Mentioning that certain dog. I have to confess i'm seriously thinking we may have taken on more than we can handle. She loves going to the beach , all beaches in the rodney region are dog free all summer. Oh correction you can take the dog before 7am or after 9pm , don't think so somehow. She still runs at the sheep occasionally. She chases the chickens. She barks when ever the neighbours walk to their trampoline and runs to their proprety to bark at them. I know I know she is a very smart dog and is only misbehaving because she is bored, and she is probably very trainable. Problem is I don't think I have the time to train her . Maybe i'm just being mean but I don't feel that she is very happy living with us and I feel that I spend most of my time hollering at her to come back while she ignores me and runs of to do what ever she wants. A local playcentre mum has mentioned that she will take her if it gets too much for me. If Izzy moves there she will be a working dog to replace the 17yr collie that currently works at that families farm. Emotional me thinks ohh but she's our dog and we love her, sensible me thinks she'd probably be much happier with a job to do and at least we could still visit her....... 

So that's my exciting week, more chicken pox, sexing chicks, thinking about the dog and lastly building a garden !! which I should go and get into now before the day heats up to much and while Charlie is still napping.

Happy New year

Hmm still not quite getting here once a week but i have many an excuse , we shall just call it a christmas break .

We have been a busy house with husband and friend building a deck . dream of dream so nice  to be able to let the boys outside without them returning covered in clay. It's been hard however with husband on deck duties all day and all night. Arghh lone evening shift with kidlets is hard work. Has been worth it Deck was almost finished in time for new years eve gathering . Charlies happy face crawling outside for the first time ever was just priceless.

Both boys have had the chicken pox lucky us. I cant' complain about it's effect on them Charlie had a knee's worth. Fin had slightly more but didn't really seem to bothered and didn't itch at all so that's great. The only negative with chicken pox is that I don't know any one close by who would like their children to have it OK rephrase i probably don't know anyone at all that would like me to knowingly infect their children so there has been a fair bit of staying home going on. Which I may have mentioned is not my strong point.  When we are at home the first day is normally fine but the second or third the kids and I are bored. They misbehave because their bored and my temper is short because I am bored. I wonder if I am the only stay at home mum looking forward to the end of the school holidays ?? I imagine not . It will just be nice to get back into routine. Fin asks where we are going each day and when i ask where do you want to go he will say play centre or the playgroup house.

There Deck, Chicken pox, oh and i was going to talk about one last thing so as not to ramble of on to many subjects GOATS. Billy and Jean came home with us on the 3rd. Original plan was for them to move in on boxing day how ever they had other ideas. Billy and Jean decided the bottle was not for them so ended up staying with a nanny goat for a little bit longer. They are pretty tame and happy to come up when people are near. Jean has escaped once so far and that was to follow Finley, Izzy and myself into the paddock. I 'm sure it won't be the last escape but at the moment it's not really a big problem. If they start eating my garden however we may have to rethink things. Billy will be a curry goat apparently 6months is a good time. Jean will be a nanny goat apparently you need to wait till she is 12monthes to kid her and then start milking. So there we are Goats, admittedly milk is about 10monthes away but hey we are on our way at least. Self sufficiency here we come