Feather your Nest Friday, 24th May, 2024.

Thank you to everyone who added to Mondays wraps post!  So many delicious ideas!  

This was another big week.  I am grateful for photos.  Some things I could not describe without them!  Some work this week was BIG as you will see.   My helpers had a kind of working bee where Tim's wife joined us and we had a BBQ since we had fires going.   I had made morning tea the evening before.

 This used up ten apples from my apples stored in the crisper.

My cook up for the week was to make meat pies with potato topping.   Lucy had given me a bag of huge potatoes.   I cooked them all up and had a pie filling going in the slow cooker.    I ended up with a pie to freeze,  two beautiful dinners and a huge family pie to give Chloe for her family.

My basics post on Monday is going to be how to make meat pies...  because these are a great meat extender! 

I also made scones. (GF), which are a regular as you know.

I have shared the big granite rock that is going to be Andy's grave stone.  Andy had told me where he wanted to be laid to rest.  It is on the top of a hill here on the farm.   Currently due to no rain there is no green and the top of the hill looks like a sand pit.   None the less Andrew and Tim began creating a stone then rock then road base foundation for the rock.   It is a big job.

It is hard to give scale but none of these rocks would fit in a wheel barrow.

See those skies?  Still no rain.

Work on this continues next week until we can then put the rock up there.... then build a fence...  and plant the hill with some covers... 

Then...  we had our first bon fires.   The clean up of the top house also involves the yard.   This is all the mess and dead stuff from around the house.

This became the site of our BBQ lunch!   And we didn't even burn the house down!  

On this day we had two other fires but this was the biggest.

The clean up effect is immense!   All good wood,  suitable for the home fires has already been removed, cut up and stacked before these fires are made.

Now I have a story.    For Andy's stone I wanted a crucifix about a metre/yard long.  I could not find one in Australia so I went to Etsy and found one in the Netherlands.   I found the perfect one.  It was just a moment of "yes this is what Andy would love."   While shopping for this I also found the perfect crucifix for the house.    The next thing was that Andy's crucifix was stuck in customs... but that was sorted out with some paperwork and a phone call.   When it finally arrived it came in a HUGE box... and layers and layers of packing.   It took a LONG time to open it but when I finally succeeded I was so thrilled with how beautiful it is. 

Days later I had an ETSY notification to review my purchase and also for the smaller cross I bought for the house.  But that had not arrived.  I checked and rechecked where it could have gone.  ETSY insisted it was delivered. mmm.   I sat down one night to try and track it.   As I did this I realised that both crosses were from the same seller... and I had not understood this.  SUDDENLY it dawned on me.... they BOTH could have been in the same box.   I messaged the seller to ask... and yes they were packed together.

Well,  this is great but the box and packing had already gone to the dump.   It was a face plant moment.   On a farm like this there is no garbage collection - we all have a dump of our own on our own properties.   Mine is in a ravine...   Either Andrew or Tim take my rubbish once a week to the dump, on a trailer.   Annually the dump is lit up and reduced to not much!   I sent Tim a message and told him I had made a huge boo boo and did he know if the box would have been crushed?   He said no,  it was thrown in but nothing went on top.   He also offered to come out and help me try and retrieve it.

The next day I couldn't stand it any longer and rather wait for Tim or Andrew to be here I drove to the dump and inspected to see if I could see the box.  And I could and it wasn't squashed!   I had put my long handled fruit picking stick in the car as that has a hook on the end...   I realised it was all an unwise idea but I decided to try and get it.  It was several metres down the hole.   Then I thought if I went missing no one would know where I was unless they rang Tim who would guess I'm dead in the dump!    Near the box was the great pile of horrific carpet that came out of the top house.  It was thick and I tested if it would hold my weight and I literally moved one millimetre at a time until I could reach the box with the long stick.   There was even a Wedge Tailed Eagle circling above me for dramatic effect.   I know it was really dumb as there was broken glass, an old window and other lovely stuff to fall on.  BUT I finally hooked the box and edged it towards me!   Then getting back to solid ground was equally slow.   Once I had the box and myself on the surface I tore it open and within that box was a small blue box that was totally undamaged.   I brought it home and cut it open and the crucifix was completely fine.  And gorgeous.   I will show both of these in upcoming posts because I want them to be in position first.   Oh and I gave the seller a five star review and said how great the packing was! 

After our BBQ lunch Tim's wife and I filled about a dozen paper shopping bags (which it turns out we both save for such things) and so we both have loads of kindling for our home fires.  It was a beautiful sunny day too, to enjoy working in.

Because of no rain...  I invested in some nice lucerne hay.  I knew I need to begin feeding the cows.  I have never had to feed them before, normally they just graze and do very well.  However the season is bad and I have more cows.

I began feeding out.   As Loui is so huge and so friendly you should see my run for the ute if he gets too close!  

I think I will be feeding out every day for a while.

I made a few more heat pads...

AND I finished a blanket for the boys room.  It is very generous on a single bed and all wool.   I was 3/4 through this last winter and only had to finish it.   The four rows around the border took forever!   But I am so happy with it!    It is 8 ply but I had all different wool ply and in some rows it is 2x 4 ply and in some it is 4 ply and x2 two ply... and so on!  

I am six inches into another blanket using wool I. was given and some from the thrift stores.  The same way...  some crocheted together to make up 8 ply. 

Yesterday I was so tired I went to sleep at 4 pm!  haha but I woke up and did things, made dinner and went to sleep again just fine at bedtime.

Today I went to town.   Apart from the regular stuff I stocked up on long life milk,  tinned corn, tinned tomatoes and gravy powder.   During the week Denise kindly messaged me to say England released a website advisory to stock up on canned and dry goods, water, first aid etc..... and that quickly many stores sold out of many basic items.   Thank you Denise... on the ground reports are the best.   The week before Lithuania released a 100 page document on similar lines.   The time to stock up is BEFORE everyone is doing it!   Patara says keep on adding five cans a week!   I started that in 2018...  and I rotate them AND doing it this way they were all purchased on half price!    

I hope you had a good week with lots of opportunities to get ahead.  Please pray for rain.xxx