Gaming Over 50…..

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I remember when I was a child flogging money from my parents and going to the local milk bar every afternoon to play pinball and space invaders. It was my happy place, something I was really good at and something I loved doing. In those days it wasn’t really that ladylike for girls to play the games but I didn’t care I loved it so much. My reputation was “the pinball wizard” because I could beat everyone and would rack up that many free games that most days I only needed enough money to start a game the rest I earned for free.

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My View Today….

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As some of you may be aware my youngest daughter has Crohns Disease, a debilitating auto immune disease that attacks the bowel. Since having Crohns she has also developed psoriasis and chronic sinusitis more auto immune diseases. To say life is a bit tough for her is an understatement. She has 3 children and luckily a very supportive husband who does whatever it takes to help make life a bit easier for her.

So today is infusion day. Every 6 weeks we have to drive an hour away to the hospital where her specialist team is. She is one of the worst cases they have seen so she is pretty famous amongst these doctors. She was given misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis at our local hospital for a year until she almost died and was sent by ambulance to a better hospital. I believe God intervened there and got her the help she so desperately needed.

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It’s Time To Re-Group

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So we got a few things wrong with this vegetable garden like planting tomatoes before the trellis was built and planting too many cucumbers and zucchini’s. plants need air around them to breathe and without air circulating around them fungus forms. Our zucchini’s ended up with white mould but they still continued to produce. The other thing I found very different between store bought and home grown is that the home grown don’t last as well as store bought. As soon as you pick home grown you want to eat it straight away or it’s starts to wilt especially the zucchini’s and cucumber. Not sure why this happens but it’s another thing we have learned.

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The Not So Glamour Part of Farming

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While we have the most beautiful sunsets, and we have these wide open spaces and plenty of nooks and crannies to explore, farming definitely has its ugly side.

Breeding cattle is like anything, it’s awesome while everything flows, cattle have feed, calving easily, calves are healthy but then…..BOOM…. crap happens and you have a dying calf, mother with no milk, and humans trying ever so desperately to save it. In the end it’s kinder to the calf to euthanise it and end the suffering of its tiny body. It used to affect me terribly, and even though I still hate it, I can look past myself and do what’s best for the calf.

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Back To The Veges

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Well the vege garden has been growing madly and we have had some great harvest especially with the cucumbers, they are proper insane and we cannot keep up with them, we are even giving them away and still can’t keep up! The exciting part was we can finally start harvesting the corn and we ate some last night. It is next level, the best corn we have eaten, not being biased but it is.

Here is our first harvest and my hubby picking some tomatoes! I think this week we will be pulling out the peas that are off now, most of the zucchini’s and re plant some corn and whatever else I can plant in this heat.

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Grandfathers

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We hear a lot about grandmothers and Nannee’s and how kids love to visit their grandmothers but very little is usually mentioned about the grandfathers. Like my grandkids always say Nannee’s Place, lets go to Nannee’s, can we stay at Nannee’s, it’s never their grandfather. Well I think this picture says a thousand words as to the impact a grandfather can have on their grandchildren, especially their grand daughters. They can teach them things they wish they would have taught their kids, they can give advice from many years experience, they have a different perspective on life that parent doesn’t have yet. Grandparents, including grandfathers are an integral part of a child’s life especially if they have a good one like my grandchildren have. My husband adores his grandkids, would literally do anything for them. He loves to teach them about the cows, how to work the dogs, the land and good manners, which these days is lacking. He is very gentle with them and firm when needed. The kids adore him, he gives them safety, security and love which is something I never got as a child. It’s comforting to know that I married a man nearly 40 years ago holds a tonne of values and warmth, that will be passed on to our next 2 generations.

Christmas decorating diy

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So we are fortunate enough to have dozens of Crows Ash trees on this farm. Crows Ash trees have the most amazing seed pods that drop around this time every year. The trees seem to lose their leaves and are left with hundreds of this prehistoric looking seed pods which are great for crafts and DIY if you have a good imagination.

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Check out the vege garden now!

Published on by HeleneAnne2 Comments

It’s been quite some time since I have posted but it’s 2020 and nothing is easy, straight forward or even normal and things are just getting in the way. But, after giving myself some space over the last couple of days I have had time to get some pics of my flourishing vege garden to share.

I think it’s been about 6 weeks since my last update which is super slack I know but life just keeps twisting around doesn’t it, but anyway, we are now eating out of our garden and the taste is quite different. We have zucchini’s ready to eat, cucumbers, peas, beans, asian greens, parsley and basil. Almost ready are the tomatoes, corn, beetroot and capsicum. We have decided that at some stage in the future we are going to extend the garden and always have things planted, ready to go. I have to say this garden is a lot of work, a lot of water and a lot of power running the pumps to water it, but it’s the most wonderful place to sit and de-stress which is exactly what I have been doing over the last couple of days. Sitting amongst the veges, eating peas, talking to God and escaping the massive crap show the world is right now! The other awesome thing about my garden is there are literally no pests. We have not sprayed the veges with anything, I hand weed, (we did spray the edges with an organic spray), and no pests. I put it down to really healthy plants, good soil preparation and a prayer on my tongue! Anyway here it is, what do you think?

Peas aren’t supposed to be growing this time of year in our area it’s too hot but look at them!

The Vege Garden – FINALLY!

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Well it’s been 2 years in the making…..a simple vegetable garden, my husband and I have fought over, my frustration at him not wanting to get it done but FINALLY he got the fence finished, the soil dug up and we are now preparing beds. In his defence though, this job is very demanding, 7 days a week and when he gets a spare minute the last thing he wants to do is more work and I get that.  So far we have 3 beds dug up and planted and it’s so exciting for me to have a vegetable garden this big. The last time I had a vege garden was in the suburbs, even though we own small acreage in town the house yard was relatively small, well not really, actually I don’t know why our last vege garden was so small?  Anyway it was, 4 small beds that barely fit anything in them but it was still awesome to grow our food.

Fast forward to today and in comparison, this garden is a beast!

Having heavy machinery and tractors at our disposal has been such a blessing throughout this whole process. It just makes life a lot easier than having to go to the nursery a thousand times buying dirt to fill the garden. Fortunately this farm is laden with beautiful topsoil so there were zero trips to nurseries this time round.

Once we got the dirt in place the fence went up, well, half of it and that’s where the project ended for 12 months, so instead of a thriving vegetable garden I had a great toilet for the dogs!

 

 

FINALLY, last weekend, hubby got some spare time to finish it and what a shit fight it was!  He worked so hard to get it back to where we started and it literally took all day. We hired a rotary hoe to make life a little easier but man that thing was challenging to drive and super hard work.

 

He finally got it to the stage where we could start conditioning the soil. We bought bags of Dynamic Lifter which is an organic fertiliser in pellet form. I think we used about 5 bags of that and then we put about 5 bags of organic mulch over that. Hubby then rotary hoed that all through and he was done! We put the sprinkler on to break down the organic matter over the next week and BAM ready to form up the beds!

So far we have 3 done and in those 3 beds we have a heap of different varieties of tomatoes, corn, shallots, cucumber, capsicum and lettuce.

I have herbs to go in, basil, parsley, pineapple sage and then I have thousands of seeds to germinate so it should be a good season. Whether or not I have enough room for everything remains to be seen!  I will keep you updated on what we do, and what is working well, and who knows, maybe I can inspire you to start your own food garden!