Winding down

Oh my, in two weeks time it will be Christmas Eve. It's been a really busy month for me with hardly a spare minute to sit and think about what needs to be done. The year just got busier as it progressed and now, when we're almost at the end, one major thing has been removed from the list of things to do. Our new Centre won't be ready to move into until mid-January. It's very disappointing, but at least we won't have to pack up and move in the middle of preparations for Christmas and our big breakfast on Christmas morning.

Our beautiful guest, Koda.
Click on photos to enlarge them.


The mother's group gathering for another meeting.

Today, Hanno and I will do our one and only Christmas shop. We have the family coming for a celebration lunch the Sunday before Christmas and it will be the first year that Shane and Sarndra celebrate as a married couple and Kerry will be here with his special girl, Sunny. It's a bonus having Kerry here because he travelled to Canada and the US in July, supposedly to be away for a year or so, but he came back home after a few weeks because he missed Sunny so much.
:- )

Corn and beans are growing well.


The parrots haven't found the sunflowers yet.

So this is my plan. We leave here this morning, early, Hanno has a haircut first, then we drive into Brisbane to pick up a few things and go to a shop I've wanted to visit for a long time. It's a little shop in the suburbs, I'm taking my camera and hope to have photos to share next week. I hope I find what I'm looking for because I have no patience for shopping now and I know I'll want to come home if things get too difficult. But I also know this will be the only time I go to the shops before Christmas. Our summer school holidays start on Friday and I'm not going back to the shops again for a long time. I remember back to a time when I had several day long shopping trips to gather Christmas gifts and food. I am totally beyond that now. Now it's much more simple ... and enjoyable.

Blueberries and eggplant to pick.

Over the weekend I'll have a chance to catch my breath and do some chores here at home. The garden is winding down nicely but there are still quite a few vegetables to pick. Hopefully we'll have potato salad for our Christmas lunch made with potatoes that are still in the ground. There are a lot of eggplant and a few cucumbers to pick and a nice stand of corn growing well. There is a small amount of fruit - a few blueberries and some mangoes. We haven't had much luck with the bananas and passion fruit recently but as they produce most of the year, hopefully, if we're patient, we'll get some crops in the near future. I still have 10 litres/quarts of lemon juice in the freezer, more lemons are ready to pick every day, with half grown green lemons coming on for the coming months. The garden might be winding down, but there's nothing to complain about here. We have more than enough for ourselves and to share.

I didn't realise until I got closer to the mango tree that Lucy was on the other side of the fence.

A closer look at the green mangoes.

I hope your Christmas shopping and gift making is coming along well. Thank you for your visits this week and for the comments you make. It's always very interesting and comforting reading your comments. It's the one way I have to know who is out there and that we are not alone in the desire to live a simple life.