Homemaking attracts people from all walks of life, with differing wants, needs, philosophies and ambitions. I have a degree, a moderate amount of quiet success in small business and, regrettably, a personal history of waste and overspending. But I had an epiphany of sorts many years ago and since then my aim was to create a safe, comfortable and loving home for Hanno and I and everyone who visits us here. I'm glad I made the changes I did all those years ago because I have grandchildren now and the reason we live as we do is crystal clear to me now. 

I think my history focused me like a laser beam on my home because over spending, waste and living in a disordered home made me unhappy. We only have the pleasure of living in a beautiful and secure home if we put the time and effort in to create it. Nothing is handed to us on a silver platter and most of us have the opportunity to not only work for a living but to also create the kind of simple  life we want to live.  I want to be comfortable and content in my final years, I want an interesting life because I have more time to enjoy my days now and I want to die happy.  We all want that, don't we?

When I first came home, I wasn't really sure what to do, so I tried to do it all. I remembered how things were as I grew up and my days were full of home production, growing food, storing and preserving, mending, creating and serving delicious food in an atmosphere of fluffy, calm comfort. It was very self conscious and focused at first. I've mellowed a lot and relaxed into it now, everything flows and I have much more time to enjoy the process and breathe in the fresh air.  I smile a lot, especially when no one else is around.

I think I'm very fortunate to have had the upbringing I did, the family I have, the education I had and that I took advantage of most of the opportunities that came my way. All that made me the person I am today. But when I look back and see where I've been and where I am now, I am absolutely convinced that I'm here right now because I changed the way I think about money and possessions. And that is the opposite of what I grew up believing, which was that I, and everyone, were made happy by earning as much money as possible and then spending it on whatever we wanted.

I'm happier now than I've ever been and I'm grateful to have learned lessons that were often hidden and not talked about.  It takes a bit of digging and self belief, but the truth, your truth, is there. You just have to find it and believe it when you do, because it won't be the truth you expect and it won't be what everyone else is doing.

Is your story similar to mine? Do you think you're on that path now?

It's been comforting to get back to my regular household routines after a few years of intensive writing. Once established, rhythms and routines help you get through repetitive housework. They reduce procrastination that can take hold of us sometimes and they help us work at the same time and pace as we did yesterday and will do again tomorrow. You don't sit at the kitchen table wondering what you should be doing, or staring at the computer screen with another cup of coffee wondering where the day went. When you have your daily routine worked out, you'll have all your tasks done and still have time to do what you want or need to do - be that sewing, gardening, talking to friends, looking after grandchildren, working in your home business or going out to work.

I don't set specific times for my domestic tasks. Instead, I have a list of things that I want done by a certain time. That works well for me but it's not the only way to do it.  We eat our main meal at midday here so my routine is to have a group of tasks completed before I start making lunch. That includes making the bed, tidying the kitchen, general cleaning, straightening the lounge room and doing the floors. My routine isn't the same every day. It's either that exact list or a variation of it, depending on what needs to be done.

The way to start developing your own routines is to make a short list of what you need to do, either on a daily basis, over the course of a week or month.  A list for a daily routine would probably look something like this:

Decide how much time you have to carry out everything on your list. I would expect the list above to take about one hour, or you could do what I do and tell yourself everything on the list has to be finished by 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or 11am.

When you do your list the first time, you may need to make minor adjustments. For instance, if you have a limited amount of time to get through the list and you can't do it all, you could carry out a couple of the tasks the evening before. Things like preparing lunches or preparing the evening meal could be done after dinner the evening before.  Don't be shy in asking the family for help with this. You are not the only person who should be working in your home. This work should be shared.  Teenagers and older primary school children could load the dishwasher, wipe the benches, change their bed linen or load the washing machine. They could probably make their own lunches too.  They might complain when they start all this, particularly if they haven't helped with house work before, but they will grow into the habit of it, just as you will, and it will become easier and just be a part of their day. And believe me, when they grow up, they'll be able to look after themselves and they'll thank you for it.


After the first day, decide what worked and what needs changing. Whatever needs tweaking, do it after that first day so that on day two you have a clear run through.  If you still have problems, keep tweaking so you can do your list in the time you allow yourself.


Often you'll have at least two sets of daily routines - one morning, one evening. When they're established, work out your weekly and monthly routines. Weekly routines will be for cleaning bathrooms, changing bed linen, vacuuming the floor, menu planning etc while monthly routines will help you deal with cleaning the fridge and dishwasher etc.  It you need help creating your lists, there are hundreds of housework lists here. Just make sure your lists cover all the work you need to do and you set realistic time goals.

You can make up short lists for other areas at other times too, and this is especially helpful for seasonal cleaning or on weekends when you need to get through your housework as well as spend time with your family. But start with daily routines first and when you've settled into them, create weekly and monthly lists as well. How do you organise your housework? Do routines work for you?

Just a short note on the War on Waste post. There is no radio program, it's an online digital program as well as a downloadable podcast. I hope you have the time to listen. It is relevant to all of us.

I've been concentrating on my family tree recently and was very excited last week when I received my DNA profile. This is what I discovered:

It's pretty much what I expected although, even though I "feel" very Irish, I didn't expect my Irishness to be 68 percent.  Win/win, Australian AND Irish. My main cultural group is Munster Irish, which is the southern parts of Ireland - Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Clare and Kerry. I had often wondered why I'd been compelled to name one of my sons Kerry, and maybe there is a reason. Maybe I have a significant but forgotten link to County Kerry.

Since receiving my DNA profile, I've been contacted by a cousin I'd never heard of. Our great grandmothers were sisters.  When we were on the book tour, Tricia and I took advantage of our visit to Wagga and visited the house our mother was born in. This "new" cousin was born in Wagga too, so knowing my DNA profile connected me with a place and a time and through that, a relative. The past is such an intriguing, engaging and endlessly interesting place and having done this research I'm very comfortable with my own history.

Hanno and I had an easy Monday. Most of our days are easy now, I think it's the payoff for growing old.  We had our breakfast and were at Aldi when the doors opened at 8.30am. We had a moderate amount of shopping to do - vegetables, fruit, groceries and meat, and we were home again with everything packed away by 9.30am. It's easier and faster when we shop together. Our local Aldi was refurbished recently and reopened in April. It's made the store easier to shop in and the products seem to be in a logical place now. It still has that big area in the centre with all the cheap specials, which I'm not a fan of, but the rest of the store flows well and the displays and frozen goods are easier to access.  Has your local Aldi been transformed too?

Clearing the mulch to add more fertiliser. The soil here, once heavy clay, is now fertile, friable and full of worms.

The garden is growing really well this year. All the turnips and bok choy have been harvested and the lettuce and daikon will be finished next week. We've been drinking fresh orange juice every day for the past couple of week so the oranges will be finished soon too. Tomatoes are flowering and the first tomatoes are hanging like green jewels on the plants.  I am really looking forward to having home -grown tomatoes once again. The chickens have lifted their game too and yesterday we got eight eggs.  Looks like a spinach and cheese pie will be on the menu next week. Hanno removed the mulch where the turnips had been yesterday and added more organic fertiliser. Today we'll plant sprouting broccoli there.
I've been moving pots around again and brought in an old bird bath and filled it with smooth pebbles so the birds and insects have access to clean water and a safe place from which to drink.  It's always a work in progress, things change all the time in vegetables gardens and with care and work, we can keep ours productive and beautiful well into November. It seems that 2017 is a good year for gardening. How is your garden going?

I thought I was fairly up to date on the growing waste issue in the world but a three part ABC TV program called War on Waste showed me that it's a much bigger disaster than I ever imagined. The last of the TV shows aired yesterday so I was really pleased and grateful to receive an email from a friend at the ABC (thanks Andrew) telling me about a continuing conversation about the growing problem on an ABC podcast.

The show is hosted by Craig Reucassel and the wonderful Wendy Harmer, and will continue to cover many of the issues started by the TV show. You can listen online or download the podcast.  This service is available for our international readers too.  

Yesterday was the first day of winter here and right on time the cold weather arrived. I wrote this post last night when it was 8C degrees outside and I sat tapping at my computer dressed in a summer cotton nightie, lambswool slippers and three cardigans. Daggy till the end, me. Everlong a fashion maverick. 🙄

Thanks to all the people who emailed about the blogging course. We'll start the first course in late June. I'm particularly looking forward to the Skype sessions. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun. If you want to join in, please check the previous post and email me.

I hope you enjoy your weekend doing the things you love. xx

'I'm not doing this any more': the rush to escape Sydney's mad house prices

I've had quite a few emails recently from readers asking specific questions about blogging, and especially how to set up a blog and how to grow an audience.  I've done a few blogging courses here in my home and I was wondering is there is interest in writing a new course. Along with the usual topics such as layout, keywords, blog titles and style, I'd write about how I set up my blog and how I built on it over the years.  I think there are two keys to a successful blog and they are good content and a spirit of generosity, tolerance, inclusion and kindness. I would write about that and a lot more.

I would write up the notes and email them out to everyone who registered and then follow that with some Skype sessions of about 3 or 4 people at a time. We'd be able to have a good chat about the concept of blogging, discuss the important elements of a successful blog, discover your reasons for blogging and you could ask any questions you had. The course could be done in your own time and you'd only have to have a set time and date for the Skype sessions.

The course would be targeted at new bloggers and people who have already started a blog that didn't progress in ways you would expect it too. So we could do a bit of troubleshooting, talk about photos and blog titles and how to build an audience.

I would charge US $100 for the course and that would include the course notes, two Skype sessions of 1 hour each and some followup. Are you interested in such a course?  I may well be way off on this and maybe a local course is the way to go.  So I'll wait for your feedback and see what you have to say.  Thanks for your help. xx

If you're interested in doing a blog course, either now or later, email me: rhondahetzel@gmail.com

This course is open to everyone no matter where you are in the world.

Over the past couple of posts and their comments we've shared how we organise our finances by tracking spending, saving what we can and cutting back as much as possible. That is all usually done to enable us to live well on whatever income we have and to either save or pay off debt.  The final piece of the puzzle is to use the information you have about your spending and create a realistic budget that will give you the life you want to live while you pay off your debt, and when money is left over, saving it.  Those savings may well be used for a house deposit, buying a car, or identifying family needs or treats.

So that is your next step, or if you've already got a budget, review it.  Here are two links that I hope will help you in this process. The first is the Australian Government's Moneysmart website with many calculators, apps and articles on money management.   The second is a post I wrote in 2013 - Budgeting - take control of your money.  Good luck!

~~~  🍄🍄🍄  ~~~

We've had a busy time over the past few days. We looked after all the grandkids on Saturday and Jamie on Sunday, and the rest of the time was taken up mainly with seasonal tasks like gardening, harvesting and juicing as well as frugal home management.

With a roast chicken in the oven, I zipped out to the garden for the accompanying vegetables. About 45 minutes after they were picked, they were eaten. 

I love Autumn. It's my favourite season, not only because the weather cools down and I can cook warming stews and soups, but also because I know there will be a six month block of good (cool) weather. We do the bulk of our food gardening in Autumn and Winter and that is in full swing now.  Hanno has been picking lemons off both trees and juicing them so we have plenty of juice for cooking now and for cordial in summer.

Yet another whole orange cake.

The violas and thyme are dwarfed by the daikon and turnips.

Another whole orange cake has been baked, I made up a couple of baskets of vegetables for Sunny to take home and this afternoon, as soon as I finish this post, I'll be planting out the sprouting broccoli seedlings I grew from seeds.  The garden is growing well, mainly due to the excellent preparation Hanno work spent time on a couple of months ago. That work will continue to pay off for the coming six months while we continue to harvest fresh organic vegetables and fruit right in our backyard. 

We have an over abundance of lemons, we're now picking the oranges and when the grandkids were here on Saturday, I really enjoyed them picking oranges with Hanno so we could squeeze them fresh to enjoy with our lunch.  Such simple pleasures!

It was a very nice task sitting on the back verandah in the late afternoon sunshine, cutting up rags and ties. The radio was playing, I could hear the birds in the garden and all was right in my world.

I cut up a worn out sheet to make another batch of absorbent cleaning rags and cut the elastic edges off the sheet for tomato ties.  The fridge was cleaned out, bathrooms cleaned and all sorts of bits and pieces taken care of.  There is one sure thing here, there is always something to do.

Quite a few readers have asked about Gracie and yes, HRH Princess Grace was taken to the beach yesterday for a walk around with real people and other dogs. She loves meeting new people and she's very good in the car so it's always a pleasure to take her out and get a bit of variety in her life.  We used a new groomer last week - Julie from My K9's Keeper, a hydrobath service, came to our place and washed Gracie. I told Julie how difficult it is to wash her but Gracie was on her best behaviour with Julie, she must have known she was a dog trainer too. We've booked Gracie in for monthly baths with Julie because Gracie liked her and we were both very happy with how she handled her.

So that's me. What have you been doing these past few days?  If you have time, let me know your news.  xx

So far we've changed our mindset, or are working on it, we're tracking our spending, or starting to, and before we write up a budget, let's look at ways to save money. The obvious things are selling what you no longer need, making sure you don't waste anything, changing service plans or not paying for things you may be able to do without, such as:

• a second car; 
• the premium data package on your phone and internet instead of something more prudent;
• cutting back on your children's after-school activities;
• cutting back on family outings that cost money and make it a once a month event instead of weekly.

Hanno and I did all that many years ago. We sold our second car, got rid of pay TV and then I started learning how to stockpile, make bread, soap and cleaning products. I changed the way I cleaned, went back to cooking from scratch and got rid of most of the harmful chemicals I had in the house.  With everyone of those changes we paid out less money. I started decluttering and getting rid of years of excess and while I'll never be a minimalist, we live with a lot less junk now, and it makes a delightful difference. With ebay and gumtree, it's quite easy to sell what you don't want and if you do that, set that money aside to pay down your debt.

I got into the habit of knitting dishcloths that can be washed and reused many times, I now mend torn clothes and dropped hems, I sew buttons back on and replace zippers.  I have a sewing basket where all items that need help are collected and when there are a few things in the basket, I set aside some time to mend them. What a money saver that is and it's a pleasant way to spend time, hand sewing, darning and sewing on buttons.  I now cut up old sheets and use them as cleaning rags and between those rags and my knitted dish cloths, I don't buy any cleaning cloths at all. With a bit of thought, you can change how you work in your home and it will save you a lot of money.

Another thing that's useful for many people is to stockpile groceries. Buying food that you know will keep well in a cupboard, or preserving fresh food when it's in season, will help you save. It also gives you a good backup if there is a community emergency, if you or your spouse lose your job or if you get sick and can't get to the shop. Having that little cupboard full of healthy food will save the day as well as money when you least expect it to.

We've had a solar hot water system for over 30 years. According to the stats, in an average home hot water costs about 30 percent of the electricity bill, so it's a big help if you can afford to install solar.  Generally a solar system for hot water, or solar panels for more general use, will pay for itself in a few years, so if you have some spare money, using solar power is a great investment.

You only need a small garden to grow salad leaves, tomatoes and herbs. If you can do that, it will save you money and you'll get far healthier produce.

If you don't have solar, it will be important for you to look for ways to cut down on your electricity usage. We've been able to cut down our usage and we use a fraction of what is normal now. There are two of us here, with frequent visitors, and we use the same amount of electricity as one person. That has been consistent over the past ten years. If you're going to try to cut your bill, everyone in the house will have to work towards that goal so have a talk with your family and work out ways to work together to cut down. That's particularly important if you share your home with teenagers or young adults.

Here is a list from an old post, written in 2011, that might give you more ideas about cutting back.

1. Spend less than you earn. Not just today and this week, but all the time. 
2. Spend only on needs, not wants. 
3. Make up a workable and realistic budget and stick to it. 
4. Stockpile food and groceries - this is your insurance policy that even if the worst happens, you'll still be able to feed the family. 
5. If you have to find some money you don't have to pay bills cut out unnecessary expenses like internet, mobile phone, cable TV, magazines, coffee at the cafe etc. 
6. Cook from scratch. 
7. Never waste food, eat your leftovers and have a couple of meatless meals every week. 
8. Take lunch and a drink to work and school. 
9. Monitor your electricity, water and gas useage. Learn how to read your meters. 
10. When you're cooking on the stove top, bring the food to the boil with the lid on, then turn the power down to a simmer. Leaving the gas or electricity on full will waste it. 
11. Turn off lights and TV when you leave the room. 
12. Turn off stand by appliances when you're not using them and when you go to bed. 
13. Stop buying cleaning products and make your own using bicarb and vinegar. 
14. Make your own laundry liquid. There is a recipe for it here. 
15. If you haven't already done it, think about putting in a vegetable garden. If you've already got one, think about adding fruit and herbs. 
16. If you have no space to grow vegetables, buy your fruit, vegetables, eggs and honey at a local market. The prices will probably be cheaper than the supermarket. 
17. Check out your local butcher shop. The prices will probably be lower than the supermarkets and the quality of meat better. (We bought lamb on special at one of the big supermarkets last week and the quality of it was vastly inferior to what we usually get from our local butcher. Lesson learned.) 
18. Teach yourself to knit and sew. There are many sites on the internet with very good instructions, tutorials and sometimes, videos. Try MADE, Instructables, Knitting Help. 
19. Make your home the kind of place you want to spend time in. Invite friends around instead of going out for coffee or drinks. 
20. Self reliance and a thrifty mindset will help you get through most things. Start with one thing, then move on to the others when you're ready.

There are so many individual things that we could give up or cut down on but it is up to everyone to work out what they are and then commit to doing it. One thing I do want to remind you of is this: these are YOUR decisions to make, not mine, not your best friend's, only yours and you family's. Think about your life and what you can achieve by make these small changes. I'm not saying it will be easy because it's not, but it does get easier. If you can do this and use your savings to pay off debt or save, it might change your life.  Good luck, my friends. I hope you dive right into this.

I hope you have the time to add your comments about what you're doing and what works for you.  What you say here may be just the thing someone needs to read. xx

More reading: 

This is an old post of mine that may help you: The Frugal Home

Carrying on from my previous post... I think the first step in making long-lasting changes in how to deal with money is to first work out what your values are and to adjust your thinking to make sense of it. Generally, when you're living this way, you try to cut your costs, stop unnecessary spending and create your own organised system to pay off debt and lower the cost of living. How you do that is up to you and it can be done well in many different ways. There is no one size fits all formula for this. You look at your own life, your needs, your level of debt and you work out how you'll cut costs while you pay off debt.

The first thing I suggest you do is to track your current spending. We all know how much money we have coming in each week/month, but not all of us know how much we're spending, or on what.  By tracking your spending, you'll know how much you're spending on what you need and also on those things you don't need, but want.  It's good to identify those wants, because they are usually what you can stop buying to save money. Coffee and magazines are generally in the wants category. Spending four dollars a day on a cup of coffee when you're at work five days a week will add up to about one thousand dollars a year.  And that's just one thing. Magazines are another thing that can be easily stopped. Buying lunch at work five days a week, if you spend about seven dollars a day, will cost you around $1750 a year. Even if you spend $750 buying your basic ingredients to make lunch at home, you're saving $1000 a year. If you can get into the habit of taking your lunch and a drink with you when you go to work, it will help you save.

Here's an old post on how to track your spending.


We are all different in so many ways, some of us rent, some work from home, some have a car, some have no children, some have a large family. No formula can cover all the differences.  The one thing we do have in common is that we all need food so if you can save money on your food, then those savings will be ongoing. I don't bother searching for "specials" or clipping coupons. What I see on sale at supermarkets are usually products I would never buy, they tend to be snack foods, soft drinks, processed foods and expensive cleaning products.  By making my own simple cleaners, stockpiling and shopping for fresh food, while growing a bit of it ourselves, we get, I think, the best value for money.  We shop at markets when we can and do our shopping at Aldi with a bit at IGA or Woolworths for things that Aldi don't stock.


You might discover that bulk buying with a friend or family member will save you money. You may decide to cut down on meat. You might grow a garden. Again, there are many ways to do this, you just need to think about it and work out what works for you.

In my next post let's share our ways of cutting back.  I'll make up a list of what I do but I'd love to read what you do as well. By sharing our plans and strategies, we might help someone else start making changes in their life.  We'll be waiting a long time to see our governments and the media encouraging us to cut down on what we spend. We have to do this ourselves and help others do it too. It can be done, it can be enjoyable! I know quite a few people who see cutting back as a game. But no matter how you do it, do it. It will help you change your life.

When we settled down here after years of working for a living, I wanted to leave commercialism behind and embrace a simpler, quiet life. I wanted to know peace and joy, connect with the land we live on, and develop a calm demeanour that would carry me through all the good days I hoped were ahead but would also save me on the bad days. I knew they were lurking too; no one escapes them.

I didn't know then that longing for a quiet life would mean I would work harder, embrace parts of my heritage, move away from buying what I needed and provide it for myself instead, or that all those things would make happier than I had ever been.  It wasn't easy though, it was tough in those early years. I had to turn my back on the instant satisfaction of continuous buying and look in unexplored places for happiness, strength and flexibility. I found the peace and joy I was looking for and I understood then that constant craving for products would never give me the kind of life I wanted. Constant buying puts you on a spending merry-go-round and you have to work hard to continue paying for it all.

I have often said that money is not the centre of my world. We needed it to buy our house and furnish it, and to live the way we wanted to live, but that is the only value it has for me. I don't want to amass a fortune, travel the world, live beyond what I know, nor pretend to be someone I'm not. I was born working class and I will die working class. There is nothing that inspires me more than seeing other women and men working for the life they want to live. Putting in those hours improves us. Work, either paid work or domestic work, polishes our rough edges, teaches us to be reasonable, organised and resourceful and it helps us discover our own worth.

Hanno and I live on a limited fixed income - a pension with a small amount of royalties coming in twice a year from the sale of my books. We own our home, paid cash for our car and we have no debt.  Generally, we can save about $200 in each fortnightly pay period. But there is one vital thing that makes saving fairly easy for us and that is a frugal mindset. Without changing the way you think about money, it will be a tough uphill climb for you. You need to see value in the things you already have and the many things that money can't buy. If your idea of bliss is wandering through shops looking for things to buy, or going on an overseas trip every year, or buying a new car because your best friend did, you need to rethink your desire to live simply.  You can't have both - you either live a pared down life buying what you need, paying off your debt and saving as much as you can, or you don't.

Saving money can be done in a few ways.

• You can work more hours, save those extra dollars and start paying down your debt. 
• You can work your normal hours and work out ways to spend less on food, entertainment, transport and utilities.
• You can reduce your cost of living and start producing and growing some of what you use.  
• You can declutter and get rid of all the excess you have in your home and sell it all at a garage sale or on eBay.

All these measures will help but saving the money you already have pays off handsomely. A saved dollar is more valuable than an earned dollar because you will pay tax on every dollar you earn.  One thing is for sure, you'll have to stop and think about it, decide what your values are, work out what you want to be doing in a few years time, and make a plan to help that happen. Change and saving doesn't happen because you want it to, it needs planning, work and ongoing commitment.

This is a topic that we need to be mindful of all the time.  It's one of the things you have to get to grips with when you start living a more simple life but you can't lose sight of your financial goals along the way. With the rising prices we live with, it's a good idea to track your spending and check your budget every couple of years so you know that you're using your money wisely. In my next post I'll write about the practical ideas you can use in your daily life that will help you live well while you cut back.

How have your ideas about money, debt reduction and thrift changed over the years?

We're enjoying a spot of rain here. The gardens are soaked, the tanks are full and the only problem is us gardeners can't get out into the garden.  Maybe tomorrow.

Thanks for your visits during the week and especially for leaving a comment. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that you take it easy and relax.  See you again next week. 😌

Dogs And Chickens: How Dogs Can Protect Your Flock
Encyclopedia of Home Improvements
Cheryl is one of the readers here, let's check out her blog - a simply good life
Retrosuburbia - a downshifters guide to a resilient future

Thank you all so much for the love sent in the last post.  It's quite humbling to read it.  😊  I am going to devote some time to getting back to my core topics.  They won't come thick and fast like in the past but they will be here. I hope to have a money post up soon.


Tricia flew back to Sydney yesterday after a lovely holiday with us. We reminisced, drank tea, hand stitched, knitted, ate cake, laughed at Gracie and generally had a wonderful time together. When we were little, we were like chalk and cheese but now in our twilight years, we are closer than two peas in a pod. We like the same things, enjoy the same food, have similar opinions on many subjects (and a few differences too), and as we grow older, I see myself in Tricia. I guess she sees herself in me too. It's a nice feeling having a sister to be close to. We are the product of our times and our parents, especially our mum, and when I spend time with Tricia and think of my mum, I feel ever grateful to have been born into my family.

A couple of the morning teas while Tricia was here - crackers with Mersey cheese spread, cucumber and tomato and (below) plum cake.  I made a pear and walnut cake too but now I can't find the photos. Of course it was magnificent. ; - )

A lot happened while Tricia was here so I hope you have a few minutes to sit a while and catch up on our news.  The main activity was our electricity pole. Remember back a few months when we had to have it replaced and had a problem with the insurance. Well, they came through afterall with a good payment and we were able to have all the work paid for under the insurance pay out.  Earlier in the week, after a couple of months of preparation, sourcing a pole and having it erected, our electrician and our supply company arrived at 6.30am to connect the new pole, establish supply from the street and remove the old pole. We asked our electrician to leave the old pole here as we wanted it for fire wood.  He offered to cut it up for us so the chainsaw fired up for a while and we were left with a 30 year old hard wood post, all cut up in manageable sizes for our BBQ grill.  More on that later.  It lay on the ground there for a day or two and yesterday afternoon Hanno chopped it into smaller bits and took it all into the shed so it stays dry.

The crew working on the two poles, above. Below, our electrician made short work of the old pole with his chainsaw then Hanno took over and chopped it into smaller pieces to be stored in the shed for our BBQ grill.
Meanwhile, out in the vegetable garden, the bok choy have all been eaten and today I'll weed that area and sow more seed. I've also sown seeds for red sprouting broccoli in seed beds and will plant them on when they're ready. The silver beet (Swiss chard) is ready to harvest, herbs are going wild and many of the tomatoes are flowering. What a wonderful time to be in the garden. I hope your garden is growing well too.

Something that is not so wonderful though is the fox is back and two days ago, Kathleen, our remaining frizzle was killed. That blasted animal bit off her head and left her little body under the lemon tree. What a senseless death! The chickens are spending most of their time in the coop and only wander out when they know we're in the garden. We've let Gracie out into the larger back garden now so she will leave her scent around and hopefully deter foxes.

This is the knitting I was doing while Tricia was here. I wound two balls of the lovely O Wool Balance (50 percent wool/50 percent cotton) to make a little shrug for my two year old grand daughter. I should be finished with it next week.

I have to catch up with my housework over the coming days. While Tricia was here I did next to nothing except cook and make the bed.  The first thing I'll be doing is to get those bok choy seeds in, I have to repot my large rose which has been pruned and moved, the bush house needs a good clean out and a few plants have to be shifted to their winter spots. It's nothing much, it's fairly light and enjoyable work, but it needs to be done before next week. Inside the house I'll clean the bathrooms, wash the floors and make the guest room bed up again; Tricia vacuumed in there before she left. My only worry is that the doona from the guest bed is airing out on the clothes line and I woke up to the sound of rain. Oh well, as we all know, nothing is perfect.