Ever changing

It is so important to take the time to sit back and reflect on the changes and hard work that we have done. In just a little over 2 & 1/2 years we have transformed this place from a bare block with an ugly little tin shed to our home and beautiful gardens. Looking back at this old photo of Gran with the kids it is so amazing to see the difference..and it also gives us the strength to carry on. These photos are taken from the same spot looking back at roughly the same scene and it has shown us the importance of visually documenting our progress.Between the grass, fruit trees, vegie gardens, plant nursery, chooks and building sometimes it seems unmanageable and completely overwhelming. But after looking at these photos I think I might go out this morning for a bit more planting and then take some photos :)

A new year

Well it seems to be a post every three months at the moment...We recently hosted 3 hardworking dutch wwoofers..while they were here they did lot's of weeding, mulching and dug out a flat spot for our new little water tank...stay tuned of the pic of our new little tank...

Three months and a Jetty

Three months just flew by. We've been super busy and have found that having wwoofers here certainly helps getting things done. Since our camera is broken all the photos today are from our fantastic wwoofers Lauren and Josie who were with us from Boston for 5 weeks. Josie and Lauren had a great time exploring the area and helped us with so many projects. We built a sweet little jetty on our dam affectionately referred to as the Lofty meadows pond marina. We were a little perplexed as to how we were going to dig holes for the poles in a large puddle of water when a friend gave us the tip that the poles needn't be buried. So with a bit of bracing we stood the poles up and then just braced everything to the poles on the shore. Really that makes it sound so easy but thats because I was on the shore helping with the bracing. Dave was the brave one who wallowed in the freezing cold water and wrestled the heavy poles into position. Then with the help of Wwoofers Roy&Yeji from Korea and Lauren & Josie the flooring went on. Before we knew it we had a party of pirates doing their thing on the high seas

Cooking Pizza

It has been well worthwhile building our new improved oven...it is fantastic! With a few hours firing it cooks for about 2 hours. Having the fire pit close by to shovel the coals into and then reheat the oven after a few hours is a great way to cook all night long....makes for good fun pizza parties. The big long bench set up is also a fantastic improvement-Pizza prep on one side of the oven and pizza chopping and eating on the other. We have thoroughly enjoyed all the creativity...everyone wants to get in and make their special topped pizza or calzone

Our new oven

With the help of our fantastic wwoofers we have finished our new pizza oven and we are looking forward to the first feast. Finding the clay was the first step, we found a big seam of it in the front paddock and filled the bath tub about half way and covered it with water. Our last wonderful wwoofer Dafna had begun so there was some clay in the bottom that had already been soaking for a good few weeks. This was great for stomping as it was much softer and it is certainly worth soaking the clay for as long as possible beforehand. So the bare foot stomping began in the tub ..it felt great...but jeez our feet were sore the next day!
For the first layer we added sand until it felt like a good consistancy...not too wet..and just after building the dome of sand(covered in plastic) we started throwing the mud on. We built up a good thick layer had a rest and then added straw to the mix and put the next layer on. We found it easier to add the straw by hand as we went.We then added the finishing touches and will wait a week before we pull the sand out. After three days of beautiful clear winter weather it feels quite dry and hard on the outside in the parts exposed to the sun.