Christmas day 2008

Guest blogger Pete again...


I'm not sure what time the sun comes up at Lochlea, but shortly after that, we were up and about on Christmas day. Grandma had the boys outside looking for reindeer tracks and they eventually tracked them in to the Christmas tree and the presents. After that it was a whirlwind of ripped wrapping paper and the excitement of new presents.


Jim, Mel and kids arrived in time for a fantastic Christmas lunch. It was a fantastic spread and a real credit to the cook. :) After lunch, Mary roped several innocent bystanders into a few rounds of karaoke with her new Singstar games. It was pretty funny to watch but not so funny to listen to. ;)

Later in the day, the kids all got outside and ran amok. Luckily it was not too hot - a bit overcast and fairly pleasant. There was some swimming in the pool and quite a bit of time spent working on the cubby. It was funny watching the kids work on the cubby. One would move something and then another would move it somewhere else. It was chaos, but they had fun.
For anyone who hasn't seen it, the cubby is built in a great big old pine tree behind the chook house. The tree is leaning on the old chook house and the roof of the chook house has been incorporated as part of the cubby. The cubby is the work of several different eras of grandchildren, cousins and neighbours kids. There is an incredible amount of wood and junk - scap metal, old tires etc. that has been carted up the tree. One day the chook house may fall down, taking at least half the cubby with it. :)

Around dinner time, the boys were playing with some toy golf clubs which Harry received as a present. Then Alex decided the real golf clubs would be better. They were only using soft plastic balls, so I thought it would be okay.
"Move away from the other kids if you want to use real golf clubs Alex."
The words were hardly out of my mouth a minute before I heard a scream and saw Patch lying on the grass with his head in his hands. I rushed over to have a look. Patch had a heap of blood coming out of a big cut - right in the middle of his forehead. It was pretty deep and we decided that we would have to take him to get some stitches. With an ice pack on the wound and lots of love & attention, Patch had calmed down by the time we got going, and the wound had just about stopped bleeding. If it was anywhere except the face, we may not have bothered with hospital.
When we got to Dalby hospital, we were surprised to find nobody waiting. We went straight in and they saw us straight away. They decided to glue the stitches rather than stitch them (a mistake in hindsight), and we were out of there very quickly.

We were back to the farm in about an hour and a half. Amazing - if we'd gone to a Brisbane hospital on Christmas night, we would have waited for hours!
Jim pitched his tent in the front yard and the kids & Aunty Mary slept in it on Christmas night.
Les & Kurtis came out for Christmas tea. We had a lovely tea and then some more (terrible) singstar (karaoke).
At some point in the night, Patch got cranky and ripped his glued head wound open. Should have gone for stitches! I retired pretty early, so I can't say who was the winner, but maybe music was the real winner. ;)

Jim and Mel stayed for Boxing Day and myself and the boys stayed for another lovely and relaxing week. I imagine the folks were glad to have the house back to themselves by the end of the week. Old Chinese saying - "Visitor like fish - after 3 days start to stink." ;)

Christmas Eve 2008

Pete here - appearing as a guest blogger for Mum & Dad. Perhaps they will do a Christmas entry as well, but at the connection speed they have out at the farm, I don't blame them if they don't.
(you wouldn't believe how slow it is for them to load a web page !)

Alli and I took separate cars out to the farm on Christmas eve as I finished around lunch time and Alli had to work a full day. I took Patrick & Harry with me (Alex was already at the farm), and as we were running late, drove straight through to 6 o'clock mass in Dalby. We were lucky (or perhaps unlucky) enough to get a seat with Mum & Dad inside the church. There were a lot of people seated on chairs out the side of the church. It was very hot & crowded in the church and Father Michael(?) suggested that we try to offer up our suffering in good spirit to God. Well, I had a shot at it, but try telling that to a 1 and 3 year old. Harry and Patrick did pretty well in a fairly long Christmas mass, but we bailed out after communion and joined the people in the cool sweet air outside.

We drove to the farm where Allison was waiting for us. She had run into quite a fierce and scary storm on the way out to the farm - had to pull off the road along with a lot of other people while it passed. Luckily she was unscathed, if a little shaken up.
After a very late tea, we all retired to bed to await the jolly fat man. (Santa I mean - who were you thinking of?)

Lochlea Boundaries

Aerial shot of Lochlea with boundaries superimposed.


(click to enlarge)

A bird in the hand

Things we do as retirement gets closer! Dad found this little bloke still in his nest, which had fallen from very high up in a gum tree. His two siblings were dead alongside him. We have been digging worms and feeding him. He is slowly getting the hang of opening his mouth. Very cute

What Flood ?

Couldn't believe our eyes this morning - water all back within the creek banks!

Dad and I went to the crossing and picked up two huge carp and cooked them up for the dogs. Would have each weighed 3-4kg

Flooded Farm

We've had rain!!! 844 pts (8 inches 44 pts or 211 mls) in fifteen days. We had 80 mls (320) pts last night. There is water every where. The Sloss family were not able to get home last night - doubtful if they will make it by tractor tonight but they hope to try.

Harvest interrupted

We've had 2 inches over the past 2 days - harvest came to a sudden stop on
Sunday evening when we were hit by a sudden downpour.
This wet quite a few tonnes of grain but we did manage to get the best of it through the board
at Malu so that was good. It is raining lightly again now and they are
predicting more over the next couple of days.
Things generally are going OK.

Sloss kittens come for a visit

Portia brought a few spare kittens over for the boys to play with.

Post trip update

Just a short note before I begin some real work!!!

Dad rang Aaron this morning on his mobile. He is still in hospital after his motor bike fall. As most of you know, he managed to break his clavicle (collar bone); sternum; and 3/4 ribs, one of which pierced his lung. He is still hooked up to tubes as they try to drain fluid and blood from his lung but feels that he is on the mend. He can't remember a thing about what happened. Tash had yesterday off school but is back on duty today.

We had a good trip to Airlie via Biloela, Mt Morgan, Rockhampton, Yeppoon Rockhampton, Mackay, and Proserpine. It was so lovely to catch up with so many of you. Loved a walk with Charlie and Maveric; a swim with Josh, Nyrie and Jacob; breakfast with Chris and Jarred; ---- and a pat of Boris and Penny!! Dean & Jenny Smith's wedding was lovely; We enjoyed our stay with Tom and Marie Callaghan. Called on an old school friend from my days at the Range College (used to go out to Jealous's place at Byfield on our weekend's out) - Margaret nowlives in Yeppoon. Got to have an outside peek at Bugs and Sheree's new home. Met up with Valerie & Eddie Shaw at Jo & Pete's home in the rainforest. We had five days from when we left till when we returned, and travelled close on 2400 kilometres so there was not a lot of time to spare.

Thanks for all the prayers for safe trip - it was very good. Mind you I slept for a good part of the driving. We had an overnight stay with Mary on her birthday and got to have tea with her new house mates, Kathy and her son Robbie. Robbie cooked tea for us - Chicken Risotto - Dad said that it tasted heaps better than that on the entrea menu at Rydges Capricorn!!

We are trying to harvest at the moment - crop is dry, but the header driver is missing.

Les and Deb are bringing a roast out for tea tonight - it will be great to catch up with them and Kurtis and Blair.

Boris survived his knock with the car - vet said that there were no broken bones! Sheree is doing well also after the shock!! Boris is as cute as ever.

Sale of irrigation

Well, as you probably know, we have pretty high hopes that we will sell the irrigation area in the near future. We still do not have a signed contract but both solicitors have viewed the proposed contract and all is in order. David came over yesterday and asked if we would be willing to accept 30.01.09 as a settlement date instead of 30.12.08, as QRAA only review their interest rates half yearly and that does not happen until the beginning of January. We have agreed to this so all should go as planned - just a little later. He said that he would compensate us for any interest loss over this period. He has been very fair but we will just be happy for it all to be finalized.

Heading North Again

Well now - we are almost ready to leave, 10.30am, which is half an hour later than planned but then that is pretty good for us. Hopefully we will be gone within the half hour ---- !
Our itinerary is as under:-

Tonight, Friday:

• Travel to Ed and Squirts and stay at their motel!! (thanks squirt - we did book in!)

Saturday:

• Travel to Rocky early - meet Carmel and Don at 8am at Rydges Capricorn Resort to give them a hand. They are having a cuppa at the church
• Wedding of Dean and Jenny at 2.30pm in the Catholic Church Yeppoon\Reception at 6pm at Rydges Resort
• Stay overnight with Tom and Marie Callaghan Yeppoon

Sunday:

• Morning with Callaghans and then travel to Mackay to Natasha and Aarons
• Stay overnight with Aaron & Tash

Monday:

• Travel to Airlie to Josephine and Peter Muller

Tuesday:

• Load gear.
• Travel back to Mackay to stay the night with Bugs & Sheree

Wednesday:

• Travel home.

Well Man - that's the plan!!

Most of you will have heard that Bugs and Sheree have signed for a house in Mackay. I am sure that a few prayers that finance etc will all go to plan would be appreciated.

Had a lovely night with Mary for her birthday. She is busily working on her big move to share a house with Cathy and her son Robbie. Tash and Aaron have all that ahead of them before long when they move to Glenden.

Uncle Steve recommended a great book "Head Over Heals" by Sam and Jennifer Riley - about a quadriplegic who conquered so many barriers. Well worth the read. Apparently Sam rang Bill recently and had a good yarn with him and said that if he came to Adelaide as he does every now and then he would give them a call.

Property Sale

Just to let you all know - The offer from David Johns is OK and we have decided to accept it,(which we have told him) but at this stage nothing has been signed as we are waiting for him to recover from his latest bout of cancer treatment - we expect to see him by the weekend when we will finalise details so that we can take it to our solicitor to put into a contract. He will then take it to his solicitor - Settlement will not be until after we harvest as we are retaining the crop. We are not using an agent which will save us about $20,000.00. We will be going up to Yeppoon next weekend (stopping at Biloela Motel on the Friday Night) for Dean and Jenny's wedding and will see our Tax man while we are there (Staying with Tom and Marie on the Saturday Night and maybe Sunday Night depending how long we need with Tom), We are then going on up to Airlie to pick up some shelving which we are buying from Jo and PeterTrust that this will keep you in the loop for the time being - nothing of course can be taken as gospel until the fat bank man sings.

Lots of Love Mum and Dad.

Tawnies return

Our babies have returned once again - to the trees near the dog kennels. Perhaps the dogs make them feel safe! Dad took photos. I particularly like the "How's that for camouflage" one. Unbelievable!

Delivered from the mice

This morning at 8am the truck should come to pick up the last load of hay. You just can't imagine what a relief that will be to us. Thank you all for your prayers.

Isn't the damage just incredible. I could not believe that mice could be responsile for the mess and I blamed the dogs. However, as we got into the middle of the stacked bales and the destruction continued ... well I believed! The picture where Dad is standing, shows the hay that falls down as the bales are removed.

Hay - Good News !

All hay sold! Yes it is true and Soooooo very exciting. Please thank the Good Lord and say a special prayer for Lindsay from next door, because he is responsible for getting buyers for the whole lot of it. You cannot imagine what a relief it is to us.

There probably wouldn't have been any left in a month or so. One can't begin to imagine the damage that the mice have done. Dad and I have been carting it away by the trailer load - 5/6 loads already and not half way yet. We are putting hay around every tree and on every garden bed. Dad reckons that there would be over a tonne of it. After two days of it we have aching arms, backs, etc. - yes we are loading it by the armful! Anyway, we are just so elated to have it sold - truck has just arriaved to pick up the second load.

No, we have not had much of the rain that was in the southern part of Queensland. Only a total of 8.5ml in the last six weeks. However, the crop is still looking really good and rain now would be truly wonderful. Love to all. Mum and Dad

Visit by the Brissy Bryant boys

Bishop Dom Carmen visit - photos

Special Guests

Things are busy as we prepare for our special guests who are coming out early next week. By now, most of you probably know that we are privilleged to be hosts to a special man, Bishop Dom Carmen. Father Dom, as he was then, was in charge of the mission station that I was in just before I returned to Australia in 1967. Sr Val (was Sr Phillip) also ex New Guinea, rang to organize it with us, as Dom wanted to see some "real Australia"! Until he retired last year he was the Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans. Father John Dwyer, who is assistant priest at Caloundra, is bringing him out and staying also for the few days. John was a lay missionary in New Guinea when I was up there. It will be just lovely to catch up with them. Please keep all in your prayers that they will have a really special and enjoyable time and ....... that we just might get this beautiful home of ours tidied up!

Looks as if we might have sold all of the round bales of hay - Thank you for your prayers and please thank God also. Will you also pray that we can get a buyer for the big square bales - very soon, before the mice manage to destroy it!!! Yes, mice are very bad again. We are keeping them at bay with water traps and poison, but they managed to eat what ever amount of poison Dad puts out in the house, completely, over night.

Mary is coming to our rescue this weekend to help get our house in order! We are so grateful Mary.

Lovely to spend time with our Brisbane family and to catch up with the Toowoomba family on the way home last week.

What's that green stuff ?

World Youth Day - Sydney - 2008

James rang today and Dad and I had a brief hello with him. He was on his way to the Stations of the Cross.

Dad and I have been following much of the World Youth Day events on SBS and are enjoying it so much. We watched the full coverage of the the Harbour "boat-a-cade" yesterday and were so impressed and so proud to think "Hey, our son is on that boat with the Pope" Mel told us that he was actually on the same level as the Pope was. No, didn't get to talk with him, but he said that he was pretty close to where he was. Aunty Carmel rang tonight to say that Dean was on the boat also - He took a group of New Guinean people down from the Rockhampton Diocese. He and James have not managed to catch up.

Today, we - perhaps I should say I - as Dad was working in between looking, watched the Stations of the Cross. It was just so special and the actors were just great; music was spectacular; it was all quite awesome.

World Youth Day sendoff