AUSSIE BUSH BURB

We are having a very warm, unusual Autumn this year.  With temperatures from 34C to 37C.  It’s taken me by surprise.  I packed away the summer clothes and pulled out the nice heavy winter doona’s after the cold spell a few weeks ago.

Now warm nights have returned and harsh, sunny days.  I’m sure the animals are confused, I know I am!  Sighhh that’s ok though.  Soon enough the heat will be gone, the cold will be here and I for one will be happy.  I love the rain, the greening up of the dry, brown, landscape, snuggling under warm doona’s and sitting around the fire outside on frosty evenings.

I get to wake up to the sunrise in my backyard and while it’s not yet foggy and raining I’ve managed to share with you one of the beautiful mornings that I watch arrive while sipping strong, black hot coffee.

I love Autumn and Winter, which season do you prefer?

I’m so ungrateful.

We began with so little 20 years ago and now have 2 1/2 acres in beautiful Perth.  I have goats, horses, dogs, cats and worms. Oh and frogs, lots and lots of frogs.  Yet it’s not enough.

I have space, fresh air, birds singing and sun shining.  Yet it’s not enough.

It’s not enough because for 20 years all I’ve wanted is a white picket fence.  Go on laugh if you want to because it is funny, and silly.  Perhaps it was all the old movies I watched on ABC when I was a child, Lassie, Shirley Temple and so many more mostly in black and white.

Maybe it was the books I read like Little Women or television shows like Little House On The Prairie.  I don’t know.  What I have though is rural fencing, wire and wood.

I want a white picket fence with a country cottage garden and stepping stones to a front gate.

Maybe it’s the fault of farmville!

Maybe in retirement.

Spring

I love spring, I think we all love spring.  Except for allergies of course.

We live in Perth, it gets HOT in summer, at times too hot to enjoy life outdoors. Spring is perfect outdoors.  Perfect time to get the hard work in the garden done ready to sit back in the heat of summer and just maintain and enjoy.

Spring is when I shut down televisions, electronic games and any form of indoor play and force the kids outdoors to discover life, adventure and play totally unplugged.

This year we’ve acted on the vegetable garden project and it’s up and running, exciting too is that our friends who have four children have taken on a portion (because there is no room in their suburban garden) to grow their own veg too.  We have the space so why not share it!

The kids (goats) are thriving and it’s so much fun to watch them skip and leap about in the warm sunshine, it’s awesomely cute to watch Mrs Goaty lay down and tolerate them using her as a pile of rocks as they climb and bounce all over her.  True motherly love.

The small kid that we had in the house and we were bottle feeding was accepted back by Mrs Goaty a whole week later! We miss little Flossy but she still comes up and visits us and she’s visited all the classes of the children bringing much delight to the many suburban children who don’t get to experience such awesome fun as baby animals.

Mr Burb put his hammer to work and made an awesome milking stand and to my great delight Mrs Goaty loves it.  She munches on her grain and ever so graciously allows me to milk her.  I don’t take much, just practice and get her used to me because when the kids are sold I will take over milking her for consumption and for soap making.

This weekend the children had a go at milking her much to their delight and as we have two extra children staying with us they’ve experienced something I don’t think they will ever forget.

Freya is a little jealous of all the change in attention and we’ve had to banish her for a time to the back paddock, she was a little rough with the goat kids and bullied them.  Poor Freya, she wants friends but has no manners.

Here are some photos of the past couple of weeks.

What a life!