Today we have grout.

Have you ever been excited to see grout in your tiles? I'm excited as it means another step closer to the bathrooms being finished.
Cheeky seems to be surviving rain and all.
Allyson has been cooking up a storm for tomorrows Halloween party. I hope it's still not raining because that means entertaining 20 kids indoors. Wish me luck.

What a surprise.

Heres the story.


We have our neighbours goats in our little paddocks because one was their other goats was sick and the others needed to be moved to clean paddocks. So hence they ended up at ours. John had said that one was pregnant and would be due in 4-5 weeks.
So last Monday it gave birth but unfortunatley it was a still birth. So we were all sad to see that. Then Elliott decided to clean out his fish tank. Being novice fish owners we have since learnt we did it wrong as Elliott managed to kill all 5 fish. More sadness.
Then the next day the goat who gave birth went down hill rapidly and died. Oh gosh more sadness. So we are starting to think our land is spiritually posessed as we have already had another goat die and half the guinea pigs. Plus several baby chicks. OMG I'm just realising how many things have died under our care!!

So as we are getting ready to prepare dinner last night Tim comes running in, "quick quick eveyone we have a baby goat, it just came out then, I saw it give birth". Yeah right Tim pull the other one.
So we go out and low and behold this is what we find

We didn't even know the other goat was pregnant. It was so exciting. It was only minutes old. It was covered in goo and the Mumma was cleaning it up. we stood there watching until it got up on its feet which took about 20 minutes or so. The kids were so thrilled to see this. Mother nature at its best, new life coming into the world. Even if it is just a goat it is a privellage to have been there for the whole experience.
Thankyou little goaty, we are naming you Cheeky.
By the way, incase you didn't know, apparently when cleaning out a fish tank you only take out 25% of the water and replace with tap water. This ensures you keep in all the good bacteria that the fish need to live off.

Have you ever seen a deck this big.

Welcome to the most enormous deck that ever existed.

And getting ready for our first Halloween party (and probably our last). We are only doing it because Elliott was born in America and he'll probably never go to one in the USA so we're having a little one. Halloween in the USA is so much fun and I have told the kids for a few years now that we'd have one. So the time has arrived. Halloween Butler style in Pambula.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Found the best tradies ever

Ok so you want a job done, well sometimes you just have to do it yourself!
Allyson and I took to the tools to get the job done. Later that same day Tim and I worked in the rain to get the joists attatched to the bearers. All to save money paying the real tradie. It was an easy job and it saves a few hours of labour that would otherwise pay Tim ( our real tradie) that can now be spent on "pretty" things for the house.

Look what we have now

A flushing toilet in the house. Yeahhh

More decking going down.

Our latest honey being "extracted" by Elliott. We got about 700mls out of the few bits of honey comb. Not bad hey.

Building by correspondance. This ones for you Grahame, does it look right?

Got to run, assembly to attend.

Tiling and weeding

A big day in the garden, tidying up the orchard and vegie patch. Always something to do.
I took me most of the day to mow with the hand mower, it's such a huge job. But it always looks great when it's finished. The vegie patch will be re constructed in the near future.It was over run with weeds and the beds need to be raised. Next job is to get all the clematis in the ground. I reckon there are about 40 of them which I got for free. The plan is to line the boundry fences with them.It should look beautiful, alternating mauve and white.
Harison's bathroom is almost finished being tiled. Yeah.

A glourious morning view

This is the view on this beautiful morning from our study window.

This view is from the living area.

The morning sun.

New linen.

Tiling in laundry and powder room

A few days with the Carrolls

What a great few days we had with our friends The Carrolls who came from Adelaide to stay with us. A little too much of the good life means a little detoxing over the next few days.
Tim cooked us some fabulous pizzas. Annie and Elliott made delicious chocolate mousee. Steven arked up the tools and finished off a bit of decking. Harison made a mini golf course, Alex learnt to ride the quad bike. And Kerry & I watched it all sipping bubbly.

We now have a beautiful clock in our kitchen to remind us of their visit. Thank all it is a lovely gift.

The tiling so far. We are at a standstill again as far as tradies.

The oven.

The garden is growing and looking colorful.

So I've been to the nursery again. Clematis and $5 bargain trees. A big thank you to Jim & Nancy for their generousity, they GIVE me plants for FREE. I'm very lucky.

This is a garage sale find for $260. I saw a similar thing in Harvey Norman for $3200 !!!!