Gone to the dogs

After getting home from our camping trip I only stayed here for one night and then went to stay at my parents house while they were away 'galivanting about the country side'. I was official Dog-sitter and cat sitter for their lovely animals.

The Lovely Lab...

My parents live really close to a river. It's so close in fact that you can see it from the back door!

The two boys enjoyed fishing off the jetty. Didn't have much luck and I was kind of glad as it was up to me to kill and gut the fish if they caught any...and after being a vegetarian for 16 years it was a task I wasn't looking forward to.

Mr T on the jetty at Sunset

It was good to get home though. I think it's the longest I've been away since we moved to Rainbow Love Farm.

Nice to see my own puppy, hanging out with Buddah here!

And the veggie garden, my how things grow when you aren't looking! Mr T was excited to find his sweet corn was 'taller-than-daddy' and some of the corns were ready for eating. This one didn't even make it as far as the kitchen.

There ain't nothing as sweet as homegrown corn!

We're back...

We had a wonderful time camping. I really enjoyed some quality time together without any distractions, TV and no house work (that might have to be my favourite bit of camping!)

We didn't go far, just an hour from home, north to Glastonbury Creek Camping area in the Brooyar State Forest.

It's a beautiful spot and wasn't busy. And best of all dogs ARE allowed! So Xena came with us and we didn't have to worry about dog sitters.

The kids had a go at gold panning (we didn't find enough to get rich but we found some nice stones.) This led to an impromptu lesson about gold mining and history and I've promised to take the children back up to Gympie in a couple of weeks to the gold mining museum.

We went bush walking and swimming relaxed around camp. Tui loved having everyone living at her level.

Rain and Zan cooked lots of meals on the fire while I lazed around.

MB was estatic to check out the local abseiling/ rock climbing cliffs. There are 36 climbs and it's a beautiful rock formation, a huge escsrpment over looking a beautiful valley.

The layers in the rocks led to another school lesson for the children about Geology and history.

Mb found me a little piece of rose quartz in the rock wall...the stone of love.

Although after a bit too much 'teacherliness' from me they kids decided to tape me up and gag me with gaffer tape.

This morning on our way home we went for a quick climb...we ended up staying a couple of hours.

It was the first climb I've done in years and it was soooo much fun! We'll be going again soon.

And I saw some beautiful trees...

But we are all nicely tired out now and glad to be home.

It's a wild life

The moon rising over the hills from the new back deck as accessed by the new doors.


The doors are finally in the wall. After a bit of fine tuning. Using second hand materials takes alot longer than new ones. We always underestimate the time it'll take but in the end are usually pretty happy with the results. I suppose taking into account the four kids and Peace working we should double the time we think it will take to complete a given task. ( Or maybe triple!) The wall is only half painted and we've still got to put up the architrave but it's only another days work away.

When we pulled off the old wall boards inside to replace them we found this lovely snakes skelecton as Mr T calls it. Nice to know our house provides shelter for some of the local wildlife.

Talking about wildlife, the local brush Turkey population has found a new food source- the puppies doggie biscuits seem to be a favourite snack. And the puppy has a new hobby, chasing away errant Brush Turkeys!

No TV Day....failure

Well yesterday was our first TV free day. Yes we didn't watch TV but I'm on the verge of abondoning the idea before it gets off the ground. We didn't watch any because we were all doing other things and I realized how many days go by that we don't actually watch any TV. Only teenager Zan complained and then said he wouldn't be a part of my stoopid plan.

It made me wonder if it's a good idea or not. I mean I'm trying to deschool myself and stop being a control-freak parent. And I'm trying to let the kids self-regulate how much TV and computer they use. So isn't it wrong that I set TV-free days etc..
Oh well, next week I'll have another brilliant idea.

And these are some of the reasons why the kids don't watch too much TV.

Not to mention the trampoline, the bikes, the tree-platform.....

Because the Road Runner is sick in bed here is a photo of the girls to cheer her up...

And a love song from Mr T...