The Flower Family moves to Crows Nest

So the next step in the long running grand plan has been taken.  We are now Crows Nest residents and what a relief!  For those of you who are not facebook friends, here are some pics of the new house:

The view from our front yard and just one of the many roses in our garden.

The backyard, showing two of three sheds, and existing fruit trees.

The dog run – for entrapment during the day and our shady place under the tree.

Looking back towards the house from under the tree.

         

The lounge room, sitting end and tv watching end.

The dining room, and the study.  So many rooms!

The kitchen and resident chef.

         

The walk in pantry!  The bathroom.

 

The guest room, ready and waiting.

There is also our room and bubbies room.  The nursery is still a work in progress, almost there, just a couple of things to put together.  Bit frightening each time we walk past and look in to see a room for a baby!

Small town life has been very kind to us so far.  Dom is now a five min bike ride to work (downhill all the way there, a bit more effort required to get home!) and my drive is an easy 35 mins or so bopping along to my favourite tunes.

The dogs are very happy, in their run during the day chomping on bones and exploring the acre of yard they have been gifted when we are home.  BJ loves the horses over the road and likes to bark a deep hello to them if they approach the fence opposite our house.  Gypsy is coming to terms with the anti-bark collar we invested in and is trying her best to be a very good girl now that she is primarily an outside dog!

We have been busy meeting lovely locals and yesterday attended our very first Crows Nest Day as part of the week long Crows Nest festival.  We took it in two shifts, attending the parade, chainsaw races and markets during the day then back at night for a roast dinner, country music and fireworks!  Lovely.  And to top it all off, the middle of the afternoon surprised us with a wonderful drenching storm which our current garden and the block are sure to have loved.

   

Dom checking out the restored engines pumping away noisily.

    Chainsaw racing.  The goal is to cut three ‘biscuits’ (thin slices of log) no wider than the marked lines.  First to loft his chainsaw high, with three completed biscuits wins!  Very noisy, sawdust in your eyes, awesome :)

The parade seemed to be themed on the many forms of available transport, and also celebrated 150 years of Queensland.  So there was foot transport, with drums and pipes, and tractor transport.

Horse and carriage transport and just plain old horse.

 

Beautifully resorted classic cars, and if you have four feet use those too!  (This one is for you Tash!)

      

There was dirt bike transport, as any self respecting Crows Nest child knows is the ONLY way to get around, and apparently even emu transport!   

Centenary Park in the centre of town was transformed into a market place, entertainment space and dining room. 

Then home for a pair of snoozes only to be awoken by the fury of this storm. 

          

And then back into town for a lovely roast dinner, to listen to a live country music performance and the grand finale fireworks display.  Oh and icecreams, there were icecreams :)

In other news, we have been in contact with Ergon and they have pegged out the placement for our power connection.  Still quoting that it will be done by January.  We need to speak to our sparky to get a builder’s pole erected, as if it is there when Ergon show up they will connect the service to the pole as part of the deal.  So need to get on to that! 

We actually haven’t been out to the block since moving here… should go out this afternoon.  Dom is out re-discovering his love of golf at the Crows Nest Golf Club.  Loving the honesty box system on a Sunday morning which means, as long as the sun is up and you have 10 dollars in your pocket you can play :)  Hoping to get across to the Cabarlah markets once he gets home to stock up on local fruit and veg for the week, then home to relax away the last of the weekend – so maybe a Sunday drive out to the block will be in order.

Anybody remember us???

Sometimes we are not sure if we remember us either!  Looking back at my last post I can see how very long we have been out of the loop.

Those in the know, know of course that the previously mentioned Cowboy Flu actually turned out to be me realising I was pregnant!  And the needs of the growing little one left me feeling just awful for a couple of months, preventing us from getting out to the block.  Well we tried once, and here are some images of what Dom got up to while I sat in the shade and sulked :)

Dom building something… a raised garden bed.

 Gypsy helping her Dad out with the building…

  BJ helping his Mum out with the sulking and laying about in the sun.

Other than that trip we didn’t get out much until just recently.  Once I recovered from the early stages of pregnancy, we spent a number of weekends in a row with Dom’s family as his Dad has been ill, and more recently Dom has been focussing on his TAFE assessments.

Today we popped out for an hour or so as Dom has to put together a bug collection and we thought the block would be a great place to catch some bugs!  Fun was had running about the place chasing erratically flying butterflies with a net and we did manage to catch three!  So that is a start!

And the big news is that we have managed to score a rental house in Crows Nest!  As of mid-October our new abode will be this place:

So another step towards our goal!  And hopefully a nice quiet life for our growing little family :)

But the even BIGGER news is that we have finally made progress towards getting the power on at the  block.  We have officially accepted the offer for connection and have paid for the connection, now we just have to sit back at wait the six months or so they say it will take!  But very very exciting, and Dom is already dreaming of using power tools (without limiting battery packs) to get all sorts of new jobs done.

The  move will keep us busy, but then once settled in Crows we hope to be out at the block more often and I will keep you in the loop.

Happy Summer Days to All!

Constructive time apart…and some soup

It was such a busy week last week that it is already the Thursday of the following week before I get around to updating here.  Phew!  And only today because I am home sick with a Cowboy Flu!  Yep.  I visited some cowboys and they gave me the flu.

Last week I packed up my new corporate work uniform, work car and knitting needles (to be explained) and headed west with a Colleague to man the College stand at the Roma Show.  The show was a bit slow but we had a great time checking out the other stalls, watching some show jumping and generally relaxing away from our usual jobs.  The best bit, however, was that my travelling companion is a knitter and not just any knitter but a show-prize-winning knitter from New Zealand!  The best kind :)  As soon as I found out that I was going to be away for a few days with her I picked up the knitting needles again, not held since childhood, and got back in the swing ready for some intensive lessons. 

First attempt was focussed on not dropping stiches!  Once I got the hang of that I moved on to plain knitting and started working on this scarf:

That one is still a work in progress, over a metre long and going to be warm as warm can be!  I am knitting a blue acrylic yarn together with a white wool, as when I first started I couldn’t handle only the one thread.  Then I learnt how to purl.  Yep, the other kind of knit!  After much trial and error I figured out how to knit a row then purl a row and have been working on this little skinny scarf for my buddy Sarah:

It has been coming along and should be finished before she arrives.  It is a variegated acrylic and once again I am knitting two strands together.  But then came the big lessons.  When my mother visited us a little while ago she was kind enough to bring me some knitting needles, yarn and a magazine.  In that magazine was a headband which I thought would be a great first project for pattern following.  So after some quick instruction from my travelling companion I had it on the needles and away!  This time in a variegated wool yarn.  And over two nights and a few glasses of wine, I cast off my first ever finished knitting project all on my own!

Very, very satisfying!  And keeps your ears warm too!  When I got home I got stuck into a larger scale version in purples and whites which I use as a cowl, either around my neck or around my head hippie style :)  Next plan is to get my scarves finished then launch into trying some patterns for whatever I want to make!

      

So apologies all around to those of you who are here for the nature shots and building progress.  Sometimes I will use this blog to brag about my knitting :)

So, while I was wiling away the hours in western Queensland, Dom was busy on a chainsaw course as part of his traineeship and then got busy on the block fixing the tin in place.

When he arrived at the block on Friday he found the evidence of critters making use of our shade shelter!  Yep.  Poop!  If anyone out there can identify it, please let us know.

        Then with much workplace health and safety and the occasional text to his wife in Roma the tin became a roof! 

    Thanks Dom!  There are still a few gaps at the rear, near the shed.  We plan to head out to the scrap yard that doesn’t sell timber again this Saturday to find some shorter lengths to patch up the gaps.  Then a little silicon of some sort in the holes and away we go!

Oh and on the way out the gate Dom stopped off to do a little fence fixing as can be seen below.  

On the Sunday after I got back from Roma we headed out to the block so that I could see the wonder that is our roof for myself.  Dom’s Mum dropped in for a visit while Dom was Batching it too so a family lunch by the fireside was called for.

First job was to plant out a lovely native that Dom recently acquired.  It is a lovely sturdy little fellow called Banksia Serrata.  So Dom dug a nice big hole and gave him some healthy soil to spread his roots into and with a good feed of fish emulsion and a dripper left for company he was settled. Let’s hope we have more success with this guy than the last planting attempt!

 Then it was time for Dom to demonstrate his new professional chain sawing skills.  He not only learnt how to look after his chainsaw and do safe, simple cutting and trimming, but he was taught some bush craft as well.  The tradesman explains and demonstrates:

Then before we knew it a bush stool was created.  Check it out in the little video below:

  Next on the agenda, after all the hard work, and witnessing of hard work, was lunch.  We had brought out a little left over potato and leek soup and Jane quickly had it bubbling away on the fire.  Lovely!            

So, things are really moving along.  We are out there again this week to get the shelter tidied up. And then plan to go to the Toowoomba Home Show this weekend to scope out some local builders.  One tiny step at a time :)