They say things come in threes and we have had our share in
the last few weeks. The two main things
that have happened are the car blew up and one of the large water tanks sprung
a leak at the bottom.
We had a timing belt service on the car, big service and big
money and something went wrong and two weeks later (actually less than that) it
went bang. Luckily I was in town and
just pulling into the shopping centre car park and not in the middle of no-where
towing a trailer with a 5000litre water tank on it (like we were the day
before) or on the range or driving to our fitness class down country roads at
night, all of which were possibilities.
So I have been without a car for over a week and half and
hopefully getting it back tomorrow. I
was not able to go to Tai Chi last week, though everyone continued without me
and I hope I can get there this week as I will not be there next week due to going
camping.
The water tank sprung a leak, right at the bottom of all
places. So we managed to organise to get
it fixed but we had to empty the tank.
So we rushed out and bought a 5,000litre tank to put next to our number
one and only son’s room, something we had been meaning to do but of course if
you can put off spending $1000 you do.
So we used the water transfer pump to fill that tank up, we
filled up the other two large tanks to overflowing, we had long showers and I
washed everything that wasn’t nailed down and could fit in the machine. We watered the
garden including the bananas and paw paws and only about 2,000litres (we think)
went into the dam.
The tank is now fixed, my partner in crime and life is
sorting out the weird mess of hoses and connections, and hooking all the tanks
back up again and now we just have to get the old bore water tested and a pump
etc for it all and we can fill the tanks.
However, as this will cost us about $2,000 we will put it off until absolutely
necessary when water is getting low.
You wouldn’t believe it though, we are in the dry season and it
is sprinkling this morning, but the tank that was just fixed is the one the
water goes into and was still blocked off with timber. So of course I rushed out got the ladder, in
my pink elephant PJ’s and gum boots and climbed up and took the timber off the
opening so that little bit of rain could be caught.
So they we were the worst things that have happened and at
least we haven’t had to pay for the fixing, well no-one has sent us a bill yet
and they both should be fixed under warranty.
The chooks have been living the life of Riley (though I don’t
know who Riley was, he must have had a great life) not laying any eggs
and just lazing around having fun. So
just to make their life even better I have been making them porridge each morning
to try and get them to lay again, I have had a couple of eggs. Luckily the good small flock are still laying
so we have still been getting a couple of eggs every day or so, just enough to
keep us going if we are conservative with our egg consumption.
Our orchard is looking pretty good. The lime tree is starting to be a bit consistent
(sort of), we have three oranges we are waiting to pick and everything is
looking very healthy.
Black Sapote
White Sapote
The black sapote (chocolate pudding fruit) is amazing and
looking fantastic and the white sapote (the tree of which is quite different to
the black sapote) is also very healthy, which is great as these are expensive
trees. It is always a risk when you put
in expensive trees that they won’t survive, luckily we have only lost a couple,
unfortunately one was the custard apple and we are reluctant to replace it with
another.
The peanut butter tree is looking great and we can’t wait
for it to be mature enough to produce whatever it is it is going to produce.
We can still put in either eight or twelve more trees, which
is two or three more rows, still deciding if there is enough room. We would like a couple of avocados and we
will probably double up on some of the trees we already have.
So despite the things that has gone wrong, there are still a
lot of things going right and I just focus on what has to be done tomorrow, there
is always a plan and we just stick with the plan and concentrate on the next
step and not worry about the one after that until we get to it. I can still play loud music, enjoy the garden
and the weirdness of the chooks, and the rest I won’t worry about (or try not to anyway).
