Things Come In Threes

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).