The small tanks are overflowing again, even though I took out twelve buckets of water yesterday. Seems like a lot of water and it is, but the roof catches a lot, even a small amount of rain, even just dew, drips into the tanks. The large tanks still have a little to go till they are full but it won't be long now, especially if this rain continues.


Here is my Kaffir Lime, it is hanging out in the middle of the paddock by itself but I hope it won't be long until it is surrounded by other plants. I think I will put plants (eating ones) around the boundary of the vege gardens and the actual beds inside of that.


These little plants behind the tanks hopefully won't be alone for too long, we plan on putting more next to them that will grow and give us some shade, and food :)


The paw paw tree is looking quite healthy and getting new leaves (must put in more as the seedlings don't seem to be doing much) but the fruit salad plant next to it isn't looking so great. This is the second time it has been transplanted (not here) and we hope it bounces back as well as the first time.

Must clean out the fridge today and defrost the freezers, they have been working hard as the shed is not lined and the walls get very hot in the sun, and I mean really hot. So as the fridge and freezers are against this particular wall they are really doing the hard yards. I am hoping that this weekend we will be able to put some insulation on these walls, this will also help keep out the cold bit, I hope. We have some that has been left on the mezzanine level and I am sure it won't be hard :) Famous last words :)

The rain is still coming down and I think the water tanks must be nearly full, something to check when there is a break in the rain.

At the moment every time it stops raining I put on my gum boots to go out and then the rain starts up again. The dog and I went to get the mail, started out with no rain, then it started coming down, so we ran to the letter box, then ran back, of course the dog can run faster than me so she was nearly puling me over, which wasn't difficult as I had no belt on my jeans and they kept falling down :)

I bought two pavers today to put under the small tank out the front, and that should stop the water digging a hole in the ground. I had to go into town today and take our number one and only son to the dentist to get a thing on his braces fixed. So this gave me the opportunity to get the pavers and some mulch, can always use mulch, and dirt, and fertiliser, and more plants :)

We planted out the kaffir lime, we have put it into the top corner of the future vege garden, of course I didn't realise they can get to four metres, guess I will have to prune it. We also put in this capsicum type plant next to the compost bin, and then next to that we put our miracle fruit plant, which also get quite tall.

So those last two are behind the shed, along the embankment that is next to the tanks. We want to put bushes along there for privacy, and shading the tanks and shed, we want to put in bushes not trees, and if we can it would be good to put in fruit bearing bushes.

We planted some pumpkin seeds up next to the lemon grass. I bought an organic Kent Pumpkin and saved the seeds, I was putting some in and my partner in crime and life put more in, so we will have lots of pumpkin seedlings in the one patch. I suppose it allows for some not germinating and being able to select the strongest, except I don't' do that, I always think "you poor thing, keep trying", not into pulling out living plants if I can help it.

We also went and saved some plants that had been dumped out by the previous owner into the dam overflow. They have been there for ages and we kept saying we will plant them and we finally have. They are pot plants so we don't' know how they will go in the ground but we will give them a try and look after them. We planted them next to the driveway on the bend so they do look good and I hope they survive.

I have also been trying to decide what sort of garden edging I will use around the vege garden, a lot of edging isn't high enough as I need to make raised beds. Some of it is very nice looking, there is bamboo, corrugated iron, plastic, treated timber, untreated hard wood, a lot of choice. Of course, I want something untreated and a reasonable height and have been told that untreated hardwood is a good height and of course has nothing bad in it to leach into the soil, and it is apparently the cheapest.

So we need to go and research this all properly, prices and materials, now we actually have time and it is getting to the stage of "we must start building our garden". I also have a lot of pots out next to the dam of plants that need to be planted out, not desperately, but soon :)

So when the rain stops I will dash out and take some photos of out plants in the ground and post them in my next blog. Might be waiting a bit :) Time for a cuppa.

We have had a busy weekend, we have put in two small water tanks at the front off the veranda, and also put an incredibly huge mast on the side of the shed to put the antenna on.


We had to first level out the area, and make sure that both tanks were the same as we put in a balance pipe at the bottom of both tanks to connect them so they would fill up together. Just like our big tanks out the back.



It was quite easy, and we really hoped that we bought all the correct parts as we were not going to driving back into town. However all worked out well, with no disasters that often accompany our endeavours :)


As it was raining quite a bit yesterday by last night they were overflowing and so we now have an extra 620 litres of rain water and will use this for filling the dog's water, washing the car etc. We have put one tap over the dog bowl to easily fill that and the tap on the other tank is facing out so we can put a bucket under it. We have placed rocks around the edges and will buy a large paver to put under the bucket tap. I think it looks quite neat, it doesn't obstruct our view and water no longer splashes back onto the veranda :)



The antenna got put up while I was visiting the neighbour, so I came home to this massive thing on the roof. We now have two bars on the reception thingy for the Internet, five would have been better but two works, maybe on a clear day it might be better, who knows? However it is very very tall, it is a six metre mast so on top of our five metre roof makes it very high.


My wheat bags turned out really well, and now I have put some lavender oil on them they smell nice too. The first one I made too big and had to sew up one side to make it smaller, I also left the opening too small so it was difficult to turn in the correct way. The next two were just right (I am starting to sound like Goldilocks) and the last one was a bit small and had a bit of trouble sewing it closed but I got there.


We have also been enjoying these lovely bananas that a friend grew and then brought to Tai Chi class to share with us. They are really yummy :) I really need to get a banana circle growing, but I need to bring in stacks of dirt first, so I guess I will be waiting a little longer for this :( Never mind, there is always more things to do :)

We have had a lovely lot of rain, in the twenty four hours to this morning we had 40mm in the rain gauge, 35mm was from last night. We have also had another 40mm this morning, so the tanks are well on the way to being filled.




The dam is overflowing, not just at the overflow pipes but also over the bank, so we have water everywhere. The water is nearly up to my pots which currently live on the side of the dam and one of the overflow spots is just up from them.


Most of the water is flowing out of the next door neighbours dam, gushing would be a better word so we now have an incredibly large dam.




I have bought the wheat to make our wheat bags, and it is just as well I like purple as we are going to have a lot of purple, between the benches, the chair and the wheat bags. It is a very good colour :) So I will make them up this afternoon.

We have had some rain the last couple of days which is great for the tanks. In the last three days we have had a total of 33mm in our rain gauge, it is really nice to see. However, according to my partner in crime and life we need about 280mm (or something like that) of rain to fill both tanks to the top, so I guess we have a way to go, and that doesn't include what we use.

I really need to start going through some of the packed boxes as there are things missing that we want. I am really missing our marble coasters and the calculator, I really need to find the start of the blanket I am crocheting for our number one and only son, and also the dive book so he can do his junior open water course in a couple of weeks.


I am also really looking forward to improving our shed, like tiling, while I can live with it, I would really prefer tiles over cement. I do have mats down, those interlocking rubber mats that I have used for training are now our walkways and mats for under our feet on the lounge.

We also really need to line the walls, we are particularly going to notice this in the winter, I am afraid of the cold :) and so will be making those wheat bags soon, dragging out the hot water bottles and crocheting blankets. Crocheting blankets means that I can have the blanket to be on my knees while working and be warm.


I have recovered my reading chair with the (lots of) leftover material from the benches (I really over estimated there). It was looking very daggy, a cream colour that showed up the marks when I spill stuff (I am a spiller) so the dark colour of the purple will be much better.


So, of course I sat in my newly recovered chair and had a read of my Grass Roots magazine, and it is all very comfy. The chair is located next to one of my bookshelves, it is the one that has my recipe and gardening books, also health, Tai Chi and self sufficiency books, basically all my reference books that I regularly look at. It is also next to my stationary cupboard so if I need to write myself a note or anything I can just leap up and I am there :)

Today I have to drag myself away from home for just a little while to go to the local post office, and I don't really feel like it. I have been home for three days and it has been lovely, but you gotta do what you gotta do. So off to the post office soon and I think I will also make some vegemite scrolls which are a huge favourite in our home :)