Belinda Moore

June seemed to whiz right by. I thought that being less busy than May we’d have time to go slow… Hmmm. We had three family birthdays in June, and lots of friends’ birthdays in between!

AT HOME: Not much has happened around our home. A few repairs and more plans. Gazing at paint charts and scouring the phone book for tradesmen… One new garden tap and some pavers made a difference just outside. We’ve had visitors and been away to the Kuranda Roots festival where we stayed at the Kuranda Hotel. I’ve been doing some sewing and baking, seems to be great weather for these, and not great weather for gardening!

AT WORK: I’ve been working on the next Education Choices, but we are running a little behind schedule.
ON THE FARM: I’ve planted a lot more fruit trees. We now have many varieties of stone fruit, a couple of each of my favourites. Also a mandarin and lemon, a dwarf mulberry, jaboticaba and grumichama. There are posts with dragon fruit cuttings and a fantastic passionfruit trellis (unfinished). I’m hoping to get to another nursery soon. The poly frame for my greenhouse went up, which is one step closer to having a big garden again. Hooray!
Two more bantam hens began laying little tiny eggs and the oldest one is broody… She had two eggs under her, but there was a mix-up and one was taken by an egg-collecting child. Sad tale. The new chicks are now bigger than the bantams! They are so cute and all doing really well. They run around cheeping and finding the best places to get some extra food.
I had some luck finding collectors for the horse manure, and have ‘bought’ a lot of $2 wheelbarrowfuls for my gardens from my daughters! The horses are doing well this month, and they now have lovely new rugs to keep them warm on those cold, drizzly days and freezing nights (we’ve had a couple of frosts in June).
The fencing still needs to be done, and now there are issues with the fence we share with our only neighbour… Sigh.
HOME ED.: There has been a lot of incidental learning lately - fantastic games and projects arising from Lego and Duplo, puppets and the Winter table. Some of the kids have been doing some craft projects with their babysitter, which they’re really enjoying.

Two girls have been keen to learn to use the grain grinder and make pasta from scratch - which is great because six hands is just about the right amount for such projects! I love it when they cook.

Some of us went to the War Museum and some of us went to the theatre in June. As well as the usual busyness of visiting and having friends here for shared meals and other fun times. And now it’s holiday time!