These past couple of Months has seen some changes on the farm, notably a few more fruit trees and the dividing of the paddocks again. The chook pen has also been started and we look forward to gaining some more animals to the farm in the coming weeks.

Another structure almost entirley built from recyled building materials and I can honestly say I have never been here before, not with chooks anyway but I look forward to the challenge. "The playchook mansion" (I need a rooster named Hugh) is fox proof and turning out to be something else so much so Farmer Bob popped in on Sunday asking if I contracted out. Graham managed to score some pretty handy materials for it and we are hoping to hear the clucking of some feathered friends sometime next Month.

The fruit trees are coming along nicecely with some even bearing fruit already another just reward coming of all the hard work everyone has been putting in up there lately.

With help from Audrey, Maude and Rupert this Weekend we were able to complete the front Balustrade. A great weekend this one not only did we get some work done I got to enjoy some long overdue time with Maude and Rupert....

March 4-5th 17

This weekend seen Audrey away in Tassie on business and visiting relatives providing me the perfect opportunity to break out the old tunes again and power tools. After previously watching Larry’s mates 2 weekends prior nearly toppling over the deck (I am amazed none of them went over) I decided it was time to start the front balustrade of the farm house before a law suit presents itself. There is something about building away to good music in the background a past time I have always enjoyed but what’s more I think it is the accomplishment of yet another job completed where I get the real buzz.

SON-OF-A-BITCH TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the paddock while yelling 'Son of a b*tch!' (while in the initial stages of aggravation) at the top of your lungs. The lexicon of curses tends to elevate from there.

It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need, yep that’s me......

I am an avid building material hoarder – there I said it. Having the land to hoard can be quite dangerous especially given that I am very up to date with just how much most building materials cost and this is exemplified probably by being reminded each weekend by my regular weekend sausage collection from Bunnings.

We have been very lucky in the fact that we can obtain a lot of used building materials from a very generous Boss of mine and this has helped us out heaps. Horse shelter, fencing and now balustrading to name a few have all been built out of used materials with most materials coming from the construction of the Queen Street Shopping Mall in Brisbane.

What it can do though is create a lot of frustration on Audrey’s behalf in both the hoarding and my regular in and out of jobs and probably my lack of communication with explanation of it all. You see job number “124” suddenly becomes job number “1” and then you have the knock-on effect, job number “2” becomes job number “58” and so on.

Then throw in circumstances a new fence needed for the horses or something has broken and needs fixing, a paddock needs mowing it can be quite frustrating for both of us sometimes. The other confronting thing is to finish what you start which is often said a lot easier than done.

Still we have come a long way in both understanding with each other and found resilience in the fact - things are what they are, what will be will be, when we get to it we get to it “we are only here on the weekends” there is only a certain amount of time to carry out everything and each weekend is a little battle knowing eventually we will win the war. Getting the horses so early in the piece was probably a grave mistake as the focus became about them and getting them housed and fenced in rather than the major renovation needed on the old farm house. Still the horses gave us reason and without animals living there you can’t really call it a farm not to mention there is no reward like owning a horse, there is no feeling in this world when a thoroughbred rests her heads on your shoulders and breaths into your ears.

Located just outside Gympie at East Deep Creek the old farm house was built in 1913 so if the age of it doesn’t give you an understanding or vision perhaps in its later years that it wasn’t really looked after will. Still it gives us both interest, passion and respect knowing that this was the original farm house to all the land that the eye can see. We have also been told a lot of the history of the house by farmer Bill and by a stranger who once called in thinking that one of the original owners might still live in the house in which he grew up with. Whilst it was quite a weird day having someone randomly call in for us city folk that’s the way it is in the country. What he had to say though and some of the stories told were very interesting shared over a beer with open ears.

The house has had three generations go through it with one of kids even being born in the house whose great granddaughter now neighbours one of our farm boundaries which I assume was once all part of the same land holding. Knowing all this it has been with great interest at times finding things, sometimes invaluable time treasures. From newspapers under the old lino, penny coins in between floor boards to digging holes around the farm, you never know what you are going to find. The farm was originally a working dairy farm that still has the old milking shed which we have now turned into a workable horse shed. Though small it is quite amazing the ingenuity of the old farm engineering on how it would have once worked and run.

Still to this day we are still going through the old milking shed finding things of interest from old relics, branding irons, old family photos and a lot of other bits and pieces when time permits.

It sometimes hard to imagine the house and land whilst living on it back over a 100 years ago, we have been told that our particular land parcel was once used by Cobb & Co with the original East Deep Crossing road to Maryborough once being through our back paddock which was originally cleared creating a walking track by the indigenous aborigines of the area prior to Cobb & Co.

I am yet to historically confirm all of this but given farmer Bill is a resident of 40 years and was a local school teacher in town for even longer I should imagine he is a man of the know. I look forward to delving in the past in the future when I get a chance I know that Audrey shares the same ardour where all this is concerned. From the old blacksmiths and local brothel servicing all the Gympie gold miners being both originally located opposite each other at the end of our road to the indigenous people they are all characters and places of land that we look forward to investigating in time.

It was so hard to deal with once the honeymoon period was over after we took possession of the farm, where do we start and where does this finish not to mention how long is all this going to take?

There are so many jobs to be done and things to do but we meet these challenges with a certain logic and understanding now, we will get there.

After all we still need a little R and R from the weekly city hustle and bustle and the weekly daily grind of everything that happens in our world both on the work and family fronts. It is however so rewarding seeing little accomplishments that we are achieving along the way some small, some big.

From the gardens to the house to the future projects like the chicken pen, now we get to share the stories and ride along the way.

Our first major project on the farm was cleaning the house and trying to gain the land back. The house had been vacated for at least 12 Months that we knew of as the previous owner had been forced into bankruptcy leading to the house to be eventually reprocessed by the bank.

So obviously, things were very over grown and the house was an absolute mess and probably with novice eyes very unattractive and not far away from being declared a derelict house. Thus, probably the main reason why it was on the market for so long which we were to majorly capitalise later with, another story to be shared. It is of no wonder now to me though why the Real Estate agent was to take me straight to the end of our property to see the splendorous little water fall and running stream whilst he discussed the possibilities of fishing in it and not of anything about the house and land.

Given that Audrey didn’t attend the first visit of negotiations we both made our way up that very weekend and funnily enough it was the stream down the back that both sold us.

It took us literally Months to get the land back in to some type of working order.  A lot of mowing a lot of whipper snipping and a lot of elbow grease. Luckily for both Audrey and I we had help in both Graham and Julie who are also now our loving next door neighbours sharing our communal farm. (will go into these great people a bit later – “they are way more than neighbours to us”)

As I think back the first couple of Months were very hard on the labour side of things but still some of my fondest memories were made in this time.

I remember Audrey and Julie with shopping bags on their heads cleaning all the spider webs, dust and other matter from both in and out of the house, a scene that I was unaccustomed to seeing Audrey in, not the work side of things but most definitely the outfit – which now probably is an everyday farm outfit that we have both grown accustomed to minus the shopping bags of course.

Whilst they were doing the house both Graham and I were slaving away on the land, which on reflection is probably when I first started my problem of drinking beer. I have never really been a fond nor a big drinker of beer but I must say, there is nothing like sitting back after a day’s work and having a coldie reflecting on the day’s work - I just have to now try to distinguish between a couple in appose to a carton. My Brother Burnie also was to come up over a couple of weekends to help with the mowing side of things over this period.

In this time, I was to burn out two push mowers, two whipper snippers and one ride on mower but I am happy to say now seemingly the last for a while, the horses have been a great help to us.

Here is a few first pictures of what the land looked like back then and I can honestly say a total transformation has been made over 15 Months in which we have had the farm…..

This was probably major project number 2 after the horse fencing - "the horse shed" under construction and has been near finished besides a few cosmetic things and the guttering of course in order to collect the valuable rain water. Again it was all hands on deck Graham helping me build it and Julie & Audrey as brush hands. Burnie once again chimmed into this one at the end helping with the sides. 

Another project that started over the Australia day long weekend is the farmhouse ballustrade. Burnie goes down on record as being the first family member to use the Gympie hospital planning the top of his finger off using an electric planner. Checked in on him today and he is sore but on the mend, luckily. Yet again recycled timber....