Bananas

We picked our first bunch of bananas, it was a family effort, Dan and Flynn chopped the stalk down, Joseph and Jim dragged the bunch up the hill with Alice bring up the rear.

The kids counted over 70 banana's on this bunch. Luckily they ripen in stages:)

My Joe LOVES passionfruit, so it certainly helped with all the changes, when he found a passionfruit vine on the property.

It's covered in passionfruit, they are big, heavy and sweet:) Joey has about 4 a day, and so do the others, so that's 16 passionfruit a day.
I'm glad I'm not paying $1 each for them in the shops.

Boy's Jumpers

I did originally knitted the orange jumper for Jim, but it was too tight. I knitted from the top down, and just increased every second row. I was telling the other half, how cool it was that I could try the jumper on the kids any time and get the perfect fit, just by increasing.
   Well my smugness went when it didn't fit Jim.

This is why you should have the same sex sibling next:)

The idea(pattern) came to me when reading Elizabeth Zimmerman Almanac. She said, "If you increase every second row, you will get a 45degree angle". How come I hadn't figured this on out in my years of knitting?
Maybe I don't have one of those minds:).
So I loved that there was no seams to sew up in the end. So just start with the neck stitches, how ever many goes over their head, and knit a neckband, and just keep increasing till the arms are deep enough, then the body in one piece, then the arms. Keep trying it on(cause that's the fun part).

 

Oh, the wool is from my lovely sheep, it's soft, spongy and has a touch of lanolin in it still. I love my sheep. Sigh, still trying to figure out how to get the sheep up to Thora. All the farmers say it's too humid up here, but I think if I build them a barn for summer out of the rain, with a fan, I'll be right.......

Muma & daughter beret's

I'm glad that even though Thora is sub-tropical, it still gets cold in winter, not freezing like Ballarat, but cold enough for the jumpers and beanies to come out.  I don't think I have ever not knitted.

Apparently when your four you have to jump when your photo is taken.

I knitted Alice's beret from a 1950's pattern book, and mine came from drops design, they have a amazing range of patterns and they are free:) The pattern is here

The wool is cashmere and superfine merino, and it is so so soft, I had knnitted lot's of hat's and cardigan's for my babies with this wool, it is super snugly.
I used to think, if ever you were having a bad day with the kids, just dress them in this wool and you'll want to smooch them all day long.

Alice took the photo's of me, not bad for a four year old!

First day of school

 The power of thought; when living in Castlemaine, my thoughts often went to the idea of living walking distance to school, I would drive around and around looking at houses, wishing I could find an old farmhouse with an orchard, but I never did.............not there.

The Steiner school is up in the mountains( worthy of it own post), and our track joins the school.

Loving the idea of the whole family walking to school.

Our first pineapple from the farm, it was the most delicious pineapple I have ever eaten, and we planted the top again, did you know they take three years to grow another one??
I can hardly wait.

Landing

Once we had arrived I got a phone call from the removalist to say that he could only get in the truck, half of the original furniture.

The thing was, we had already decided to leave Ballarat fully furnished, to help with selling, and were only taking what we had in Guildford. Already regretting the decision to leave before the truck.

So I said "Clothes and beds are all we really need"

Some toy's and a table came too, and three fold up chairs, don't know why all six couldn't come. So we'll be taking in turns to eat/sit. 

The next saga (joy's of moving) was the transport couldn't get up the track to our house.

"Alrighty then" I said, trying to smile. So they unloaded at the bridge and we carted it up the drive.

I was sorta glad that all the furniture hadn't arrived, every cloud has a silver lining.

Went to offer the guy's a cuppa, but alas, nowhere to be found.

One dog, one cat and three chooks

Alice giving big roosty a drink. I know you can buy chooks anywhere but our beloved Roosty has been part of our family for 5years. He has survived various chook attacks(dogs and foxes and eagles). When we were living in Guildford, we would only see him on the weekends, he was struggling, and even once I hugged him and told the kids to say goodbye to him, as I thought it would be his last day. But he hung on, and improved when we moved back to Ballarat.

The chooks travelled in the trailer, we stopped every 2 hours, got them out of their boxes, made an human(child) fence and gave them water and food.
They survived their 15 hour ordeal:)
Scruffy our dog layed at our feet and puss puss took turns sleeping in all the children's laps.

Finally we arrived in Thora.

The long trip

The first stop was to say farewell to Ron, Sarah, Brodie and Luey. Ron had made us a  beautiful Didgeridoo, made from Mallee timber from his country, Ron had engraved six turtles, to represent each of us. Ron is from the Wamba Wamba tribe, he is the best at storytelling.

We miss them already.

It's a 15 hour  trip to Thora, Alice and Jim filling in time.

Can you see the rainbow:)

Dan driving the first leg.

We left at 4am from Corowa, to get some hours under our belt before the children wake. Unfortunately  two b-doubles collided with a ute, near Yass, the fog  was bad, and this part of the Pacific is notorious for accidents. So we waited for four hours, and the kids had breakfast along the freeway edge.
The car behind knew a short cut around so we followed him. The road was closed for most of the day.

The line up. The accident happened only 300meters in front of us. Lordy.