We have 'finally' put some paint on the walls! The three smaller bedrooms are now fully undercoated, and today we painted the ceilings. Darryl has finished removing the crazed paint from the from verandah.
I think we were pushing ourselves a bit too hard...and last Thursday we decided to take a break and do nothing for the day...well that was great, and we ended up sleeping most of the day. On Friday we had to go to town to get supplies, and I got a headache so slept all Friday afternoon as well.
Of course we had to take a break for Christmas day...although we walked over the back to check some GPS points, and film some trees and the red hill. The walk took 2 hours, and we were pretty hot when we returned, so had a lovely cool swim. Christmas lunch was a low key affair, and then after lunch we drove to Cordalba to visit our friends Anna and Otto (we hadn't seen their new home before, and were very impressed with what they had done). We crossed the old bridge on the Burnett River, and were amazed at how high the water is from the new weir. In the evening, Rhonda and Phil invited us to their place for dinner, and we played cards again.
I have put the farm on the net - for sale so I guess we will just have to wait and see how it goes.
Darryl and I came back to the farm last Sunday. Our tenant had already moved out, and everything was in pretty ok shape. It was pretty hot, and the pool was really murky green, so we spent quite a bit of time scooping out algae.....
The grass is lovely and green, due to the recent rain, and a couple of wood ducks have taken up residence.
We have been busy....Darryl has fixed the front gate, done some fencing, and we have both worked on the house. Even though the place was ok, we have had to scrub every square cm with sugar soap and bleach in preparation for painting. There have also been heaps of nails to remove and holes to fill. The whole front verandah had crazing so Darryl has used the heat gun to remove all that paint. I can say that we both have sore muscles and bruises.... It will be really good when we can get to actually do some painting...the preparation is very time-consuming. The worker's barracks have been badly attacked by white-ants, so Darryl thinks we will have to pull it down.
Unfortunately, our fridge/freezer gave up the ghost soon into our stay and we were lucky enough to have our good friends, Rhonda and Phil, look after us with a spare fridge.
It is really strange being here....just like 24 years ago when we first arrived (in some ways! we are minus a baby...Marc was 6 months old when we came here) - in both cases we have no furniture, and only a mattress on the floor to sleep on. I suppose, also, that the place is in a lot better condition...with polished floors and a pool. It is quite nice, but a lot noisier than it used to be...cars roar up and down the road to the sub-divisions, and there is now a workshop across the road.
We have also been using the GPS to mark the boundaries of the farm, and the location of the dams etc, and Darryl is drawing it up.
We have played a couple of nights of 500 with Phil and Rhonda, which has been really enjoyable.
