Triking

Have a lovely weekend x

Keeping warm

 

Snow is forecast for the week ahead. Brrrr...Lovely....

 I have been buying eggs for two years now! Two years!! Can't believe it!!!

 Last week on my weekly shopping trip to town I had this sudden urge to call into the Produce shop and buy some chickens, SO I DID!  

Someone called me a mother hen once, I know now what they mean...
This is home for them at the moment, snuggy in front of the fire.
They'll need a little nurturing for a while.

Chirpy little things they are...

There'll be a push for a coop now, what do you think?

Autumn : Walnuts & Persimmons

What fun, getting this neglected ol' Blog of mine up and running again!
These posts are going to be all over the place for a while though.
I've got so many drafts written and my finger is hovering over the publish button.
I'm starting to feel excited about everything again, but in a different way now.
This space motivates me and keeps me on track,
it reminds me of what I am striving for and the importance of  what I can achieve in the everyday.
This Blog reflects all the wonderful things around me
so you will never see dirty dishes, smelly laundry,
cake crumbs all over the floor and unmade beds on these pages.
You will not hear about my two year old Tanties and my Teenagers woes,
you will not see my unsuccessful craft attempts , burnt jam or moth eaten cabbages.
Well, maybe sometimes you will but mostly I'm just keeping track of all the lovely,  fun, successful  homemaking stuff
thrown in with a few random pics of our farm life, as we know it.
I hope you enjoy these pages again,
or if your a new reader,
Welcome. I look forward to meeting you.

Oh I nearly forgot:

Homegrown from the front yard -  Walnuts & Persimmons    xx

More Lovely Autumness below - better late than never!!

The Fridge Family

We're BACK!
Let me reacquaint you with my family,
this is Me, Hubby and the Six, all grown up just a little more...

These figures are little magnetic laminated us!

Just like ABC letters they live up on the fridge and are fun for all to play with.

A quick tutorial for you and if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them in your comments.

1.Google some Vintage patterns, Woman, Men, Teenager, child etc..
Save the image then print it out.
2.  Select a good photo of each member of your family, print out
3. Cut out your heads and paste them onto the vintage outfit you have chosen
4. Laminate then cut out laminate figure
5. Stick a magnet on the back, I used a good quality roll of sticky magnetic tape.
Done, Your Family is ready for the Fridge
 and hours of entertainment for your children.

Now, I did actually waste quite a lot of paper and ink having to print out our head shots and bodies and match up the correct size of head/body ratio, but in saying that, the girls loved playing with the out of proportioned bodies and heads that did not make it onto the fridge, just like paper dolls.
A simple but fiddly process, it was well worth it in the end.
This is actually our only Family portrait
and we get to rearrange it anyway we like!

 So how have You been? I would love to hear from you.
 I've missed this space and am hoping to get back on a regular basis again now.
I'll spend the next few weeks catching up on everything
we've been up to in the last eight months since we moved out to our new property.
It's more amazing than we could ever had imagined!
There is so much I want to share with you.  x

A new place to call home...

 It's pretty, It's cold and it's a real farm.

It felt like it was never going to happen, the past twelves months 

of living in town has been something of a blurr...,
Not only did I lose the closeness to my family but I really did lose a part of me when we left our little farm in Queensland to make a new home way down in
Central Western New South Wales.
Finally, now my life seems to be all falling back into place again
and I'm back on the path where I wish to be.
I knew I would get there eventually,
 I just wasn't sure when it was ever going to happen.

 In Qld we often dreamt about having more land when we were making home on our five acres,
 so it seems that our up and move was a blessing,
a great excuse to actually move in the direction we really wanted.
So long story short,
we have found ourselves a comfortable old run down farmhouse
and its a whopping  93 acres
just 30 km out of town.
The farm itself is not large enough to financially sustain a living
but it's big enough to provide the sustainable lifestyle we crave for our family.

It's overwhelming,  we're not quite sure where to start .
An eighties style four bedroom brick house awaits us,
there will be painting,
 re flooring,
kitchen & bathroom renos,
 ripping out of overgrown gardens,
 lopping of overgrown trees,
building of sheds and chook coops,
raised veggie garden beds (to keep out the rabbits)
the restoration of an amazing old wool shed
and
 buying stock for the property...
Then there will be baking and preserving and crafting and crochet!
One step at a Time!
 Oh, I do love a challenge!
and it's just quite a bit exciting I must say!

I do hope you'll join us on our new journey...

Catching up ...

Oh how time flies....!  Sorry for my absence, again...

Things have been moving along as usual, I love my new community and continue to embrace everything it has to offer. It's been 12 months now since the move. Wow! 

We have our eyes on a small property just out of town so if all goes to plan, come Spring, Gooseberry Jams pages will once again be splashed with chickens, sheep, fruit trees, country inspired recipes and cute kids enjoying some space to roam.

  Perhaps then, my scatter brain may be clear again 

and I can schedule some time to reunite with the blogging community.

Until then you may see me, you may not..

I leave you for now with a few images I have captured in the past couple of months..

Hope your keeping warm and well   xo