Dah dah dah dum...

Hi :)

The move was horrifically bad but its done and dusted - actually we've been here 5 months now so yep pretty settled!! Its been an interesting ride since I last posted with January being devastating as I went back up north to say goodbye to my darling grandfather then again a week later for his funeral. Ooops the tears still sit abit close over that... On the up-side I got to spend some much needed time with my extended family <3 Littlest tyke had his 1st birthday in February which was exciting and sad as most of the mamas reading this will understand :) March was also pretty cool coz we got married. Very not to plan and yes we're having a re-do lol it was a great day though and we're very happy. Uhm there have been a few other bits and pieces but they're the big points of our year so far. What about you??

The reason I have been so not here is because... ready for it??? I'm living in a housebus with solar/generator power, tank water, no cellphone reception and definitely no internet (or phoneline since that would be required since we don't have reception!). I have 2 little boys, one big guy, one dog (sadly had to rehome one of our pups :small cry:), 20 chickens (yep TWO ZERO!), 2 horses and as of this week a pretty little pregnant jersey housecow, oh yeah and a billion mice, a few billion wekas, and I've just learnt we have stoats (sp?) in the area.... Whew!!

After a war against the wild raspberries and wekas in my vegie patch in which I got thoroughly routed, and when I say routed I mean I was so beaten down I actually spent 3 weeks buying vegies at exorbitent prices from the supermarket after I planted out 50 seedlings to have 3 - yes THREE - of those precious babies survive, I am raising seedlings in egg cartons and transplanting them into portable garden boxes that I handily hammered together with wood offcuts picked up at the mill across the road (so good ;)) then smothering them with netting and sleeping next to them with a big pointy stick!!!!!! After more than tripling our food budget to keep us healthfully fed simply using the supermarket I'm heading back to basic, homegrown using whatever means I can get my grubby mitts on!

I have killed and revived my sourdough starter too many times but its now flourishing and bubbling like a little legend and providing many satisfactory serving of homemade 15 minute pasta, pizza bases, english muffins and the most delish pancakes you could imagine. Sourdough bread, on the other hand, defies all my attempts to get it to rise then cook evenly (the gas oven thats missing a door seal might be contributing to that...) so I've given it up for a currently lost cause and am using normal yeast!

My 20 chickens are being very well-behaved and covering the cost of their feed since I decided to undercut all the local egg-sellers by a dollar a dozen :evil grin: I therefore have a lovely little customer base that I've snaffled and have my eye on small-time entrepeneur of the year 2011, which I hope rewards me with something awesome like a rooster coz I'm gettin' broody!!!! Wish my hens would hurry up and find that baby love...

Our lights are run but a nifty little solar system which also gives us a certain amount of power through the inverter meaning our plugs sometimes work so we can charge up the portable dvd player ;) our borrowed generator runs our washing machine which is pretty good except than it doesn't have a spin cycle so I have to wring everything out by hand before I pop it on the line or it'd take a month of sundays to get anywhere near dry.

Its a very interesting, sometimes exciting, sometimes really frustrating step on our road to total self-sufficiency :) hope you all are enjoying 2011, living frugally, living naturally, and trying to keep it homemade ;)

FX I can post again soon - promise I'll try!!!


xox