Happeeeeee Neeeeeewww Yeeeeeeear!

Wow, where did that year go??? For us it's been a huge year... Moving house yet again! But ahhhhh, soooooo very happy we did. Curt and I are just delighted to have found a place to be, a place that is both alive with life and soothing to the soul. A home where we truly feel at home.
For Curt it's been a year of fixing stuff, he's certainly been kept on his toes with all the jobs that needed doing and continue to unfold. He also bought a kombi, his new beloved! I love how he likes to start the motor just to hear it run! And that he's joined a kombi club here in Australia! Yayyy!
For me it's been a huge year building the clay business up. I've found a most enjoyable way to teach is by letting people come up one at a time and just going for it. It's a bit more of a challenge because we're flying by the seat of our pants...spontaneous lessons/techniques...switching from one clay to another...but so much fun and so wonderful to feel confident enough to teach this way, having really grounded in expertise over the last 7 years or so. And I totally love my studio with the view. Talk about making it easy to go to work! And then there's the fabulous people I've connected with along the way. Taking over the management of the aussiepolyclayers group and setting up a new forum has also been a highlight for me. I really love the polymer clay communities that I am a part of and it's my goal to continue to foster the generoisty and support that these groups are known for. Yup, it's been a really great year for me.
So...defintely there's been new life breathed into us with having come to a place inside us where we are happy with 'what is'....ofcourse, it helps if most of "the boxes ticked"...you know, in that list we all have till we do away with it!

I wanted to say a big thank you to my family and Curts family for their own generosity and support in all kinds of ways. We love you guys...and to all our friends and family, we wish you a very happy, healthy and peaceful year ahead.

All our love,
Mel and Curt and Wiggles (Shadow's nickname)

Mullumbimby town

It occurred to me that I hadn't put any pics up of the actual town of Mullumbimby. So here they are. The one of the bridge is Brunswick River bridge. The middle one is Mullumbimby town itself. And the top two shows our much talked about (and many an expletive made about!) crosswalks. Mullumbimby is the only town I know in Australia that has these weirdly (and dangerously) placed crosswalks...right on the intersections of our main road. Talk about causing havok as cars and trucks all converge (or make a break for it!) at the intersection, waiting for the pedastrians. Ofcourse, when you want to take a photo of this 'havoc', there's none to be seen! But you get the idea...

The flowers keep on coming...

This time it's the poincianna tree with it's bright red blooms. And the sunflowers have had their last hoorah, gonna knock their heads off and grow sunflower sprouts for our salads. Here's Curt getting a breathe of fresh air after the paint fume fun!

Paint fumes make you funny

We bought a great shaped old dressing table for the guest bedroom and we're gonna give it a face lift. This photo cracked me up...looks like the paint fumes got to Curt!

The green room

Behind our fridge and under the stairs, there's this door which leads to a weird 'room' of sorts that is totally useless because it didn't have a roof. It's been a bit of an eyesore from the outside looking down, even after Curt cleaned out all the rubbish and old weeds, it still looked weird when looked at from the top angle.Besides which it wasn't even usable. So, Curt made a roof from some old green corrugated perspex sheets, now we have a seedling grow room!

Sunflowers

Goodness, check these babies out! I have never had much success growing sunflowers till now. I planted the seeds into mushroom compost. They're in the sunniest position of the property, getting full sun for around 8 hours a day. And ofcourse, the weather here is ideal, perfect sunny weather intermingled with bursts of rain. These have got to be the happiest flowers ever!

New bus!

What a big week it's been, esp for Curt. Not only did he get to be all manly with his chainsaw felling great big trees, he also went to Coffs Harbour to buy himself a bus. It's a 73 genuine Kombi with a terrible paint job but fabulous mechanically. Curt's had a bounce in his step and a glint in his eye ever since he picked it up. He and Kombis eh! It's a real love affair. He goes out there and tinkers with it every chance he gets. So wonderful to see him get another kombi. That other unregistered one never got a look in. He basically snubbed it from day one...when he found out how much work it'd take to get it registered in NSW (it has Qld plates)...so it's been basically just parked up there for months. It'll make a great parts bus tho! And will act as a storage shed for his tools.
Anyway, meet the Mystery Machine! That's the name of his new love...

Cocos palms last days

When we moved here, we were told by a few people that the cocos palms, as beautiful as they are, can become a real nuisance. You see, they drop thousands of these seed pods which are act like ball bearings when you tread on them. We've nearly come a cropper on several occasions. Worse still, when they start to ripen, the fruit bats bring their families for feasting. These fruit bats are the size of tom cats and make these dreadful screeching noises all night long. So now that the fruit is ripening, the decision to cut down the two cocas palms was an easy one! While Curt was at it, he felled the pawpaw tree overhanging the balcony too...for the same reason. Bats love em...and since neither of us like pawpaw and we'd prefer drinking water without batshit, that went down too.

Short n Sassy

Breathing new life into the hair, I told my hairdresser for short and sassy this time. She's been dying to expose the curls from under the top layer of straight hair so I gave in. And glad I did.
Another addition to the bedroom is this wavy full length mirror from our favourite shop Ikea. I figure if I want to lose weight, I need to see my whole body more often...lol

Froggie television

The rain brings with it flying insects of all varieties...and frogs! While we're safe from the insects inside with all our flywire, a whole world of action is going on just outside our window. We'll be watching telly and to the right of our vision, we'll be treated to the movement of a frog going 'splat' on our window as he's chasing an insect attracted by the light. Check these guys out!

Sun up!

Now that the seasons have moved along, the sun is coming right up over the ocean in the mornings. This is what we woke up to this morning...

Two of my favourite people

What a gorgeous time we had, so nourishing spending time with good friends. Hanging out, eating good food, sittin' and talkin' till the words run out and it's just sittin'! Loads of laughs. We all took a bit of a holiday while Kinz was here! Here's Curt chillin'. And Kinz with her feet up reading a book.

Best friends!

Kinzi is here! Isn't it fabulous when old friends come to visit! We've been trying to keep her away from dishes and cooking and anything remotely close to work so that she can really get the most from her break away from a very full life in Perth. Those orange banana chairs have had a workout...and so have our tongues! Yakkady yak, lots to catch up on! We're off to the bead shop and markets today. Hope to have more shots then!

New viewing chairs

We bought a couple of great chaise lounges (they're called banana chairs here!) the other day, the perfect thing to relax on under the shade of the Jacaranda overlooking the world.

One day blossom

Couldn't end this lot of posts with a pic of the toilet now could I...here's a much more pleasant view to leave you with. We've had a few of these come up. The flowers are amazing and last just one day.

Painting the dunny!

Our toilet is situated in the craziest of places, right near our deck. Not only that, we had come around to calling it the 'worst toilet ever' because...well, it was. The old seat had been painted and the paint had faded, the walls were a murky cream, the whole feel was decidedly yukky. For a while, I had big sheets of drawing paper on the door and some charcoal and pencils, so that people could draw pictures and we'd be able to cover the walls with 'art' but they kept falling down and becoming a nuisance. Soooo, I finally got around to painting the 'dunny' as we aussies are fond of calling it! Amazing what a new seat and a coat of white paint will do. I actually like hanging out in there now:)

More lizards

This is kinda a cross between a racehorse goanna (body)and a bobtail (head)...and small in comparison to our roof dwelling goanna at around 1 foot long. Almost stepped on this little baby! But he just stood perfectly still, not even a blink...so we had plenty of opportunity to snap some close ups.

Footsteps on the roof

Since we first arrived, every now and then and only at night, we hear these strange 'footsteps' on our roof. Sounds something like a small person with a limp. Well, the other day Curt got up on the roof with torch to check. He came back saying they were frogs. "Frogs?" I shook my head, not quite believing it cos it sounds so much louder on our tin roof. Anyway, this little culprit ended up on the deck where I could see it for myself. Love that green colour!

Name this flower!

It's springtime and we're really enjoying watching the flowers pop up. Being our first spring here, every flower is a surprise! We have no idea what this glorious flower is but it's a sight to behold... each individual flower spanning bigger than my hand.

Massage wall

We have friends in Ballinyup WA who have this great wall made from smooth rocks and painted over. Tania lovingly called it their 'tits and bums' wall. Well, we have a similar wall here running from the lounge to the kitchen, except the rocks they used to build it weren't quite as smooth as the Ballinyup home. This one has little 'pokey out' bits everywhere. Trust Curt to find a good use for it. He reckons if you lean into it with your back and give just the right amount of pressure, you can massage all those little spots that are out of reach.

Curt does stuff!

We drove to Ballina the other day and bought a tank....it was gonna be a dishwasher but the tank won out...I don't believe it! Seriously though, what with the weather patterns and less rain, tanks are hard to come by, you normally have to wait months to get one as they're very rarely available for sale. So we jumped at the chance. It's a slimline one so it's sits nice and flush to the wall without blocking the view or taking up a ridiculous amount of space. I was told a woman designed it!

Racehorse goanna up a tree

This gorgeous goanna ran up a tree in the back yard when we were walking there this morning. Such a magnificent creature. Look at that skin! (Be sure to click on this pic to get a close up) I was torn between moving closer to get a better look or leaving him in peace on the tree in what no doubt is "his' back yard too. Curt blocked the hole in the roof so he doesn't live in our ceiling anymore so the least we can do is leave him in peace in his own home. Fair trade.
Nothing much going on this week. Curt's been mending things, gutters and hot water systems, I carted several bags of mushroom compost up the stairs and planted all kinds of seeds. Cucumber, basil, sunflowers, okra, nastursium, sweet potato...lots of little heads popping up this week. So lovely.
Everythings become so greeeeeeen with the rains. And those jacaranda trees are starting to bud up. Little leaves appearing on the grape vine. Buds all over the mango trees. Frog noises coming from the valley. Life is good.

More about Strangles the snake...

Look what we found hiding at the top of our water heater in the cupboard off the studio! A snake skin! I've placed my foot there so you can get an idea about size. Certainly answers the question about how big Strangles is. 7 foot! For those into symbology, the act of shedding skin, of sliding out of the old and being reborn, speaks of transformation and healing. The Greeks used the snake as an emblem for healing through wisdom. So there ya go...it's a good sign! No sign of Strangles though...maybe he's gone out to show off his new skin to his friends!

Blood red moon

Remember the eclipse of the moon last week (in Australia)? I sat out on the deck for a while, enjoying the spectacle. It not only disappeared as it does with an eclipse, it turned this amazing deep red colour. Here's a pic!

Up up and awaaaaaaay

Look what we saw from our deck the other morning...ahhhhhhh

What's the dog looking at...?

hmmmmm...? You'll need to click on the photo for an enlargement...then look towards the middle! Kanga and doggy eyeing each other down...hehehe.

Meet 'Strangles'...

...hehehe...my Mum is gonna have a fit when she sees this. Meet Strangles (thanks to Lisa for the name!), my 'studio snake'. He's the carpet snake of the other day. Seems he's moved into the house now. I was cleaning the studio after the workshop and lo and behold, there he was. Not in a hurry to move off either. I let him alone for a while to see if he wanted to make his way outside but he was quite content to stay there so eventually I plucked up the courage to keep working while he hung out on the ceiling. He wasn't bothered by me at all and certainly didn't want to gobble me up. Now, let me say once again so my Mum doesn't freak...these carpet pythons are NOT harmful to humans...but he might catch a mouse or two!

A joyous sight!

It's just a shot of our water tank...not very interesting to many...but for us this shot speaks of fabulous soaking rain! Amazing how much more connected we are to the 'natural world' these days. How much more appreciative of rain we are since we rely totally on it for our water. It's been very dry since we moved here, having only had rain on about half a dozen days in almost three months. You can imagine how we felt when we saw our tanks overflowing!
The other shot is of Curt's make shift solution to a sudden leaky roof...in the studio...the day I'm holding a two day clay retreat! Oh no! But he's a genius at coming up with the quick fix ideas when you really need em...which is just as well since this place is full of little challenges like this. Anyway, he saved the day again by creating a plastic wrap 'gutter' underneath the leak so that instead of the water dripping all over the clay table, it was channeled down to a more out-of-the way area, straight into a bucket! It's been raining pretty solidly for four days in a row now...it's raining as we 'speak'...
I've got more news on my clay blog if anyone's interested in the news of our recent clay retreat...
http://clayhappenings.blogspot.com
Till next time...:)

Feeding Shadow

This funny looking room is to the right of the kitchen, just off the deck. It's a laundry room but we've converted to a tools and store room and a place to feed the doggy.

More reptiles

A goanna this time! He's been on our roof for two days now so may be taking up residence! We don't mind, he's rather gorgeous to look at through the perspex roofing...

House next door

Our next door neighbour has literally built his house from the trees on his block. It's very 'organic' and certainly not up to council code...more like a Robinson Crusoe house. He built two places, the one you see is the latest...and something we would actually love to do here sometime. See that wild balcony handrail...those are featured a lot in his places, looks fabulous. All very open. He's not on the grid at all, uses solar power and has his own water tanks.

The drive home

It occurred to us that you don't have any idea of what the drive 'back home' from town looks like...so here are a couple of shots. You'll see Mt Chincogan again and the cane fields I was talking about earlier. Our house is located on that big ridge on the left (top photo).