Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Our last week at Tandou....


I really need a panoramic lens to show just how big the farm is here, this shot shows some cotton in the foreground (dark green) and then the brighter green crop is a 'sacrifice crop' for bugs to feed on where they would normally attack the cotton crop.





Tandou farm is surrounded by sandhills.  Bun would love to ride the bike in them but it's not allowed. So we rode the 4-wheeler around the base of them for a little way and then walked up so that I could take some photos.


Definitely an 'ooops' moment!!   This happened while the tarp was being pulled over the top of the grain bunker.


Bun in a familiar pose!  This was at the base of the sandhills with the farm in the background.



Bun took this photo with his phone one day.  I was working in the paddock behind him, if you zoom in on the dust cloud, that's me :)


Another beautiful sunrise just behind the van, again shame we had to go to work.


This is the photo that Josh messaged to us after Kara had a scan.  He was so excited, the text with the photo said 'There's really a baby in there'!!



Bun took this one in the sandhills and said that was so that I would get a photo on the blog hahaha.


There is such a big line-up of machinery here, some sits idle for most of the year I think, but I thought the sky looked interesting that morning.



This is what I was working on over the weekend, the rig is called a side-buster and is used to rip the ground up in preparation for changing the crops.


They use a plane here for some of the spraying and he was zipping back and forwards in the paddock adjacent to me on Saturday.


They use old Chamberlain tractors here to move the huge siphon pipes around, each tractor carries one on the front and one behind.  I saw these guys moving around the other day, each kicking up their own cloud of dust.  It looked great and I was disappointed that I only had the phone to take a photo because the big zoom lens would have been much better.  I think I'll take the good camera to work with me this week just in case anything interesting comes along :)


Just because I liked the look of them :)


I picked these up at the Woolies bottle shop this afternoon in Broken Hill and was a little disappointed when I read later that you have to freeze them for 8 hours!  Anyway I think I will keep them to share with a couple of the girls here on Saturday or Sunday night. 

We are going to finish up here on Sunday night and will pack up Monday morning and head to Winkie.
We will call in at Mildura to get some new mudflaps for the truck as they started to split where they attach to the truck.  In fact, one of them cracked all the way off today on the way back from Broken Hill.

The next few weeks we will be based at home with a couple of side trips.  We are going to go to Canberra briefly to pick up the old Commodore that Ben was using.  He has his new ute now so we'll bring the car back and then Josh and Kara can use that.
We will also go to Adelaide for Bun's skin appointment at the end of February so will get to see Josh and Kara for a weekend and hopefully catch up with a couple of friends while we're there.

Other than that, we have a loose plan to travel towards WA via the SA coastline but that is always open to change :)

Cheers for now!



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Big news!!!

We are finally allowed to share the news that we will be grandparents early in August!!

Josh and Kara are very excited, along with the rest of the family of course :)

We have known for quite a while but after a couple of scares early on, they wanted to wait until now to share the news.

Back soon with other updates.

Cheers

Tuesday, January 15, 2013



Still at Tandou...




This is what I've been working on for the last couple of weeks.  Here it's called a 'smudge bar', anywhere else it would be called a grader blade.  It is 12.8m wide so I'm pretty impressed with myself haha.


Previously I was discing with this, but at one stage it needed to be folded up and taken to the shed for repairs.  Luckily I talked my way out of having to drive it back and got to drive the ute :)


This was the outside temperature according to the tractor!! Pretty bloody hot!!


I did actually drive this 'big bugger' but only for about an hour.  Thankfully someone else had to leave early and I got swapped to another tractor.  It's a pretty rough ride and I have to admit to not being keen on doing 3-point turns in it.


A lot of the tractor work at the moment is ripping where the wheat has been harvested so that the ground can be made ready for the next crop.


I just love the name of this rig!!


I can't really remember taking this shot but I do know it was up here somewhere haha


Storm looking dopey, pretty much her usual expression I think :)


I think Boof doesn't like being on a diet, he found some very over-ripe fruit to eat.


At the shed at the start of the day.  It looks almost like a machinery graveyard there sometimes.


The big track tractor is where Bun has been spending most of his time and there is no tinting on the windows, hence it gets bloody hot in there.  He managed to 'acquire' some bulldog clips so that he could rig up screen protectors along the side windows to help keep the cabin a bit cooler.



 Above photo was taken at the start of the day and
photo on the right was taken late in the afternoon.


I love these guys, obviously the family that perches together, stays together. Made me think of the song "We are family'!





Sometimes even Bun has to read instructions!!

Last week in Mildura, we bought a r/c helicopter for Bun's early birthday present.  It has a camera underneath that will take photos/video.  Yesterday it got charged and then after some help with the instructions, he got it flying.  Initially he was using it in the tennis court area (high fencing) but then got it flying a bit higher than the fence.  There was a bit of breeze that caught it and although he was able to make it go left and right and up and down, it would not fly back to him because that was a head wind.  After avoiding power lines, cabins and trees he was only able to watch it disappear into the distance.  He came back to the van with the funniest look on his face.  As he was only holding the controller, I asked where the helicopter was.  He pointed into the distance but I thought he must have crashed it onto the roof of a cabin or something.  He then said 'it's gone'!  Hahaha it was SO funny to see the look on his face.
So we headed off on the motorbike on a search and rescue mission.  We wandered around on this side of the channel behind the camp before crossing to the other side, the channel is about the width of Katarapko Creek.  We were looking on the ground as well as in the trees and trying to follow the sightline from the antenna tower back at the camp. After about 30 minutes there was success!  I picked it up and the only damage was one of the landing skids had snapped at one end.  He reckons he'll be able to glue it back together so now he'll probably wait for a really calm day to have another go!

Bun was also happy to go for a couple of rides on the new bike yesterday, one following the old Pooncarie Rd for a while and then in the afternoon he went along some of the tracks around the farm.  He'll stick to some of the tracks around here for a bit and then maybe talk to the farm manager about exploring a bit further.

We took a baby present over to Ali and Gaven tonight, Ali is heading back to Loxton tomorrow to stay until their baby is born, due in a couple of weeks.

We did another trip home last week to swap the ute back for the truck.  When we went to Broken Hill a fortnight ago to shop, the air-conditioning packed up in the ute on the way back.  It is way too hot up here for no air-conditioning!  

Callie started work yesterday at Riverland Signs and Graphics, based in Lyrup and I think she's glad to be working again after the last couple of years studying.
Ben arrived home this morning from Europe and it sounds like he had a great time apart from the cold/chest infection that he picked up over there.  Apparently it went through the whole bus so you would have to have been lucky to avoid it.  He has bought a new 4wd ute that he will be picking up in the next week and he's looking forward to surfing/biking road trips in the future.
Unfortunately Josh was told at the start of last week at work that they had to put him off due to lack of work.  Thankfully he was able to go back to Jamieson Trucks (where he was working last year) and started there yesterday.  

We are looking to head home to Winkie in about 4 weeks and at the moment we will probably be there for 4-5 weeks so hopefully we can catch up with a few people.  The plan is to spend some time down the river with the boat :)

That's it for now
Cheers!