Horsing Around

Over the weekend we had our favourite* much anticipated visitor at Brindabella: “Aunni Weeeeze!” My sister Louise got her dose of cute nieces, country air and red dirt under the nails, whilst I cooked beef stroganoff and attended to the often sad cranky-can’t-crawl-can’t-move frustrated baby.

A horse ride with big cousin Chloe was in order, always keen for a riding buddy. I took Eleanor and Harriet for an impromtu horsey visit, and although Eleanor is quite keen on the idea of riding the horses, the reality is she’s quite scared of falling off and losing her balance so just freezes once she’s plonked up there! Chloe takes her for rides around our yard on her pony Spider, Eleanor looking like a stunned mullet and saying it’s “too bumpy!” But, baby steps. Maybe she’ll get into the horse thing, maybe she won’t. I’m not fussed either way (although Matt would probably prefer she didn’t!) In the meantime there are bumpy rides on Spider and wobbly nervous sits atop Halo…

Chloe and Louise rode down to Narracan Falls, nearby on the creek that runs past our house. A short ride along quiet country roads, not far from where we grew up and from where Chloe keeps her horses – great hills to canter home along! I took the girls home for a quiet afternoon but much to Eleanor’s displeasure Chloe and Aunty Weeze didn’t arrive on the horses to her house, bit of miscommunication as to where they were riding to – oops! Luckily Harriet didn’t seem to care or be too phased by this horse caper, pretty happy to sit by the fence and eat stalks of grass. Amusement for the cranky baby always welcome.

Back home we got to planting out the rest of our driveway, a bit of an ongoing project as we gather more natives to fill the gaps. We need some more mulch to push out those weeds, but finished off the last bare patches and replaced a few plants which died over Summer, generally the stretch is looking very healthy after being watered from the irrigator the past few months though! Of course we had a trusty eager helper, with a hammer in hand no less (better used in garden pursuits than on her baby sister’s head I say…) We also planted our avocado tree with all our fingers and toes crossed that it survives our frosty Winter…and maybe bears some fruit one day? That might be asking a bit much. It should be pretty protected there next to our veggie garden though, plans are that a few more fruit trees might join this area in our garden.

Hard to believe the girls were in tshirts and shorts just two days ago. As those dark clouds rolled in, so too did the thunder and lightning and rain and wind. Winter has now descended upon our hills, and we’re hibernating in our little farmhouse out of the chills and bluster. The last hurruh of sunny horse rides and Autumn gardening, good thing we got those plants in! Hopefully they’ll do a bit of hibernating themselves and come Spring do some growing and bushing out.

Sunny in your patch or blustery and cold?
Got girls keen on horses?
Done any Autumn planting?

*We have lots of ‘favourites’. Basically any friend and/or family willing to come for the weekend to entertain the children I will house/feed/water you!