In the meantime…

*tap tap*

Is this thing on? Let me wipe the cobwebs away, dust off the keyboard, and catch you up on the shenanigans here at Granite Glen over the Christmas school holidays…

I took Dash (to his first ever concert) along with Violet and Salina (not pictured here, who both attended Taylor Swift with me in 2015) to see Keith Urban.  Salina ensured we learned most of the lyrics to the ‘Ripcord’ album on the trip to Brisbane…

We nabbed a ROCK STAR CAR PARK at Boondall (seriously, the entry is 20 metres from this spot) which never EVER happens…

And it was amazing and they all sang along.  It was unanimous – they loved it ! Dash was particularly taken with support act Carrie Underwood. LOL. He’s definitely a boy.

We also helped Salina find her very first car.  A lovely, well-cared-for, second-hand Mitsubishi Gallant and one very happy P-plater.

Back at home, Axel Rose (the Great Dane) kept a close eye on all activities (visible from the house yard) throughout the holidays. He’s an old man now, and rarely shows any inclination to hop over the fence any more.

I hate that Great Danes don’t live forever…

There has been some heavy machinery action in one of our more northern paddocks…

A big ‘pad’ being created where most of our paddocks meet, forming a base for yet-to-be-built cattle yards (our major 2017 infrastructure project!).  I have to say, while I am not really an earthworks kinda girl, this has been quite exciting to watch roll out.  I will bring you a longer overview of this ambitious plan as I settle back into blogging properly.

We had Christmas….

Salina did go home to her Mama (my darling sister) for a few weeks, but she did spend a good part of the hols with us! Just the way we like it…

It has been AWFULLY dry and hot.  Of course, it’s Summer so hot is kind of par for the course.  And dry happens around these ridges with reasonable regularity too.  But after a dampish Winter, our stretch without any substantial falls grew alarmingly, feed hayed off then dried right out and didn’t replenish (as it normally does during our wet summer season).

This paddock had more feed than most, so we were feeding out molasses to encourage cows to forage this dry grass and planning on selling off stock.

Then, after dozens of storms threatened and then slid north and south of us… this happened…

We FINALLY got under some rain – a glorious 103.5mm here at our house.  I may have got a bit excited…

It was such a cloudburst that it made ABC radio in our area, and my husband’s ‘almost smile’ made the front page of the Queensland Country Life (online).

Unfortunately, being a storm, it didn’t drench the rest of our paddocks the same way, with between 10 and 30mm making it into various gauges around.

There has also been mustering and branding (full post to come on that annual event) …

and the sweetest of traffic jams…

That gives you a small taste of the past 8 weeks.

I promise to share more of our adventures soon – along with some exciting (and some daunting) events coming up on our calendar…

What did the Christmas break bring for you?  Is your calendar hectic or calm?

😀

PS Let me know what Granite Glen adventures you’d like to hear about first!