Real Estate Lavender

Having sold our home and in the process of building, we now pay rent - dead money....
These white doors are where we pass through to pay our fortnightly rent.
Passing by these enormous Lavender bushes does seem to make it less of an effort.

Diggin' my Potatoes

Trentham - famous for potatoes

Ask Washboard Sam - He knows.

They even have their own Spud Festival

every year without fear.

The Spud train carried the hessian bags

filled to the brim by the local Lags.

OK - no more poetry

I don't have the talent - you see!

Trentham Station will bags of potatoes being transported on the now defunct railway to Daylesford and Woodend.
Trentham is in the middle - about 22 kms from each town.

We've just had the soil tests done on our block of land and I can see why the land is so good for growing potatoes.
I don't think we will have much problem with producing a great garden.

CHAINSAW MASSACRE

The real stuff begins - the three blokes below were my Chainsaw Massacre Team at our block. We arrived Saturday morning to discover that our builder had done soil tests. Very excited!!!

The boys, our son Mitch, my (would you believe) ex-brother in-law Andrew who lives in Trentham and my long term mate of 50 years, Kevin donated their services to clear the trees that were in our capabilities. There's still four trees that we need professional tree loppers to dispose of.

As I have no experience with chainsaws, I was relegated to labourer - note the pile of foliage behind the boys - I did that!!!!

Mitch, Andrew and Kevin - friends extraordinaire

Many tree loppings piled up in front of the Cyprus trees that offer privacy to our block.

Now there only those four trees in front of the Citroen and a few tree stumps to go so the builder can lay the concrete slab in  hopefully in 8 weeks time.

So, where do we go to from here? We start selecting paint colours, floor coverings, and appliances.
The revised plans with the changes we made to the originals will soon be in our hands.

How exciting

Carlsruhe

In 1837, Charles Ebden established a sheep run no more than 5 kms down the road from where we are in Kyneton. He was the first pastorist north of the great dividing range of what was the district of Port Phillip, later to be called Victoria. He named the run, Carlsruhe after the village where he was educated - Karlsrue in Germany.
Today it is only a small rural village (under 500 pop) which is cut off from the traffic flow along the Calder Freeway from Melbourne to Bendigo. These quiet roads have now become my regular training rides.

This mornings early ride I spotted a big grey kangaroo lazing on his side and passed us a cursory glance as we rode by. Scenes like this and the one pictured above interrupt my rides, encouraging me to take out my iPhone to capture a little of Victoria's Central Highlands.

Another Country Scene

I may have posted this before but its one of my favorite scenes - it shows the starkness of a week during a heatwave in the area when everything lost its colour

Country Scene

We have now pretty much settled in to our short term home and building will begin hopefully around end of March to early April. Its been quite a whirlwind over the last six months with getting our home of 33 years shipshape for sale, organising a place to rent in the country at Kyneton near our block in Trentham. Chuck in a four day working week and a constant weekend open house for friends and family wanting to visit.

Consequently again our blogging has suffered however rather than trying to write a book each time, we will post regular photos of the area and the life in the Central Highlands of Victoria. When I say regular, it could be daily or every few days.

Very early construction of timber home between Woodend and Kyneton. Note the shingle roof which in latter years was covered in corrugated steel - a material used extensively in rural Australia.

BUSHFIRES near KYNETON

Kyneton although farming land does have a lot of bushland/forests especially on the hills. About a month ago there were fires during the heatwave. These were 10 to 15 kms away from the township.
We drove by the area last Sunday without knowing where the fires were and then as we turned a bend, the evidence of the fire was around us. It travelled from the forests to the roadway as you can see in these photos.

The fires closed the main road from Kyneton to Revesdale. 

If you look closely to the trees on the hill, you will find that they are now just twisted silhouettes. 

It was just before the burnt out paddocks that we noticed literally hundreds of kangaroos grazing in farmland paddocks. We didn't realise until we came across the charred paddocks and forest that they had come down from their now black habitat to feed. It was quite an amazing site to see so many kangaroos in one area, many with young in their pouches.

You lookin' at me?