Beach Weekend: Snapshots #3 (Violet)

Our weekend beach getaway was a loud, hectic, busy, fun affair.

I unpacked, made nachos, poured chadonnays and gossiped with friends.

And slept in until 7am.

Bliss!

Mr Incredible did the same (without the unpacking and food preparation)

He supervised the surfing lesson, figuring that made up for his lack of domestic efforts!

You already know that Dash learned to surf.

And tried to figure out his cousin's rip-stick.

And swam. Froze. Thawed out. Swam some more.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!

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And Violet?

Well Violet checked on me a lot. It's what she does...

She's my little shadow, especially on thong-shopping expeditions.

And she collected shells.

She is an avid collector of stuff.

Doesn't matter so much WHAT stuff...

balls of horse hair, stones, random playing cards...

etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

...

Violet recruited her cousin and fellow Kindy-ite, Little K for shell collection duties.

It's marvellous the uses you can find for a coffee takeaway holder.

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Our daughter is an interesting little person...

She's a funny, independent-yet-dependent little soul.

She's adorable and strong-willed and stubborn and gorgeous...

Full of spunk.

She amazes me each and every day.

And I wonder:

How DID I - the person least likely - end up a Mother?

and

How DID I end up Mum to the two most amazing little possums in the world?

Would you mind letting me know when you figure it out?

...

I suspect the answer is deep in those fathomless brown eyes above.

I'm just gonna gaze at them some more.

Beach Weekend: Snapshots #2. Surf Lessons

One thing you need to know about my family, is that we are a competitive bunch.

Which is fine is we are in an environment in which we know the rules. It can be a hinderance when we are trying out new ventures. Disappointment reigns supreme. Of course, we don't let it get in the way of having a red hot go at whatever endeavour presents itself.

(OK, karaoke is the one exception here - singing just ain't our thing I'm afraid!)

And when physical impediments prevent us from trying out something new ourselves, we are not above sending our kids in on our behalf. (And when I say 'we' here, I really mean 'me').

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When we got the chance to change our jeans-and-boots for togs-and-towels, we didn't mess around. This change in attire can shock the onlooker slightly (our suntans tend to stop at mid-bicep and stretch from mid calf to mid-thigh - known colloquially as a 'bushie tan'). I admit to resorting to a tan-in-a-bottle to try and even up the view a little. It's a necessary public service I perform.

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Among the activities we jammed into our three-day weekend beach holiday was a surf lesson.

OK. When I say 'we' I am being a bit royal.

I actually mean Dash.

(Keep up with me people!)

The thought of me attempting to clamber up on top of a moving board would not be pretty. Not pretty at all. And no amount of spray tan could help, I'm afraid.

Also I am not a fan of sand. Gritty and uncomfortable stuff.

I am so NOT a beach babe!!

....

Enough of the prelude...

Here are our little soldiers/surfers trooping down to the beach...

Dash has that 'oh dear, I don't know what I am doing here' kinda look about him...

And this is the 'I wonder if anyone would notice if I dropped this end of the board and snuck away' look. He didn't.

He knew his mother was recording the event.

His chances of being unnoticed were pretty much zero.

Poor kid.

After paying close attention to the demonstration

(issued by the quintessential Aussie surfer dude)

it was time for a beach-surf practice.

Students 'paddling' furiously through the sand...

The thought of that sand under my fingernails makes me wince.

Dash didn't seem to mind it at all though...

Then it was time to LEAP to FEET.

Being old and crotchety and lame, this was the part which ruled me out.

I don't do leaping.

Then the inevitable... trying out the moves in the surf.

It was pretty cold and Dash took some convincing to actually give it a go.

(Despite eating like a horse, my child has zero body fat. And he goes quite blue unless he keeps it moving when he is in the water...)

Luckily Mr Incredible can be quite persuasive and after a couple of false starts...

Gads, I didn't realise the board looked quite this threatening when I took this shot

(editing photos is a downright shocking process sometimes!)

... anyway, Dash soon found those feet and was away...

This was just a few minutes into the surfing proper

and he was the first of the class to get up...

and then did it again...

...and again!

'Let's go surfin' now

Everybody's surfin' now...'

I was cheering and hollering from the sand.

And our quintessential surfer dude teacher joined in the applause...

I'm not sure this 'side-foot' style would win any '10s' against Kelly Slater,

but the board continued happily along in front of the small waves...

And our little man cruised in to beach like a pro.

...

And as his lips turned blue and I high-fived him (I'm a dag, I know!) and wrapped him in a towel and congratulated him on doing so well, you know what he said to me?

"But MUM..."

*teeth chattering furiously*

"I wasn't any good...

didn't you see?

I fell OFF!"

...

Good to see that competitive spirit is alive and well...

*sigh*

Beach weekend: snapshots #1

We squeezed in a brief trip away these school holidays, packing up and heading to the closest beach getaway to Granite Glen. Some friends had discovered a 'resort' (really just a set of units) at this seaside location which not only coped with reasonable-sized families, but also had a great communal BBQ area and pool. I would hereby like to apologise to all other people staying in those units over the weekend - no, I did NOT join in the 2am chorus of Cold Chisel re-runs, and I am very sorry about the rip-stick roar of our offspring using the corridors as raceways.

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The group we spent the weekend with work on the principle: if you cannot beat them, join them. Or rather, if you cannot sleep for our noise, please feel free to join us. We managed to include most other holidaymakers in our general celebratory mayhem. I am blaming my lack of sleep on the excessive softness of the mattresses.

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Whatever the cause of the dark circles under my red eyes, we had a fabulous short break away from the dry dust of home and the kids did some serious cousin-bonding (there were seven, not including our two on this trip. And two more dropped by to say hello!).

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As I sink into our non-soft latex mattress tonight, I leave you with a couple of snaps of some of the cousins and mates mucking around poolside.

I think the grin says it all... don't you?

Hope your school holidays are leaving you a happy kind of exhausted?

Duststorm - extreme weather watch

Weather has been making the news here again... in a new and freaky format.
We were trying to film a promotional video for Brangus cattle here yesterday, when it hit.
It. Dust.
A massive duststorm.

It has affected most of eastern Australia - that's bigger than big.

It's freaking atrocious!

I feel ill thinking about the precious topsoil being lost from our land in this storm.

And I also feel ill about the footage we failed to get because of this phenomenon.

Deadlines suck.

...
Here it is moving in from the west about midday yesterday.

Doesn't look like much yet...

Please ignore the shrek swamp that is our pool... Sven is working on it!

And please ignore the stained, falling-down fence... it's historical, OK?

...

Half an hour later the sun vanished and the world was cloaked in dust...

Unbelievable.

And NOT awesome for filming footage of anything.

Other than DUST...

The light dimmed and a surreal moon-like sun hovered over our shed...

The suddenly sepia outlook to the north ...

There should be a river bed and funny little knob and hills and blue sky looking north-west...

not brown haze. YUK!

...

It was a recipe for early beers and other close-to-the-house activities.

With this pair...

Two of my best girls (and fellow photographers, seen here sporting emu feathers and a whip... yeah I have no idea what they were up to either!). These chicks are also the major reasons I have been blog-slack over the past few days... they are bracing themselves for the avalanche of protests from y'all.

Or else they just drove off - oblivious - into the sunset.

One of the two.

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This afternoon the dust - unlike my gal pals - is still hanging around like an unwanted guest.

A bad smell... a bad smell/unwanted guest playing havoc with my allergies.

*honk!*

So I have a leaky face and the sun looks like a moon.

I might go back to bed now.

Is 3pm too early to say 'g'night'?

...

What weather phenomenon have you been experiencing this week?

Weather and Wedge-ies

Life is kinda crowding me at the moment ... in the nicest possible way! I completely missed Weather Wednesday last week (cannot even keep to my OWN rules!).
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I am so freaking busy I can hardly keep track of what day it is - but I have snuck off while my school holiday visitors are nana-napping (and kids watching Dr Suess on DVD) to share a little somethin' special from our trip away last week. We were late leaving Granite Glen (not unusual for me) in the late afternoon, on our way to drop the ankle-biters off with Aunty Neat And Uncle Are, before heading to Rock-Vegas for a rare night alone, before a bull sale the following day.
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Earlier in the day I had dashed into Dash's school for a photo presentation (a little project I had been doing with his schoolmates) when I had accidentally hit a roo with the Prado. It sometimes happens and never fails to make me feel a little sick (I may be a bushie, but I am a girl and killing a creature - even accidentally - gives me serious guilt waves).
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Anyway as we rounded the corner on our away trip in the afternoon, we spied some birds at the roo carcass. Birds who flew off into the trees as soon as we stopped.

Not just any birds though...

These guys...

They are wedge-tail eagles - enormous birds of prey that live throughout rural Australia.

And they are gorgeous in an arrogant, imposing kinda way...

and have been known to lift baby calves from the ground and take off.

It's a little hard to really get the sense of size and majesty of these birds from these photos... and as we drove off I lamented to Mr I that I didn't have a better zoom lense, because we don't see wedgetail eagles too often.

And then we pondered how long it had been since we had LAST seen a pair...

I have only seen one other pair (they seem to always be a couple)

and Mr Incredible had seen a few more, but still less than ten, in the two-and-a-half years we have been here...

WHEN...

We came up a rise and there, before us, feasting on another dead roo was...

ANOTHER pair of wedgies...
I kid you not.

(One had flown off into the long grass, while this one stayed feasting).

I demanded we stop the Prado. Again.

Mr I began to mutter silently about our inevitable lateness.

I ignored his concerns.

This guy was too beautiful!

I am very sorry about constantly bombarding you with carrion this post,

but encourage my gentle readers to focus instead on the amazing bird pecking away at it

(I know... sorry again!)

This bird would be more than knee high in height...

and yes, I realise 'knees' is not exactly an official measure, but I am totally guessing here and knee variations will let me get away with a wild 'guesstimate'!

Of course, I nagged Mr I to keep edging the car closer and closer to the eagle...

finally getting too close for comfort and he took off...

Giving you a good glimpse of the incredible wing span of these creatures...

And also the distinctive 'wedge' shape of the tail

(for which they are named... duh, BB!)

See ya, Big Fella...

And yes, my husband was at this point muttering:

Now? Now can we go?

And yes, we were late.

Again.

Totally acceptable excuse though, don't you think?

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Oh, and weather this week - HOT.

Hot and sweaty.

Currently 42 degrees celsius in the sun on my kitchen bench.

Yah.

Gymkhana Joyride

I know, I know...

I have been sadly neglectful of my blog this week.

Has anyone noticed?

Never mind, don't answer that (the echoing silence might depress me!)...

I have NOT been sulking that Roger Federer lost the final of the US Open (after I gave him a massive rap and jinxed him in my last post), and it's NOT that I have been sipping lattes and playing ladies (can you IMAGINE that?).

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I am afraid to admit that life has kind of OVERTAKEN my blog. School presentations, catering cook-ups, new people moving onto our property, bull sales and a bit of travel have played havoc with my normally constant posting. But I have still been snapping away, never fear. I will be playing serious catch-up with my backlog of images, I can tell you...

BRACE yourselves people!!

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Now where were we before Life Rudely Interrupted?

Oh yeah.

The Gymkhana.

I should warn you, this post is lengthy and filled with cuteness.

Yes I am biased, but lets just say it contains

toothless grins and jodphurs and Shetlands...

'nuff said!

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THE GYMKHANA

It was a warm Spring Day at Granite Glen last weekend, when we hauled our kids from their slumber, jammed breakfast into their yawning smiles and pushed their tracksuited bodies out the door and into the vehicles. The truck and Prado were packed with chestnut ponies and buckets, saddles, jodphurs and helmuts (respectively).

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The two ponies had been washed multiple times in the days before the event, leaving one corner of the houseyard with a chestnut-hued carpet of used horse hair. Rotund shetland Rob Roy and his ancient old lady friend Lacey were pretty bemused by all the sudden attention, but put up with it for the price of a sheaf of lucern hay per session.

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On arrival at the showgrounds, we primped some more. We brushed, we trimmed, we even painted little hooves black (to Mr I's disbelief). I am afraid this Mama grew up imbued with saddle soap and curry combs and a dog-eared copy of Happy Horsemanship beside her bed.

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It paid off...

Lacey was almost unrecognisable from her former shaggy appearance (although you would recognise those half-closed eyes anywhere!).

Here Dash and Lacey warm up with cousin M and his pony, Selwyn.

How darned cute are the outfits?

Kids in white shirts and jodphurs could be eaten with a spoon...

Our team lining up ready for the 'marchpast'

(perhaps it should be shuffle-past in Lacey's case?)

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Can you handle more jodphur-white shirt cuteness?

And can you handle a SHETLAND and a Mr Incredible into the bargain?

You cannot say I did not warn you!

*sigh*

And now for a mass jodphur shot...

For the record the home team (us) won the marchpast.

And Violet and Rob Roy got a pale mauve ribbon for 'presentation'.

The crowd went wild.

And then the events proper began...

Dash and Lacey 'jumping' ... my heart was in my mouth for his entire round as he had never really jumped properly before, and despite not knowing where the start OR finish lines were, the pair took out the blue ribbon in this event.

We all very nearly busted.

It was all very formal, with Dash's group of four competitors being shadowed by myself and my sister-in-law Neeta.

We took turns sashing.

It was very democratic.

Thanks Aunty Neeta!

And here Neeta's daughter Em gets the red ribbon.
She was very impressed with the colourful contrast it made with her previous purple ribbon.

And this kind of reflected the laid-back nature of the contest (at least in the 7-9 y.o. age division):

Blues are nice and all, but a pattern of happy colours was just as satisfying!

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And did I forget to get some coverage of my daughter in action?

No indeed...

Please witness the Rising Trot in the Flag Race.

That sound? That's me busting again.

(With pride, silly!)

Would you check out the high stepping on Rob Roy?

Seriously, as soon as we painted those weeny hooves black, he was breaking out the moves!

And that neck? Not LONG enough for all the ribbons people.

He was as proud as a little furry overweight cockatoo.

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And by the end of the day the ribbons festooned and fluttered from riders and steeds like they were mobile Christmas presents...

It's utterly gratuitous, I know...

But kids, riding boots, jodphurs, white shirts, ties and piles of ribbons?

Simply cannot be left alone by a Mother's Nikon...

please just take my word for it!

I did experience a moment's concern when my son walked away...

Where IS that child's bottom?

Honestly, joddies do terrible things to a woman's thighs, but do they enlarge my son's rear end in the same manner? No. They do not.

It's an equation I JUST DON'T GET!!

And another mysterious series of additions had us all gaping in amazement...

Dash not only won a little trophy for getting somewhere in his age group...

Fangs very much!

...he also took out boy rider of the meet!!!!!

That's a TRI-COLOUR ribbon to add to the loot!

And that expression is pure 'stunned mullet'!!

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You know, I was going to end on that amazing victorious note.

And then I decided on this one of Violet and cousin Mol...

Which I like to call The Debrief Session.

But then I just HAD to use this one...

Over and out from Granite Glen's Gymkhana crew!

Zzzzzz.....