Our current exciting news is that we have finally received building approval for our house! That means that we can start working on it! It is a great milestone for us but we are still waiting on plumbing quotes. One plumbing quote was $5000 beyond our budget. Some quotes have been well above our budget but most are pretty good; Monte has done a great job with his estimates! GST can be a hidden killer.

Christmas for us is set to be in Adelaide. We bought the tickets in February and now we have mixed feelings about a return. Obviously it will be great to see our much-missed friends and family. However, we had begun to love the idea of our first Christmas on the farm. We were excited about celebrating our Fangorn anniversary, the New Year and Monte’s birthday with some Moet on the house site. Nevertheless, being back with our family for Christmas will be wonderful. It will quite likely be our last Adelaide Christmas, so we hope to make it special, especially for our children. We couldn’t return to Adelaide without the help and support of our wonderful Tassie friends, who have ‘volunteered’ to help with our livestock (cat, dogs, chickens and goats).

I think we are very settled in our little cabin and are becoming well accustomed to our more humble existence. Our carbon footprint is much smaller than it once was, unless having the monster Hilux counterbalances all the changes we have made! We’re running on solar and wind power now, and that is a good feeling, even if it’s not always reliable (we have some glitches to fix). Sometimes I wish just to sit infront of the television and be mindless for a few moments. As it is, we watch some dvds, and our friends Miranda and PJ keep giving us dvds of tv shows to watch. We’re not missing out much at all, really!

I’ve never done so much crochet in my life. These past few weeks have seen me quite busy making little gifts for little children; little stocking fillers. Georgia is my tester. She tests my first models and gives me the silent yay or nay as to weather a little child would like what I have made. The Huon Show is on in less than 2 weeks and I am considering entering something in the knitting/crochet department. It’s a bit exciting, even if it is just an excuse to do more wool shopping (like I need more wool!!).