Hello there everyone and welcome back to another Good Morning Mondays.

It has been very hot this past week and we even had a fire scare on Saturday afternoon. We had lightning strikes just north of us which started a fire, thankfully it was under control before it caused us any issues, though it was the closest fire we have ever had. In some ways this was a very good exercise for us as it made us get our fire plan organised and things in their right places.

My husband has been very busy this past week and has been here, there and everywhere fixing things up for people. It is full on harvest time here at the moment and machinery is always breaking down.

He was able to take our younger children with him for a day each this week and they always love spending time with dad. Our no 2 daughter even got a movie of a snake swimming across a dam where my husband was working. Don’t worry she kept her distance and took the movie on the highest zoom setting.

I have had a quiet week here at home but I was blessed to be able to go to town with our no 1 son and help him with some Christmas shopping. Actually he had it all organised and I just encouraged him from the sidelines. I really enjoy spending time with him, we have a lot of fun and some great discussions.

We sold some more sheep this past week and it was hot work getting them in and then tagging them, but we all worked together to get it done. It is wonderful to have the children home and have their help when we have work outside to do, and they are learning so much.

We haven’t done much school this past week or so and I think I will leave it until the new year and then get stuck in. I sometimes find that a break really helps get everyone motivated for more work (well I hope and pray that is the case).

Our vegetable garden and fruit trees are coming along nicely. We even have an apricot tree which is fruiting for the first time. Even though the weather has been hot it is good for our vegetables and my husband has been watering them at night. We are blessed with a good bore which is wonderful.

Our cauliflowers were growing really well in the hot house but unfortunately they didn’t come to much and the head had leaves growing through them, we probably should have picked them earlier and smaller.

They went from this below…to this…We are learning so much with this aquaponics system and sometimes we make mistakes, but I suppose that is how we learn, isn’t it.

Now we don’t really go in for Christmas decorations, we usually put a Nativity Set out and put our presents around that but this year we are spending Christmas with our son-in-law, daughter and their children so I haven’t even done that. There are lots of people in town who do Christmas lights and sometimes they are pretty amazing.

Here is one below that I took a picture of the other night, I wonder how they sleep with all the lights on??? Pretty amazing and what a lot of work.

Okay, I know enough, enough, onto our link up…

Our top three posts this week were….

Increasing Hits on a Single Blog Post from Giftie Etcetera(mis) Adventures Mondays Blog Hop by Mindie at Born Again Farm GirlCan Child Training Actually Improve My Relationship With My Child by Anastasia at Anawins

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to link up. It is amazing to me to see this wonderful community of bloggers stopping by each week and sharing their thoughts and ideas, it is so special.

I have some thoughts and plans for something new next year, it’s still in the pipeline (that means I am still having discussions with my husband and no 1 daughter) so I won’t spill any beans just yet, but I hope it will be good and challenging for us all.

I am going to take a two week break from the link up. I hope you all understand and I will see you back here on the 10th January 2016.

May you all be blessed this Christmas, may you find the love of God filling your hearts and may you find the time to share this love with others.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

An InLinkz Link-up

 

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Hey, hey, hey everyone, welcome back to Darling Downs Diaries and another Good Morning Mondays Link Up.

You are all such a blessing to me and I am so pleased to see and hear from you all each week.

How has your week been???

We have had a busy week, but really only our nights I suppose. Monday night we had music lessons and then Tuesday night we took some lambs to market to be sold on Wednesday, and then some sheep on Wednesday night to be sold on Thursday. We also had a Christmas break up dinner for our Gideons Camp on Wednesday night.

Thursday night was spent at home (lovely) and then Friday night we had a Leadership Christmas dinner at our Pastor’s house. It was lovely to be able to chat to those that we don’t always get time to after church on Sundays. Our Pastor’s wife did a lovely job of setting all the tables and we had bon bons and candles, it was a great atmosphere.

Saturday morning was music lessons again, the last for the year, but that doesn’t mean that we can slack off on our practice.  Saturday was also our no 2 son’s 8th birthday, so we had a lovely day with him, and his choice of pizzas for tea and a 4wd dvd as well.

Sunday was church and it was a special service for all fire fighting volunteers and a lovely morning tea was shared afterwards. Sunday afternoon we went to our good friends home for the afternoon and a most delicious evening meal. Fellowship with other like-minded Christians is always wonderful.

Phew, that was our week but I did spend most days home, which was nice and I really needed too, to keep up. My brain just doesn’t seem to be working as well lately, but I am praying for a big renewal over the Christmas break and hopefully ta dah, it will all come back.

My lovely husband bought me some little Zebra Finches to go in our small bird aviary I have been wanting some for ages so he and our no 2 daughter bought me three females and a male.  They make such a lovely sound outside our back door, and they are so cute.

Our tomato plants out in the paddock are looking really good and some are even flowering. My husbands pumpkins have germinated and I believe there are at least 1500 plants out there. We are hoping to have heaps to sell at our road gate next year and I am sure there will be heaps of pumpkin soup to can as well.

Okay onto our linkup…

Our top three posts this week were….Handwritten Letters: Keeping The Tradition Alive by The Farmer’s Wife at Grace Garden and HomesteadMy Christmas Bucket List 2015 by Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage

We all need common-sense by Jo at Stop…Have a Chat

Thank you all for taking the time to link up and I am hoping you are getting a chance to have a look around at some other posts, although I understand how busy we all are.

This coming week is quite quiet again, which is good. I still have a few Christmas presents to make (all hush hush) and some cards to do and I want to get them done this week.

We are hoping to visit our Uncle and Aunt in Portland to see how they are going since our Aunts by-pass surgery a few weeks back and maybe have some time at the beach as well, but we’ll see about that one. Portland is a great town to drive around and it is always great to sit and look at the big ships that come in too.

We need to start tying up some tomato plants soon and my husband is going to get me a tool so that I can scratch around the little plants and help with the weeding from my gopher.

Well that’s about all for me this week. I am hoping and praying that you are all well and that you are able to think about the reason for the season we are about to celebrate.

It is so easy to get caught up in the commercialism and the “I wants” at this time of the year, but I encourage US all to sit back and take stock of what Christmas is really all about.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another Good Morning Mondays.

Do you feel that the moment we hit December that time just goes into overdrive and is passing even more quickly???

It seems to me when December 1 passes it is January 1 before we know it and I am determined that I am not going to get stressed out over Christmas because that isn’t really the point.

If I don’t get all my cards done and I don’t get all the baking done that I would have liked, I am going to be OKAY with that.

Of course this year I am rather inhibited with movement and really probably not done too much anyway, but I am trying to let it go.

This Christmas we are going to our son-in-law and daughters place which will be wonderful, so the pressure is really off. Last year we had quite a few here and it was a wonderful time with family and extended family as well.

This past week has been quite slow for me. We had such a big weekend that I have really taken it easy and have managed to get a bit of a cold too, but that is nearly gone now.

We had our final Revelation Study on Tuesday night and we are looking at studying the Pastoral Letters next year which sounds very interesting.  We have such a lovely group and we have come to appreciate each one of them very much.

We had our local show on Saturday and our no 1 son went in the shearing competition again and came 1st in the Intermediate Section and no 2 daughter did some baking and received two 3rd places. 

I managed to get around on my gopher and this was quite a bit of fun and it was quite warm too so it was nice to be able to park in the shade.

Our vegetable patch is going well although we have had a couple days of hot dry wind which has been giving the tomato plants a hammering, but they are holding up well. We are still waiting for some pumpkins to germinate and that should be any day now.

The aquaponics is going well and the tomatoes are going good in there, they look nice and strong. We have started picking some carrots as well, although they are small, they are lovely just to boil up whole.

Our top three posts this week were…Homosexuality: “Many Voices” by Donna at Soul SurvivalChristmas Idea Round-up by Tammy at Taylor Made HomesteadWhat to do with Your Thanksgiving Turkey Carcass by Kathi at Oak Hill Homestead

Thank you everyone for stopping by and linking up. I hope you were blessed by it. I am sorry that I am not getting to all your posts each week and I hope you will stick with me until I get back there.

This coming week we have a couple of BBQ’s to attend as a sort of Christmas breakup, which should be nice. Once again it doesn’t matter the reason it is always good to fellowship together.

We have our last music lesson on Saturday and also our no 2 son’s 8th birthday. He has been looking forward to his birthday for ages. I’m not sure yet what we will do, but it will be fun.

What have you got on your agenda this week, and what is your weather like??? I find it hard to imagine it snowing at the moment, when it is warm here.

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”

Blessings to you all my dear friends. xxxx

You will find me linked up at some of these great blogs.