Sunday, February 20, 2011

The weekend that was ...

... busy, busy, busy. I:

  • did a truck load (Lachie would probably say it was a B Triple Road Train's worth of washing - that kid has farming on the brain) of washing, folding and ironing
  • did a stack of planning for the coming weeks at school - happy with the tweaking to my Modern History unit for the Year 12's
  • took the boys to Milo Cricket Saturday morning and then to soccer sign-ups (why oh why did I cave ... cricket season is almost done which means that Sat morning sleep-ins were going to be mine again but alas with soccer starting, that is no longer the case
  • watched the first crops of the summer season get harvested
  • went through over half a tank of fuel driving back and forth around the farm, dropping the boys off to the headers, picking them up, taking lunches over for everyone, helping move gear from one paddock to the next
  • listened to my little farmer boy recount all of his adventures in the header, road train and chaser-bin (a large grain bin towed behind a tractor)
  • took myself off for a little photoshoot over where Tony and the others were harvesting
  • DROPPED MY CAMERA FROM THE TOP STEP OF THE HEADER :-( I think it is ok - took a few shots after the 'fall' and all appeared to be working well. I guess time will tell.

Some random farm photos:

This is a cotton boll. It starts off as a little square, then a flower and finally the boll emerges. Eventually, the crop will be defoliated (sprayed out) to kill off all the leaves and dry the bolls out so they crack open and let the cotton be seen.
Photo Two: A paddock of cotton - this crop is still over a month away from defoliation. The crop is looking ok for a dryland crop and considering the terrible start to the season with the flooding. Photo Three: one of the paddocks of sorghum which was harvested today. If you look real closely, you can see where part of it has actually being harvested before I got there. This paddock actually spent a great deal of time underwater during December and January due to all the flooding. The yield is not all that great but at least there is something to harvest - a lot of farmers don't even have that this year.
I also participated in my first cyber crop in over twelve months at Scrapbook Savvy which helped my confirm my earlier suspicions that teachers are the WORST people to get to follow instructions (well this teacher is the worst anyway lol).
I completed three of the challenges - the blind scrap (the instruction one), Kerryn's English 101 challenge and Anthea's Maths Challenge. I can't show the LO for the Blind scrap just yet but here are some pics of the others.
Kerryn's English 101 layout: we had to have journalling that added up to at least 100 words. I wrote about how I have finally come to accept the reality that I will never have a little girl and that pink will never live in our house. We also had to have a poem - I chose the nursery rhyme, "What little boys are made of" - seemed to suit the theme well.

Anthea's Maths Challenge: we had to scrap to Einstein's E=MC2 equation. Each element was a different part of the equation. I loved this challenge and I am fairly happy with the result: If you are interested, you can follow the links above to read the details of each of the challenges. You can also head over to my gallery at 2 peas for more detailed pictures of each of the layouts.
Wow so that was one massive photo overload. If you are still here, congratulations on actually making it to the end. I will be back in a few days to post pictures of the Blind Scrap layout. Hope you all had a great weekend too.
Cheers,
S xoxoxo

5 comments:

Pam said...

The only time I have seen cotton is in a plastic bag from the nearest grocery store.:-P Very interesting! Hope your camera is okay! I'm always fearful that I will drop mine and break it. Yikes! Love your layouts as well. Well done!:-)

donna said...

I can imagine what came out of your mouth when you dropped your camera lol
I am glad you enjoyed your CC at Savvy
Donna xx

Josie Dean said...

Very nice Layouts Sarah! I hope to get to the blind scrap! If I get better! lol And I also hope your camera is ok! I would freak if I dropped mine! I have a good strong strap on mine!

Tracy said...

Love your photo's.
Your layouts are so sweet.

Sar said...

LOVE the post about the harvesting, so interesting!!! Hope your camera is ok. xx