[Nicole]

We are heading into very hot weekend, 40d+.
Thank goodness for our swimming pool.

I get very nervous as we live on the edge of a National Park, bush fire risk is always there.

I have some very exciting news. My husband purchased me a van for Christmas.
I have been researching then for two years and I am so excited to have one.
It seats 12 adults comfortably.
We are certainly not in the outback, but the nearest big town is an hour away and most of our appointments are in the city which is a solid two hours drive.
Our Biggies were starting to request to stay home as it was so cramped. When they come they usually have laptops and books as they inevitably have study to do. The older three are taller then me!
Now they will have so much more room.

It is lovely to drive too.

[Tamara]

Wow! Lucky you Nicole! What make is it? It is just so important to have a good comfortable vehicle to drive around in, especially with growing children. We made our one and only trip across the Nullabor when I was 16 in a Nissan pulsar hatchback! Guess who had to sit her six foot self in the back all the way to Murray Bridge? NOT comfy so it is a very good thing that you will still be able to cart your bigger kids around in comfort.

I have a feeling this summer is going to be fiery – not meaning lots of fires but meaning very hot, which of course in turn can mean the former.

We have neighbours who have a station further north (because they have the exotic kind of sheep not the lovely wool producers we breed) and there are currently three fires burning. The kids had to go up there because the youngest son does school of the air but they high tailed it home again because of the fires. Of course there is concern over the place being burned out. But of course it doesn’t make the news like the Esperance fires did.

Just stay safe. You know the drill. You will be fine.

[cybele727]

@motherof5 – how exciting! Although to seat 12, I envision a bus more than a van!

We’re having a warm winter. We broke a record of latest date with no snow. It was 12/3. The weather pattern holds and they don’t expect even a trace until mid December.

This is bad news weather wise for us. We sit on the eastern edge of a Great Lake. Those prevailing westerlies sweep across the warm lake, pick up moisture and dump it in huge storms on occasion.

If we have a cold winter, the lake freezes and no big storms. If we have a warm winter, well… Let’s just say we’ve had freak April storms.

In exciting news, we are going on our first family vacation ever in about 10 days. I’m sewing like mad because Gigi outgrew all her lighter weight clothes. Florida this time of year can range from 50 to 80, so that’s a tough packing job. Although, the kids will be surprised when we wake them at 5 am to go to Disney. It could snow and they won’t care!!

[cybele727]

@motherof5 – how exciting! Although to seat 12, I envision a bus more than a van!

We’re having a warm winter. We broke a record of latest date with no snow. It was 12/3. The weather pattern holds and they don’t expect even a trace until mid December.

This is bad news weather wise for us. We sit on the eastern edge of a Great Lake. Those prevailing westerlies sweep across the warm lake, pick up moisture and dump it in huge storms on occasion.

If we have a cold winter, the lake freezes and no big storms. If we have a warm winter, well… Let’s just say we’ve had freak April storms.

In exciting news, we are going on our first family vacation ever in about 10 days. I’m sewing like mad because Gigi outgrew all her lighter weight clothes. Florida this time of year can range from 50 to 80, so that’s a tough packing job. Although, the kids will be surprised when we wake them at 5 am to go to Disney. It could snow and they won’t care!!

[Tamara]

Have a wonderful time @cybele727 Disney would be the ants pants – have always wanted to go! Florida sounds similar to Queensland for us. Such a pity we didn’t have Disney in Australia. We have to go to Hong Kong for the closest.

[Tamara]

My sister and brother in law and their daughter are coming to have Christmas with us this year. It will be the first time ever! They are staying to celebrate Chloë’s first birthday with us also which is super exciting as they have not seen her yet.

All this Christmas excitement has unfortunately been dampened as my husband had a motorbike accident this afternoon. The good news is he is going to be ok but the bad news is he has injired his right arm so badly they have to do surgery. They are flying him to Perth in the morning and we will be following behind once we have a caretaker for the animals sorted.

I think we will be asking for good quality well stocked first aid kits and motocycle helmets for christmas!

[Sarvi]

Oh no, that sounds awful — hope he’ll be ok.

[cybele727]

Oh dear. Quick healing!!

[Tamara]

Thankyou @sarvi and @cybele727 we will know more once we get to Perth. I just hope it is just his arm that is injured as he saud his right hip was hurting when asked last night (my husband has a very high pain threshold so when he is screaming in pain you know it hurts!)

[with love Heidi]

Praying for you. Hope you get good news soon!

[Tamara]

Thankyou so much @withloveHeidi prayers most gratefully accepted!

At this stage surgery won’t be until Friday. It’s pretty bad. Will fill in later. About to go back to hospital.

[KAREN]

Prayers for skillful healing hands for your husband’s medical team and for his speedy recovery. Would you mind giving us his name so that we can pray using it?

[Liesl Gibson]

Please keep us posted on your husband’s status, will you? He (and you) will be in my prayers as well. xo

[Tamara]

@butterfliesandfaeries his name is Murray Kowald and thankyou so much.

I have not long returned from hospital where I spent some time with Murray. We went this morning also where we found him sitting up with a very heavy cast on his right arm. He was feeling dizzy but the physiotherapist said he needs to sit up alot to aid his recovery (meaning it will limit potential blood clots etc) he also needs to move around but he finds it very hard going with such a heavy cast.

He has been told the earliest he will have surgery is Friday. The top surgeon is going to do it as his arm is in a very bad way and they only have one chance to get this right. The CT scans revealed the mess. His elbow is shattered and needs to be reconstructed. His humorous (aka upper arm) has a huge jagged break, thankfully not protuding from the skin but it is the kind that can be open to infection if not addressed. He also has a broken collarbone. He has been dosed up with lots of drugs.

They had to re sort his arm when they flew him to Perth and he was at risk of stopping breathing when they did. He actually did stop breathing so the team of six medical staff were very prepared to work on him to get him up and running again. They actually warned him it could happen but they hoped it wouldn’t because he was nil by mouth for over 24 hours.

He hasn’t been told anything offical but he heard the staff say he could be in for anywhere between two and six weeks! That means a possible plan b for Christmas and keeping on our young guy just to hold the fort as I travel the 900km round trip to Perth and home again.

He is in good spirits and is working hard to stay positive especially since there is a chance he will not have full use of his arm. That means no more shearing sheep😕.

He told me what happened too this morning.

He was riding his motorbike home in a hurry because one of the windmills was dangerously close to losing its head (the round part with the blades – think opening shots of Macleod’s daughters). He needed to get it fixed because there were sheep in that paddock and obviously they were out of water. He saw the gate was shut and he’d forgotten about it. He hit the skids then straightened up thinking he could clear it. But instead the bike was caught up in the wire and he sailed over the fence and landed several feet away from the now tangled up gate.

I have been on to him about not wearing a helmet or any protective gear for 15 years. Of course he wasn’t wearing a helmet! But you know it wasn’t really his head that got the brunt and thank God for it because he could have broken his neck! He is one lucky man who admits that he doesn’t feel confident of ever riding a motorbike again! We are looking at alternatives.

The other fortunate things were that his mobile phone was safely tucked in his buttoned up breast pocket and he was wearing high vis shirts (I came very close to running over my husband!) had the phone flown out of the pocket I would have been oblivious!

So we have the animals being fed by our young worker (who was supposed to finish with us on Friday but is staying on to hold the fort while we are toing and froing. We have neighbours making sure the sheep have water and I had my good friend come over on Tuesday to help me get my bearings as I tried to get the three kids sorted, pack and catch up on cleaning up before heading to Perth, not to mention follow up on the many text messages and phone calls.

I don’t deny it will be heavy going. It has been a very emotional week and we are not really close to being out of the woods yet. I was happy to get to Perth where I have family support and I have really found out who my friends are in this situation. I am not the kind who yells and I tend to suffer in silence. This time though I yelled just about as loudly as Murray but minus the many expletives😜. It was so hard to listen to him in pain.

I won’t be getting my Christmas sewing done now. I will be far too busy trying to take up the slack and run our little farm business while caring for my injured husband. Once the water issues are fixed it should be ok. I hope.

Thankyou so much my dear forum friends. I truly appreciate your listening ears, prayers and messages of support.

[Nicole]

I hope he recovers quickly Tamara.

I am sure the community will rally around you. When my husband nearly severed his hand with a chain saw we had a rota of community support, community organised. There was food, cut wood and offers of drives to to city (I am not a confident driver)
Country towns have great spirit.

That said, what a busy time of year for it to happen, smack bang in the middle of harvest.

Look after your self.