We had a lovely weekend - Saturday, a lovely day at KCC at a herding workshop with Karen Sherlocke, which left me motivated to get fencing quicker! ;-) Then Sunday back, just as lookie-loos, to watch the more advanced classes have their play. The bonus was that C (18 months) was there as well and so La had a little playmate to help keep him busy while running around like an absolute loon. Better yet, C appreciated the special fascination of every. single. plane. that flew overhead had far more than any of the adults. LOL

I think La definitely needs to spend more time around kids though. At one point when I kept 'bothering him' by not letting him wander off I got a cross, "Go MAT, DOWN mum!" He panted every time I offered him something to eat. (A la Hopie...) At one point he crawled into Hope's crate and howled on all fours). And poor C kept copping pats on the head, like a puppy! LOL

I came back Saturday night to find two potted baby trees and a bag containing an Italian cake, magazines and a package of asbolutely ace wooden toy trains for La on the front porch with a thank-you note from a couple whose car had broken down in front of our house a few weeks ago. They were a lovely old German couple who'd grown up in the country but now lived in a suburb and so came out to Emerald for tea on weekends. We'd invited them in while they waited for the RACV as it was cold and rainy, and happily so as we don't get too many visitors. So I was just floored to come home and find such a generous gift of thanks!

Today I ran around trying to get everything taken care of and for the most part did. We had a lovely experience at the John Deere center. Having been to 3 other places and walked out annoyed at the staffs inability to answer questions I decided to go with a brand I've known for years. I got onto this lovely old Hungarian gentleman, who I immediately just liked and ended up having a good chat with. At any rate, La had been attempting to climb all over everything (picture it - a whole store of nothing but BIG green things that go BROOM! LOL) He took him around and was showing him how to 'turn the wheels' and explaining things, waving off my attempts to reel in the little wild-bean (since most stores tend to get rather upset when a 2 year old starts clambering all over $20K of stock like a jungle gym...) with "Ah, he won't hurt anything, let him have his fun. It's good for children to be children, they learn this way yeah?" Then as we're going out the door, he reaches over and plucks one of the John Deere toy tractors off the shelf - which sell for $20 and just hands it to La as a gift. La is enraptured, he's actually zonked on the couch atm, tractor firmly in hand even while zonked! LOL

Tomorrow I'm having Colin come with a bob-cat to plow the new front garden paths. At the same time Jamie is going to come out and do a combination of removing deadwood/shaping the trees (involving a harness to go way up high in the trees... hence my not doing it!) and further mapping out some rudimentary garden plans etc. Very excited, despite the slow going of tearing up bricks (seriously slow, it's taking up the old brick garden path with a shovel, chisel and hammer...) so I'm glad it's getting going! Even if they do insist on starting at the unholy hour of 7:30am....... ;-)

Will also take a picture of our sunflower tomorrow. It just sprouted up out of no-where in my tomato patch to be a little bit of cheer. It survived despite my thinking it was a weed and I should just pull it out. Despite the winds that blew over full grown trees all over the area in one of the worst windstorms in decades. Heck - despite a rather chance planting - best guess is one of the birds must have visited a feeder, left with some seed in it's beak and dropped it in the veggie patch! LOL