Weekending

Recently we signed up to have solar panels installed on our roof. It's has been part of our plan since buying this house. Not only will we be producing our own energy, we will also be feeding electricity back to the grid, resulting in payment. Firstly however, we have to pay off the panels. 

This new weekly expense necessitated a rethinking of our budget. It had been a little too long since Dave and I had sat down together with pens, paper, calculator and bill file, and tallied our annual expenses. But it was with great satisfaction that we added up the figures, divided that value into weekly expenses, re-named our accounts online accordingly, allocated money to savings and allowed ourselves a little pocket money too. It felt good to have worked it out together, to have a plan, to have short and long term goals. It also confirmed how the small changes I have made, like using cloth nappies and making our laundry detergent, are having a positive impact on our savings. 

While we have been implementing our new budget we have been spending a few quiet weekends at home working on projects. And there have been many to keep us occupied. From building a new garden bed in the front yard, edged in bush rocks from a friends property, to planting out onion seedlings in the veggie patch. At Cohen's request, he and Dave also built a home for our old friend the possum. I found this guide to making a possum house (I hold no grudges Mr Possum, just a scar from your scratch) and the boys set to work, adding their own flourishes to the design.

Emerson and I checked in on their progress as I washed my way through the pile of laundry that had accumulated after days of rain. The veggie patch was weeded, a jacket cast off and my first pair of socks cast on while listening to an audio book. And by Sunday afternoon our tree was wearing it's new possum house, Cohen was impressed with Dada's tree climbing skills and both boys were eager to keep watch last night by torch light.

Sadly, I think it may take more than one evening for a possum to make that little house his home.

Weekending

Today I shall be taking a jar of jam to the neighbours and explaining the screaming they no doubt heard last night.

I made my very first mandarin jam yesterday, with a dozen mandarins from our neighbours tree. It was much more time consuming than I had anticipated. I doubled this recipe but only used the rind from three mandarins and two lemons. Peeling the skins, removing the membranes and seeds, then chopping a dozen mandarins is a lengthy process. Especially when baking bread, fixing dinner, supervising baths and nursing a baby along the way. Luckily my husband makes a rather wonderful, if somewhat impatient, stand-in pot stirrer. The results though are seven jars of beautiful jam, containing nothing but mandarins, lemons, rind, water and sugar. One jar saved especially as a thank you to our wonderful neighbours.

Possums are determined little creatures. We have one such little Brushtailed friend fiend who keeps managing to wiggle his way in to our garage despite our best efforts. Last night, after we presumed he had vacated the cavity beneath the bath to partake in his usual night time ramblings, we affixed a plank of wood over his garage entrance route. Determined to keep him outside for good this time. To my dismay, he was late in leaving his bath place abode, and at 10pm could be heard trying his usual exits in the garage to no avail. The possum proofing was working, except that the possum was trapped inside. My jam was cooling and my husband was sleeping and things were going bump downstairs. What to do. I woke my husband, who showed little interest in getting out of our warm bed. I cajoled him into coming down stairs with me and I grabbed the broom just in case.

This in turn lead to my bemused husband watching on as I chased said possum around the ceiling joists downstairs with the broom. He was supposed to be helping me. Apparently he was tired. So, I have a broom, the possum is running over the open garage door, then darting back inside and I am trying to shoo him out again. As you can imagine, my husband was even more amused when our dear possum unexpectedly launched himself at me. Flying through the air, possum paws outstretched, he landing on my jeans and foot. And I, well, I would like to say I remained calm and saw him on his way outside and calmly brushed my hands together in an 'that's the end of that' fashion. But, as you will no doubt have guessed, I screamed. Then did a little screaming-jumping-up-and-down-shaking-my-hands-get-it-off-me-get-it-off-me dance. Which I'm not proud of, but which had the desired effect. The poor possum ran, leaving me with two nice scratches on my foot in the process, but finally scampering out of the open garage door. My husband laughed all the way back to bed as I repeated several times in a shocked, high pitched sort of way, "Did you see that? It jumped on me? It JUMPED ON ME!"

I lay away half the night listening for tell tale bumps and scratches. Now I'm off to reapply some antiseptic and visit the neighbours with jam and explanations. And perhaps nap this afternoon...

How was your weekend?

+

There were no possums at our last house. The power lines were all underground and there weren't many large trees. When we first moved in here we only noticed the occasional possum as it ran along the power lines of our street at night. Lately though, we've been seeing them every night, hearing them jump onto our front veranda, walk across our roof and even found them twice in our garage. Last night we noticed three of them munching away in the tree out the front and realised that their appearance has coincided with the flowering of the tree. 

They are not the least bit bothered by our presence, the flash of the camera, or the toddler jumping up and down calling "Nom nom Poss Poss!" So, the trees near the house are being cut back and the gaps above the garage doors are being filled, then our new friends can continue eating in our tree each time it flowers without worrying us. As long as the dog is persuasion enough to keep them out of the back yard and away from the fruit and veggie plants.

Do you have possums around your house?