Friday's Fences

I must have had a busy week as I haven't touched my blog at all. Funny, it didn't seem to be that hectic, but I must admit I did sort of lose a couple of days. My son and I had a night out. We went to the movies and on Wednesday at 9.00pm saw the first "Hunger Games" movie, followed at 12.01am on Thursday by the new "Hunger Games" movie. You do have to be a fan, but we enjoyed ourselves.  Unforunately I didn't get to sleep afterwards until 6.00am, so the next day was virtually a write-off.

So on to Friday's Fences for this week - a day late. In an earlier post I showed the very grand gates and fence of a renovated property.  Amazed the other day when I drove past to see that they have erected this enormous bronze urn in the middle of the front lawn. It actually looks quite monstrous to my eye - but each to his own taste.

By contrast I rather liked this old iron fence around a cattleyard.

Most unusual.  Never seen one like this before and I can't for the life of me work out what it is made from.

Liz Needle linking with Friday's Fences

PS.  My husband tells me that the fence is made from old iron railway sleepers. Apparently as sleepers they were not very successful, but they seem to make an effective fence.

Fridays Fences

Today's Fridays Fences photos depict a scene that gave my family an immediate moment of riotous laughter, followed by a few days of chuckles.  But first the story - there is always a story behind a good photograph.

We live in a bushfire prone area and the Electricity Trust has decided to reduce the fire risk by cutting back trees in the Adelaide Hills that are deemed too close to electricity cables. That is fair enough and no-one objects to this happening.

However the various contractors who do this work are forever upsetting land owners by coming onto properties without telling land owners and making an absolute mess of the cutting back. No thought at all for the aesthetics of what they are doing, no knowledge of the species they are lopping and the best way to go about it, no consideration for the age, beauty or importance of the tree.

They are universally disliked, not for the job they have to do, but for the arrogantand ignorant way they go about it.  My husband has is sick of it all after losing several trees, having many disfigured and having trucks drive through our property. He has repeatedly asked them to have the courtesy to check with us before they do anything.  This they refuse to do - they do not have the time to knock on every door! They have the right to come onto a property whenever and wherever they choose.

Well, the last lot decided that they had to trim some pines on our property and the quickest way to get to them was to drive across our front paddock.  This they proceeded to do!!  Unfortunately they had failed to check out the area first and did not notice that the front paddock was a waterway and very wet from the recent torrential rains.

Halfway across!!!!!!

Up to the axles in mud.

 They had to come to the door then to ask if we had a tractor to pull them out. Sorry, no tractor here, but we were able to lend them a couple of spades.  They radioed for help.

Help arrived, but first they had to unhitch the chipping machine from the new vehicle. Then discussions, arguments, trials etc took place. Two hours later the vehicle was extricated from the mud.

If they had spent two minutes knocking on the door and telling us what they planned to do, they could have been shown an easy way to get their vehicle around to the pines!!!

Liz Needle   -   linking with Fridays Fences.

Sepia Saturday

Back online again after three weeks of frustration arguing with bureauocracy and the protocols and procedures.  Long story and not worth telling now.

Our Sepia Saturday theme could be about the beach, women, photography or even soft toy cats. I could find very little in my collection that might match these themes. Apparently my ancestors either never went to the beach or never had their photos taken in beach clothing - probably the latter.

However I was able to find this old sepia in the local antique shop. I have no idea who or where, but I though the ladies interesting in their very 'daring' swimming costumes. Sometime in the thirties I would guess. They obviously enjoyed posing for the photographer. The two younger women on the left look as if they could be sisters with perhaps mother on the right.

I did eventually find another beach photograph. This one is of me in the year in which I discovered "BOYS"!  Not that I had never had anything to do with boys before that. Indeed in my street all the kids my age were boys and I grew up a total tomboy and this is why my mother decided to send me to an all girls school - to make a lady of me!!  Some chance!!  But in this year - 1953 - we went on a holiday to Kangaroo Island and I fell in love for the first time.  His name was Bernie and his father owned the holiday house we stayed in.

The photo indicates that I thought I was very elegant and grown up posing like a beach belle.  Ignore my little brother- I did that summer!

Liz Needle   -   linking with Sepia Saturday.

Skywatch Friday

Just a quick shot of the view across our back paddock. Ignore the ugly buildings - focus on the sky.

Liz Needle   -   linking with Skywatch Friday.

Friday's Fences

Thanks to a bolt of lightning followed by 3 weeks of bureaucratic rubbish, we have been without internet access for 3 weeks, but finally we're back on line and celebrating Friday's Fences once again.

This week a gate on our property. When we bought this property 40 or so years ago, it was part of what had been a working dairy. This gate provided access to the dairy for milk trucks, tractors, farm vehicles etc. We use it to drive up to the cattle yards behind the dairy. At some stage the local council decided to seal part of the road and in doing so they changed the road level without any consultation. As a result our road to the dairy became unusable as the road level dropped about a metre leaving this gate and our track with a steep one metre drop to the road!!

We no longer have goats so the dairy has not been used for some years, but it would have been nice if they had asked us  before they acted.

Liz Needle   -    linking with Fridays Fences.