Time has really flown by...must have been having too much fun! I can't believe we've actually lived in Australia for an entire year now...well since November 16th. I keep meaning to get on here to write but life takes over all too often and it moves further down my to-do list.
We've had such an amazing year here. Hubby has found a good job (definitely not his dream job but it pays the bills), I've gone back to school, the kids have all finished their first year of school here and the older kids have good paying jobs...I sure never made that kind of money at 16 or 19 :( and everyone has really settled into all the little differences between cultures.
Still a huge adjustment for us experiencing Christmas during the hot summer months as it is for most Northern Hemisphere migrants to Australia. We do love a white Christmas but heck even a cool Christmas would be welcomed. Even still we had a wonderful Christmas and New Years together, the younger 5 all participated in the Christmas exhibit at Church. The boys got to be Shepards and our daughter an Angel, even our oldest son Wesley got up in front of the congregation to do a reading...we are very proud of all of them.
Our garden has been a struggle. In early Autumn we began the layout and ground work on the veggie patch. Of course I'd never really gardened before in my life, unless you count 5 gallon buckets with Tomato plants in a plastic greenhouse in Alaska lol, though shockingly I seem to have had better results there. Even still I've discovered I really do love working in the garden just wish my garden felt the same way about me. It appears I'm often found mumbling a dirty four letter C-L-A-Y!. I have horrible soil, either too hard and dry when we don't get any rain (which is often) or its so boggy and saturated and won't drain worth a darn that my plants either drowned or bolted and all grew moss.
Needless to say my wonderful hubby and I decided to build up raised beds and bring in some good garden loam and mulch. But now I'm so worried my seedlings won't get far enough along to transplant into the raised beds in time to still get a viable harvest off of them. This has all been a major learning curve especially in realizing what we want out of a future property and climate. Summers are hot and incredibly dry here in SA, the driest of all of Australia's states/territories in fact. I'm worried that our goal of living rather self sufficiently are going to be 10 times more difficult here in SA especially during the summer months.
Our original plan when we visited Australia 5 years ago was to scout Tasmania for a possible future home. We even spent 6 weeks out of our 3 month holiday there. While we were only there during Springtime it was beautiful, green, full of life and cool. The only reason we came to SA was because at the time they had Carpenters listed on their State Sponsorship list. Don't get me wrong SA is a beautiful state 9 months out of the year, its green, it rains and it has relatively great weather! So we shall see what happens in the next year or so. The kids all seem to be up for a move to Tassie (well except for our almost 20 year old bound to stay and go to University of Adelaide here) and of course we can't leave until we fulfilled our two year agreement here in SA. So who knows what will happen. I think the first step is to plan a family trip down there and see if it's everything we remember.
Everyone talks about how cold it is there, which honestly makes me laugh! After living in Alaska for three and a half years, I find no place is actually really COLD in comparison. But I'll admit I do love cozying up to a fire in the wood stove sipping my coffee under a blanket with a good book! So the cold Tassie winters won't bother us at all, Lord knows our big Giant Malamutes will LOVE it and we do know what it takes to raise livestock during the colder months. Of course the benefit of warm but not hot summers will be wonderful for the garden too. As even here I have to worry not only about my plants getting enough water but also not being scorched to a crisp during our frequent heat waves.
Hmmm, Tassie is sounding awfully enticing...
