“No more than that”

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DAY 425


Well you all know we have been doing some modifications to the camper trailer, well I was not happy with the colour of the metal finish that I had managed to get, so had previously made a call to Camping Country who confirmed the trailer colour is “Hammertone” Silver Grey so, after phoning Bunnings, who confirmed that they had the correct colour in, we had to go into Wagga today.

We jumped in the truck and set off with a couple of things to do for Helen on the way, one of which was to deliver some more eggs to Pip who lives on Billabong Farm a couple of K’s away. Once the egg run is done we carry on in to Wagga to Bunnings to finish our chores.

Our first, well, second stop is Southern Stock Feeds for six 30 Kilo bags of “Darling Downs” Chook food, as Jason is so fussy about what his chooks eat, and also he wanted 2 bags of puppy food, as his now 8 pups, one has been sold, are just eating machines, Helen also wants a block of saw dust for her chooks.

With all the stuff loaded in the truck we shimmied off to Bunnings so we could swap the Dulux silver for the Hammertone silver grey and also pick up a few more bits and pieces for Helen, easily done we were soon finished without any hassle.

I was at last confident with the colour we had picked up and was anxious to get back so I could get on with the trailer, but first our last stop was BCF (Boating, Camping and Fishing).

You see, we have a little problem, I have only fished once before, whilst standing in the Indian Ocean, back when we were at 80 Mile Beach with the Truman Family, that was my first and only time, well Jason has given us a rod and reel, and as it was brand new it came with the line and all that stuff, but no hooks or weights, so going in to BCF was more of a cry for help.

Dave served us and we explained that we needed some bits and pieces but we knew nothing about what we were asking for, he asked us what we were trying to do and it was simple, be able to drop the line in to the water, wind the handle and hopefully catch a fish, no more than that.

Yep, he got our drift and sold us a little box of weights and sinkers, we asked him about lures and he said, don’t even get in to that, just go to a stretch of water, put some rolled up bread or cheese on the hook and that will be good enough for what you are looking for, brilliant, the no bull sh*t approach I love it.

With our $9.95 box of bits, we walked out happy as Larry, all we now needed to do was tie a line knot what ever that is.

We get back to Merryville at about 1.30, and dropped all 8 bags of stuff off for Jason, we filled the water bowls for the pups to make sure that they had enough to drink on this scorching afternoon, and then went over to give some fuss to Spook who was sitting in the shade under his tree, not far from where Jason found the brown snake only the other night. So with all of the puppies checked on we went back over to Woodstock and I went in to the garage and prepared my final assault on the trailer.

With some steel wool I prepared the metal and flattened it down ready to accept the finish, because as soon as it was done, the new draw bar box could be put back on to the trailer and the job would be finished.

The afternoon was baking at about 36+ degrees and I knew the lawn needed cutting with the tractor mower, but you would just fry in this heat so it needed to be cut when everything started to cool down around 7.30 this evening.

I persevered with the spray finish on the trailer, it started to go on quite nicely and I was pleased with the result, so if I now leave it for 24 hours then I knew the paint coat would be dry and hard.

Well the afternoon just flew away from us and had been hot all day, the evening started to cool so I asked Helen if she would like me to do the lawns and she said that would be great, frankly I just love using the tractor mower and with just over an acre I would guess that there is plenty to do.

As with the rain we have had, the grass in places was really long, well I had to go over the same piece a couple of times with the blades at a different height so it all got a good mow.

While I mowed the lawn Caroline went to feed the dogs, we did not get chance to walk them tonight, Caroline came back grumbling about the mosquito’s she reckons they must have been queuing up outside the door to attack her, it seems they have had quite a meal tonight. We hear that Queensland have a plague of mosquito’s that are twice the size that they normally are, this has been brought about by the heavy rain, I am pretty sure that they are twice the size down here too!

The lawn probably took me just over an hour to do and I have to say that I thought that it looked really good, I parked the mower back in to the garage and went in the house just in time for one of Helens fantastic dinners, which had been specially requested by me and she kindly agreed, to Chicken Wings and Savoury Rice, Yum Yum, followed up with sticky date pudding, and Ice cream.

We all settled down to watch a film that Helen had taped called Wah Wah, but I was only sort of watching and I was iching to do something else so went back in to the garage and took off the old handle on our ¾ length axe and put a new hard wood handle on instead, which I am glad about as I was unaware that the soft wood handle had already fractured and would have been imminently flying off.

Well that was it for today, I hope you will be with us tomorrow.
KJ XXxx

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Photos

All our efforts
These were some of the modifications to the camper trailer

Not very exciting I know
But it is a record