Farm Weekend

This past weekend we went to stay on a friend's farm about 2 hours drive from here.
We got up before the crack of dawn to load the car, wake up sleepy children and left before the sun was even up!
It was quite misty on the way...

see the tree tops sticking above the mist below?

Along the way we were greeted with the most beautiful scenery of snow on the mountain peeks and vibrant fields of canola oil plants. It was so pretty. I snapped happily away and every now and then got hubby to stop so I could take photo's. In our family, it's a common occurrence -me stopping to take photo's and phrases like "oh it's so pretty". "just look at that!", " I must get a photo", "oh wow" are frequently heard by everyone else!
(below photo: excuse the window glare!)

 beautiful canola oil fields

The weather was cold but we had warm, sunny days while we were there.

My hubby helped his friend build this permanent guest tent. I was so impressed when I saw it, as I didn't go through the weekend they built it, so it was my first time to see it completed. And his first time, as he helped to build the deck, the frame structure, put the canvas tent on, but didn't get to it as it is now.

It was amazingly cozy and lovely inside, with lovely wooden floors, a little kitchen unit and a lovely bathroom.

I recognized these photo's. I took these on my last visit.

For a man to set this up -quite impressive!

Such a lovely wood-clad bathroom with skylights and plenty of natural light coming in from the glass shower.

It was lovely to shower, and look at that view and river, knowing there is not a soul in sight for miles around!

In the mornings we enjoyed a cup of coffee sitting on this deck, listening to the birds and fish eagles. The kids played and had some hot chocolate before we got dressed and took a walk to the main house where our friends stayed.

Love these cushions.

A very cute homemade lamp!

We hadn't been there long when this happened...our Friend got his car stuck in a ditch and they spend ages trying to get it out...tsk....tsk...men! Ahem..notice the car too! LANDROVER...need I say more? (sorry to any landy fans out there!)

 The next day something similar happened....let's just say 4 vehicles ended up getting stuck in the mud....

We had decided to take the kids and go for a nice little scenic drive. Us girls and kids in the rhino cart, each guy on a quad bike. Quad bike gets stuck, our rhino got stuck...So the kids and I and my friend are standing in mud, dodge-looking plants covered in spiders, eagles and vultures circling ominously above our heads...

The men went off to fetch the land cruiser to tow out the two stuck vehicles...well that got stuck...
So back to the farm to fetch a tractor....sigh...they got stuck too....

At this point, we were fed up and walked back, leaving them to their own devices.
By the end of the weekend I can say that all vehicles except the tractor were recovered! haha. It will have to stay there until they return another weekend and hopefully the ground has dried out enough!

Here you can see my jeans covered in mud!

 

The flowers there this time of year are amazing. Seeing these made me realize Spring is just around the corner, although it certainly doesn't feel like it!

 My daughter asked me to pick her a little posy for her dolls...

Love the textures, the hardness of the rock, the flowing flowers as they trail down the rock and the crisp, brittle branches in the background.

Had to do a SP amongst the flowers on one of my many walks. I often walk alone when I am out here as I just love the solitude and I can stop to take as many photo's of the same flower as I like without having to hear that I already took a photo of that.

Lot's of walks, eating, bird-spotting, and happy little moments later we were on our way home and had more lovely views on the way home...

Wow..fields of tiny pink flowers against a backdrop of yellow....amazing.

And that concludes our little weekend escape...