Our old windmill

Yes the Sandgropers have their very own Windmill.


Okay it mightn't be a brand new one but with a bit of hard work and lots of paint it might scrub up okay. We picked up this old windmill along the side of the road waiting for the council pick-up to come along and chuck it in the back, and for the poor old thing it would of been 'Good night the fox'.
But to its luck along come a old tight-assed fella who could see it's inner beauty and the thought of saving a few bob, and before it knew what was happening it was back in our shed and getting pulled apart.



After pulling it apart I had to use the old rivet gun that me old man brought for me a few years ago, and not having a welder it made it a fair bit harder but with lots of hammering and more rivets then you can point a friggin' stick at, it started to look like a small windmill.

Then it was just a case of giving it a few coats of rust prof paint, and putting it all back together. We then found a beaut little place to pop it in the front garden and wait for a bit of wind. Of cause we didn't have to wait for long as every afternoon we have the fremantle doctor come in and before you could say 'Bob's ya uncle'. The old windmill started to spin like crazy and has ever since.... you little beauty.



So now we have our own Southern Cross Windmill spinning about every day and I reckon it's a little beauty.

Caiguna side

Well it was time to start some work on what I like to call the Caiguna side of the house. First I had to pull up the old bricks in the ground and the huge cement tiles, and then leavel out the ground. I wanted to pave the very end of the strip so when we get our trailer back from over east we can push it up into that space. That's when our neighbour David Jones..... yes we have to keep up with the Joneses, asked if we wanted some pavers that he was gonna chuck out in a skip! Well does Jack Newton swim in circles? bloody oath i'll take them. So that fixed that and now we had our pavers which we then layed, the sheilah who had the place before us left heaps of rocks out the back so we used them along the edge. Then we planted a little bush and gave it a hit of mulch and chucked in an old dog house that we picked up on the side of the road for the council pick-up (Dad coming out of me). It comes in handy as when the mormens come knocking and it's a closed gate and you can see a dog house...... join the dots! Not even the mormans think that God can save them from a friggin' hungry doggie.


Then when all those jobs were done it was just a case of giving the side fence a paint job so it goes with the rest of our fences and that was it. And here is the finished job, doesn't look that bad if I might say so myself. In the future we are thinking of moving the little tree next to the fence so as not to reck the fence with it's roots, but that's another post hay!

Back to the Indian Ocean side

Well it was time to finish the other side of the house, where we started by fixing up the furnury. Now it was time to start making the fence look a bit better. First things first, I took three photos so I could show you a bitter idea what the frount looks like, pretty cool hay.

First thing was to put up lattice work along the top of the fence as the kiddies had a bad habit of throwing balls over the fence. Now putting lattice work up doesn't take as long as painting them, trust me. See this little bush next to our small tree, well when we got here there wasn't anything there. But over night a little bush popped up so I just left it to take care of it's self, now you can see that it's taken off pretty good so we'll just leave it alone and see what happens. Then with the lattice work up it was time to paint the whole fence line, another all day job. You can see the grass and the mulch hay, well when we came here the grass was all dead. So I made a line around the edge of the fence and dug up all the dead grass and put down the mulch. That would cut down half of my watering and save us a bit of moolah, and we also popped in a couple of baby roses (Rosie junior and Rosie junior junior) and where you see the step ladder we put in two kangaroo paws.


Now yours truly forgot to take a finished photo of the job, so I just went outside and took three photos and did the same as I did ages ago. So now you can see the finished job but it's been awhile hay.As you can see what I mean. Since then I have put down a few loads of woodchip and the windmill and a few more flowers. You can see how long it's been just by looking at the size of that bush that came out of nowhere, and if you look very closely you might see the two kangaroo paws that came up (just next to our small tree). But all in all it came up pretty flamin' good hay.

Our first fence down

Well after spending hours and hours painting our back fence so it looked real beaut, along came a windy night and the next morning this is what we woke up too. In this beaut state of Western Australia they come up with some real strange things, in this case they love to build fences like these ones. For people who don't live in Gods own country these fences are just shoved into the ground and covered in with sand. But when they fall down which because their just shoved into the ground it's gonna happen quite often, they don't just fall out and down, oh no... they snap of at the base. Now that might be okay if you want to put them back into the ground and have a small fence (half the size of the old one), but if you want your fence back you have to replace the whole bloody thing (thank God for home Insurance). By the way Rosie the rosebush was bloody lucky that we had two trees each side of her, or she might of been done like a dogs dinner!

Now hear is just one other thing that's quite funny, did you know that this kind of fence i've only seen in Western Australia isn't made in WA. Oh no that makes to much sense, so they go all the way to friggin' Queensland where the bananabenders make it for us dopey Sandgropers. Now because these fences fall down every time the wind blows 'Surprise Surprise' their's a huge waiting list to replace these type of fence panels (you have to wait for up to five months, strewth) by the way they call this type of fence HARDIFENCE, fairdinkum their not to friggin' hardy to me mate.
So it costs a little bit more but believe me it's flamin' worth it, and you replace this silly bloody Queensland made fence with the tried and proven COLORBOND FENCE. It's almost imposable to brake this type of fence, well we will find out pretty soon anyway now my bloody kiddies have gotten their hands on it. It comes with a ten year warranty but I don't think their taken into account the Jackofactor!!!






So this is our new backyard fence and doesn't it look real beaut. As you can see we already had a green colorbond fence halfway across our backyard so they did a beaut job matching the colour hay.

The Indian Ocean side

Well the first thing we done around the house was to paint the whole inside but we didn't take any photos so the next thing I stated at was the left side of the house. When we moved in the little old shed was rusting and their was no tiles just sand, and next to the house was a bloody old bush and an old rock pond that was filled in with sand and was right in the middle of the walkway, pretty smart place to put it! We didn't take any photos so you will just have to imagine what it was like, but we have to start somewhere so I attacked the bush. With the bush out we broke up the old pond and leveled out the floor of sand. With money being tight I started making the tiles out of cement! Fairdinkum it took bloody ages to set but month after month I started to lay tile after tile around the walkway, and before we knew it I had finish the first part.

The next job was to paint the old shed which was just a day job with two coats and then on to job no3 which was to pull down the old green shade cloth. Now before we started the side of the house was always rough and dark. So I thought we might brighten it up with a light brown shade cloth instead of the green stuff. And finally before putting the new shade cloth up we had to sand back the wooden fernery and then paint it. And just to have a bit more fun i was about to paint all the fences around the house. So i then painted the back fence before putting up the shade cloth.


And here is the almost finished project, when I say almost it is because I always wanted this area to be a little fernery up the front and a bike rack for the pushbikes at the back next to the shed. But as you can see it's up and going and looks a lot better then before. Now I just have to get started on that bike rack before all the bikes rust! And as always after the job is done something makes sense to you, like if you make the place more light and bright then it's gonna be hot in summer. oh....... that's probably why most of me friggin' plants died! bummer, so job no5 will be to make a roof for the top of the fernery to keep the sun of those poor little plants, lucky I kept the old shade cloth so i'll use it for that and do as they say "RECYCLE" the old stuff.... cool.

Home sweet home

Well this is our nice little Gunyah in Middleswan which is quietly nestled on the low lands of the Darling Escarpment. It's a beaut little three bedroom house which is slowly getting filled with our Notso little mob of kiddies.


The idea of this blog is just to show ya what we have been doing around the place since we moved in three years ago. And it also gives ya a chance to see where we live and what we get up to in our little home, here in the Sandgroper State of Western Australia.