Runaway dog!!

Today Mum, Dad, Sarah and the babies are going to Goulburn to meet up with our cousins to pick up our dog. That's right, our dog managed to escape to Sydney! Fortunately our cousins like her and didn't mind having an extra dog around for a couple of weeks - and we didn't really miss the poor thing either. But I'm sure that our cousins will be glad to be relieved of her, and that Sarah and Bobby (Sarah's cat) will be pleased to have her back. Bobby and Amelia get along really well together, and usually seem quite lost when they are without each other.

So how did she get to Sydney? Actually, she stowed away in our cousins' caravan a couple of weeks ago when they were visiting us. We still have no idea how she got in there, but the most popular theory at the moment is that, after a quick conference with Bobby to decide who would go, she sneakily climbed into the caravan while Bobby successfully distracted everyone. Whatever happened, she surreptitiously made her getaway, and gave our cousins a major surprise when they got to Sydney and opened the caravan only to find this little dog wagging her tail at them!

So she's finally coming home today. Mum and Dad are taking Joey and Caleb to see some train museum in Goulburn, which they're bound to love. Sarah tagged along to welcome Amelia back. Emma, Caitlyn & Bradley all had their first soccer game of the year today, so they stayed home, and I stayed back because I had some things I needed to get done today. I spent my morning playing piano and composing - because I can't usually do that with a houseful of noisy people - and had the best Saturday in months! I'm so pumped for the composition workshop tomorrow afternoon! I've even started counting down the hours!! Only 23 more hours to go...

Renovations - Part 4

Not much to report this week. The builders haven't been here at all, so there hasn't been a lot of progress. The only thing that's changed is that the bricklayer came and - well, obviously he laid the bricks!! It looks a lot better now. The good thing is that it looks exactly the same as the bricks going around the rest of the house - hopefully when it's finished the extension will fit in nicely with the rest of the house and not look out of place. The bad thing (for me, anyway) is that the only construction that happened the entire week had to happen during the 1 day I was away all day!! So I missed out on watching it and didn't get to take any in-progress photos. I've always loved photos of brick walls being laid.

The first photo was taken from the backyard on the north side of the house. I've found that for now this is probably the best view to show construction.

From east side: unfortunately I can't get the whole thing in from this angle, but at least you can see it in better perspective. The electricity box is going to have to be moved before the builders begin laying putting in the walls, and apparently the electrician who is going to do the job is away on holidays for a couple of weeks... so I don't think the builders are going to do a lot of work in the near future.

When the truck came to deliver the bricks and a load of sand, we had to dismantle part of the fence so that the truck could dump the sand directly onto the construction site. We took down the whole section just behind where the pile of sand is dumped. At the moment it is only held by 2 screws - on on each side - because we think we may have to take it down again to allow direct access to the site. The only other way for vehicles to access the construction site is to go around behind the garage and through a small gap between the trees. A very small gap, in fact. Only the smallest of bobcats would fit through there, which is why we had to dismantle the fence so the tip truck could just tip out its load of sand through the gap.

A little window into my life

One of the reasons I initally created this blog was to record interesting events and happenings in my life. Well it struck me yesterday that I haven't really done much of that. I had a very eventful day on Tuesday, which I thought might be interesting enough to blog about, so here goes:

I started by riding 10-12 km into town (not sure about the exact distance) on a bike that had only been assembled the evening before. By me. That in itself was cause for worry, because I'd never assembled a bike before in my life, nor did I have instructions to follow to ensure I did it properly. It would appear that I didn't do anything majorly wrong, though, because the bike held together all the way into town (and is still in one piece now, believe it or not). I got into town early and spent half an hour walking around town singing, looking at the latest rabbits in the Pet Shop, and eating a Billabong ice block. When the bus came I was very disappointed to find that I had left my ipod at home. So I got to spend 2 hours sitting on the bus doing nothing much except look at the same scenery I see for 4 hours every other week. I tend to do a lot of thinking in a situation like that, which is somewhat unfortunate for those who follow my blog, because when I do lot of thinking I blog about my thoughts, which is, I think, quite mundane for those who have to put up with me.

Anyway, the trip up was quite ordinary, and I tried to pass the time by thinking up some lyrics for a piece I need to compose for an assignment. My MuST classes were quite average, and nothing much of interest happened. (Except that I found out we will be having an oral test in 2 weeks. I've never had an oral test before... and apparently they are quite challenging. But this isn't interesting for those reading my blog so I shall change to a new subject.)

The return bus trip found us making quite good time, and I was pleased to note that at this rate we would arrive back in Cooma 20 minutes earlier than usual. Even the train we had to wait for at Canberra Station was early. Things were looking up. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, Matthew. No sooner had we (the bus occupants) left Canberra than we were all startled by a sharp popping sound followed by a constant, high-pitched sound. The bus driver pulled over as soon as possible to inspect the cause for this, and found that a hose had burst. It was no major calamity, he assured us, and was easily fixed, provided he had the clamp necessary to repair it. It turns out he had literally everything BUT the clamp. So we had to wait on the side of the highway for over an hour for the mechanic to arrive. I decided it would be a good idea to call Mum and let her know about the delay so she wouldn't be waiting to pick me up all night wondering where I am. THEN I found out that my mobile phone was out of credit. How on earth was that possible? I don't know. I've only had it for about 8 weeks, of which I only turn it on once a week, on Tuesdays. Even then, I only usually make one call in the evening to let Mum know to pick me up. And because we have a system of signals, she doesn't even have to pick up! Apparently it doesn't cost anything that way. I've heard people talk about how their mobile credit mysteriously disappears, but never took much notice. Now I know it's true - just like there is a little monster living inside each washing machine that eats socks, there is also a mobile phone monster that eats up credit!! For a while I was too shy to ask anyone if I could borrow their mobile, but eventually necessity overcame apprehension, and I borrowed an elderly lady's phone to call home.

After more than an hour of waiting, the mechanic arrived with the clamp, the problem was fixed in no time, and the bus was back on the road. It was good to be on the way home again! As I was looking out the window at the well-known scenery, I realized that everything was totally different now. It almost seemed foreign now, and I hardly recognized the places we were travelling through. You know what was different? The sun had set. Everything was dark. It dawned upon me what a tremendous difference light makes to our lives. That 1 hour of waiting made a remarkable difference to the trip home. Nothing looked the same anymore. Not only that - the blanket of darkness made everything feel different too! Have you ever gone for a walk at night and come back later during the day only to find that the place is nothing like how you imagined it was at first? That's exactly how I felt. All the way back I was having this mental battle with myself, trying to convince my subconscious mind that it IS the same place I travel through every week. I kept telling myself that the ONLY difference is that the sun is now on the other side of the planet. The result? Absence of light. My subconscious mind responded with, "Pah! As if a little thing like that would make so much difference to this place!" I had to agree with him there. I think my subconscious mind won the mental battle this time.

If someone had tried to tell me what an enormous effect absence of light had on the human mind, I probably wouldn't have believed them. Having experienced it myself now, I strongly encourage you to do the same. Next time you get the chance, take a walk on your own in a quiet, outdoor place, and feel the difference. If you return to the same place the next morning, I guarantee you will be amazed at how different everything seems. The only word I can think of that describes it properly is "indescribable."

The situation kept reminded me of a bible passage I had memorized some years ago. When I got home I looked it up, and found it was a passage in John:

 ¹⁹And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
 ²⁰For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
 ²¹But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3:19-21, King James Version)

I learned a helpful lesson from this. A lot of my thinking involves asking myself questions and then pondering them. The questions I asked this time was, "Do people perceive you as walking in darkness or light? Is there even a noticeable difference between the way you live and the world? Do you act like a really good Christian in the "daytime", but change character when the "darkness" comes?" It's so easy to turn from our Christian walk when we think no one will notice. Have you ever experienced that feeling when you go for a walk at night on your own, and you feel so carefree and casual, as if you could do anything you wanted, and no one would mind? It's a dangerous feeling, and often leads to stumbling if we don't make an effort control ourselves. Jesus is the source of all "light." Are you letting his light shine through you onto the world? Are you an encumbrance, or do you magnify the light for all to see?

 ¹⁴Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
 ¹⁵Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
 ¹⁶Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16, King James Version)

Renovations - Part 3

Another whole week has passed, but the builders have only turned up here twice this week. Even then, they only did half a day's work each time. They must be very fast workers, though, because they are still right on schedule, and the foundations have been laid already! As someone said, all the work so far has been destruction, but now the construction has begun - and it is far more exciting to watch!

Here are a couple of views of the newly-laid foundations. I had taken a video of the cement truck pouring the concrete, but the video camera won't let me upload any videos onto my computer, so this will have to do for now.

From the backyard:

We did have a minor hiccup with the foundation laying, however. Joseph and Caleb were playing outside shortly after the concrete had been laid (already a recipe for disaster, I know). Even though they were "under supervision", they must have devised a cunning escape plan so they could explore the new construction. Joseph skillfully distracted the supervisor/babysitter (who won't be named, to save them embarrassment), while Caleb sneakily made his getaway and "explored" the new concrete, even going so far as to "test it." This consisted of depositing both feet into the concrete, until he was up to his knees in the stuff. He then took about 12 steps, dragging his little legs along in the concrete. By the time we discovered him, he had, as you can imagine, done considerable damage. Nevertheless, Dad managed to quickly grab a nearby board of wood and smooth out all the concrete before any permanent damage was done. Fortunately the builders weren't there at the time, or they may have been upset with us. Like the saying goes, all's well that ends well - we were certainly very lucky that everything turned out okay in the end.

Well, that's it for now. Sorry I didn't get to take more photos this time. Have a great week!

My piccolo!!

As most of you probably know already, I have been playing the flute for nearly 3 years. What many of you probably do not know is that I am now learning the piccolo. My piccolo has been "in repairs" for a while, but it finally came back yesterday. I am SO excited about learning it - I think the longer I had to wait for it the more excited I became.

My piccolo (I still haven't come up with a name for it yet - any suggestions are welcome!) is the prettiest looking instrument I've ever had the privilege of owning. The body is made of ebonite, and I'm told that the keywork it is most likely gold plated! Whatever it's plated with, it looks good. It's absolutely tiny, being only a finger's width, and as short as 2 hand's lengths!

The main reason I'm so excited about it, however, is this: since a piccolo is basically just a very small, very high pitched flute, the playing techniques are very much the same. That means that I get to enjoy all the fun of learning a new instrument, but without having to worry about learning any new techniques!!

While the technique is very similar, the sound of the piccolo is very different to that of the flute. It is much more of a light "whistling" sound, and sounds more cheerful & bright. Some of the high notes can be shrill at times, though. I try to avoid playing those notes for the sake of my family, myself, and our windows!

On a different note (no pun intended), I am really loving my flute and piano at the moment. My (well, our) keyboard is leaving us to go live with Joshua tomorrow, because there is no piano where he lives. I'm so glad that he will have a keyboard to play, but at the same time I feel like I've lost a very close friend. I suppose that's very selfish of me, considering that we've got a perfectly lovely Yamaha upright piano here, but all the same I can't help having the feelings. Every piece I've ever composed was on that keyboard, so my emotional attachments to it are justified.

Speaking of compositions, I am uncontrollably excited about a composition workshop that is going to be held right here in Cooma on the 2'nd of May. A group of professional musicians and composers are coming to show high school students how to compose and arrange music for an ensemble, then they will put on a concert featuring all the new compositions. Then on May 6-9 I get to attend a music workshop which is being held at the ANU School of Music as part of my music course, MuST (Music for Students with Talent). I don't know what the workshop is going to be about yet, but it is held by very professional musicians, and goes for 4 days in a row, so I'm sure it will be packed with exciting new things to learn. I can't wait! The only problem is that Mum or Dad is going to have to drive me up there and back every day, since the bus from Cooma to Canberra would arrive too late for the workshop and we don't really know anyone in Canberra, so staying there isn't really an option.

Finally, for those of you who haven't heard a piccolo, to give you some insight into what it sounds like, here is a sample mp3 of a piccolo concerto. It may not sound really impressive to you, but I like it, and I also wanted to see if I could embed an mp3 file into a blog post, which is part of the reason why I did this - please let me know whether it works for you, and if you have any trouble downloading it. Thanks!

Edit: I have been informed that the piece I had here previously was actually performed on a descant recorder, not piccolo - a very embarrassing mistake on my part. Anyway, this time it's a real piccolo (I know for sure, because I actually saw it played), although unfortunately it is a different piece. It is a different movement from the same concerto by Vivaldi.

How much longer?

Okay, you may think that's a weird blog title, but bear with me and I'll try to explain. I've got an interesting and quite meaningful (to me, anyway) story to share.

On Tuesday night at about 6:30 we were enjoying our dinner when we received an unexpected telephone call from a neighbour, whose husband happens to be a policeman. She told us about a family who had a missing 8-year-old son. The situation sounded pretty desperate, and she asked if we could go to the family's place and join the search party.

We quickly gathered what torches and spare batteries we had, threw on a couple of jackets and headed off. Since Bradley was at soccer training, that left only Dad and me. It didn't take us long to get there, as they lived just across the river, which is only about 5 minutes from our place. When we got there, we found a few police cars with their lights on. If you've ever seen a police car in the dark with its lights on, but no siren, you'll understand what an eerie feeling it is. It seems alien, and becomes quite unnerving after a while. I'm getting off track, though.

To get back to the story, we formed a group of about 9 people, and walked to the top of a ridge that was behind the house. At this point Dad realized he wouldn't be able to manage it with his bad knee, so he turned back and returned to the car while I went on with the rest of the search party. We spread out leaving a 20 metre gap between each person, in a line from the top of the ridge to as far down as we could reach.

Keeping this formation, we walked for what seemed like ages. I'm pretty sure it would have been about 4 or 5 kilometres, but then I fail at estimating distance especially when I'm tired and especially when I'm walking in the bush with no sense of time. It was the most rugged country I've ever had to walk in, made worse by the fact that it was nighttime, and I could hardly see where I was stepping. It was an extremely steep hill, and very rocky. The problem was that the rocks were all smallish loose rocks, so whenever you take a step, you inevitably send a shower of pebbles onto the person below you. Sometimes there were larger rocks, and these posed a real danger to those searching below. At one point I got stuck on a cliff face - and I mean a literal cliff, not just a steep rocky outcrop - and it took me a while to find a way out. By that time everyone else had gone ahead, and I couldn't even see their lights. Fortunately I managed to find and catch up with them. It's interesting that in all that time, I don't think anyone considered their own safety once. Everybody was solely concerned with finding the missing boy, and praying that he hadn't gotten lost in such a place as this. Not many children would have been able to manage such rough country on their own, especially in the dark.

All in all, I'm very surprised that no one got hurt. It was a long night - or at least felt like it. The search lasted for a total of about 3½ hours... add treacherous terrain, pitch darkness, and sub-zero temperatures, and it felt like at least double that time.

I've since learned that there were 30 police and SES personnel searching at the same time. The situation was quite a lot more serious than I initially thought. Cooma police even sent for a helicopter from Canberra to help in the search, although I don't think it reached here in time. At about 9:30 PM one of the members of the search party received a text message informing him that the boy had been found. I can't begin to describe how relieved everyone was, especially the boy's family. Apparently he had been found at a house on the other side of the Murrumbidgee river. He must have walked about 4 kilometres downstream and seen some lights in the distance, so he crossed the river (I think he just waded across at a shallow area), and found his way to the house. Miraculously, the boy was completely unharmed, without any signs of hypothermia, in spite of being exposed to sub-zero temperatures for several hours while wearing shorts and a light jacket.

So in the end everything turned out well, but it left me thinking how lucky we all were that nothing more serious had occured. The situation could easily have been far worse. The 8-year-old boy could have been swept down the river when he tried to cross, any of the searchers might have slipped and gotten injured, or worse still, lost (very easy to, believe me), the boy may not have found his way to the neighbour's house, and he may not even have been found at all. Even though I had no idea who the boy was (and still don't), I am so grateful that he came to no harm. That night could easily have been his last.

Which brings me back to the title of this blog post - "How much longer?". You never know which day or night may be your last. How much longer will you spend living on this earth? Are you prepared for the life to come after this one? Is there anything that you can/need to do to be prepared? Never lose sight of the brevity of our time here - always remember that this life is about deciding how we are going to spend our eternal life. How will you spend yours? How much longer do you have to decide?

Renovations - Part 2

Even though the builders started working a week ago, they have only been here for 2 whole days. I guess that's because they have other projects that they are working on at the same time, and also because they are taking it a bit easier through the holidays. We also had a bit of rain last Thursday afternoon, which meant they couldn't stay the whole day but had to leave early.

Considering the amount of time they've spent here, though, they've made incredible progress. Most of the work so far has been dismantling the balcony (last Thursday) and excavating (Tuesday). There is a huge hole in the ground where they will begin laying the new foundation tomorrow (Friday). The cement truck is coming on Monday as well. Everything seems to be suddenly happening at once!! It is very nice to watch the progress, and anticipate the final product.

This photo doesn't show the excavations very well, but at least you can see how it is different with the balcony gone, and that the path has been pulled up. Also notice that the silver birch which was on the left side of the house has been removed. You can't see it from the photo, but there is also an apple tree which was removed.

The next 2 photos show the excavated area. The first one is a side view, from the north side of the house, and the second photo was taken right from the side door.

As you can see, the builders dug quite deep, so you can imagine there was a LOT of dirt that came out of there. The builders were kind enough to take all the dirt around to the back yard for us and even the whole yard out, which would have been a tremendous job. They even went to the trouble of levelling the surface perfectly and compacting it down. Our yard is a lot nicer for it, as the last photo shows. All we need to do now is sow a lawn - and try to keep it alive this time!! We haven't had much success with lawns since moving to Cooma... with locust plagues, weed infestations, constant drought, infertile soil, regular frost, 3 cheeky alpacas who keep getting into the yard, and a family of keen soccer players, it will be interesting to see if we can manage to get any grass to grow this time!

Renovations!

Yay! The renovations have finally started at our house!! We've been planning to have an extension built on the east side of our house for quite some time now... but when it suddenly happened we all felt somewhat unprepared for it. The builders arrived on Thursday morning, and in a couple of hours the entire balcony on the east side was completely dismantled, so the progress has been really good. It should be completed in about 7 weeks.

Here is a photos of what our house looked like before the builders started. I will [try to] post a photo each week of what the house currently looks like, so you can watch the progress.

I can't wait for it to get finished!! I don't think any of us can. The extra space will be extremely useful, especially for when we have guests over.

I know this isn't much of a blog post, but I'll leave it there today, because I don't want to frighten off anyone by doing a tremendously long post like last time...

God bless.

Matthew.

My rabbits

I promised to eventually show you my rabbits and tell you about the breeding project I'm doing. Since there's no better time than the present, that is what I have decided to blog about today.

As an introduction, I will tell you what I am aiming for in my breeding project. I started my current project in May '09. Well, if you count the months of research I did before actually beginning the actual breeding, I guess you could say the project's been going since about February '09. Anyway, my ultimate aim is to produce a "line" of rabbits with that have the small, cute dwarf body type, lopped ears, and a very special type of coat. The development of this coat will be by far the biggest achievement when I finally reach my goal. The idea is to develop a coat similar to the rex coat (the rex coat is extremely short, unbelievably soft, and incredibly plush all at the same time) - only longer. So rather than being short and plush, it will be long, silky, but still extremely soft to touch. There used to be several rabbit breeds with this coat, but they have all become virtually extinct. In very recent years, one man in Tasmania has begun to develop a single breed with pretty much the same coat, although it is genetically quite different. Anyway, the point is that the long-haired rex coat is extremely rare, and virtually non-existent outside of Australia. So to have this special coat type on a lop is going to be very exciting.

After less than a year of breeding, and only into the 2'nd generation, I'm am very pleased to announce that we have been fortunate enough to have breed a rabbit with this very coat!! He is one very special rabbit, and we are so proud of his parents for defying all odds and producing him. Well, of course God was the one that lined up all the correct genes that made it possible. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll come back to this rabbit later.

We decided to go about developing our line of "Silky Lops" (that's we we are calling them for now) by hybridising Mini Cashmere Lops with Mini Rex. We already had some excellent quality Mini Cashmere Lops that would be very useful in contributing the dwarf body type, lopped ears, AND long coat. The Mini Rex was used for adding the rex gene into the line.

Below is the original Cashmere we used. Her name is Rosemary, and we bought her from a breeder who acquired her from a friend who in turn purchased her from a pet store. She almost certainly isn't purebred, and she isn't particularly special herself, yet she has amazed us by producing kittens (baby rabbits) of amazing quality!! She is an extraordinary mother, and she has passed on her good maternal instincts to every female she has produced. She is a kind of "matriarch" to our rabbit stud - every single rabbit we have ever bred so far has her as their ancestor.

This is "Charmed" Peter. (All rabbits that have been bred at a registered stud carry the stud prefix as their first name. Peter's breeders had "Charmed" as their stud prefix, so every rabbit they ever bred carried "Charmed" as their first name.) He is a purebred Mini Rex, and very handsome one at that. He won Best Rex at an Online Rabbit Show, which was the first and only show we ever exhibited him at. Quite an achievement for an old fellow - he was already about 3 years old when we purchased him.

Below are the 2 rabbits we retained from Rosemary and Peter's litter. These rabbits are the 1'st generation of our breeding project - also known as F1's (F = generation... don't ask me why, that's just the way things are with Biology). The black one is Pepper (female), and the fawn coloured one is called Muffin (male). Pepper is not looking very good in the photo because she was very pregnant at the time the shot was taken. Pepper turned out to be an AMAZING mother, producing 10 kittens for her first litter. 4 or 5 would have been normal, but 10 is incredible. 1 of them had some birth defect and died on the first day, but Pepper did an excellent job of raising the remaining 9.

Muffin, not to be outdone by any of his accomplished family members, was a miracle in himself. His colour, the official name of which is "Lilac Tort Butterfly", is one of the rarest, hardest-to-breed colours in existence. And the fact that we had no idea that both his parents happened to be carrying the same, rare colour genes made it THAT much more exciting. On top of that, I'm pretty sure that he is the cuddliest, sweetest, most docile, affectionate rabbit ever to have walked the planet. You have to hold him for yourself to understand.

That brings us to the 2'nd generation. Of the 9 kittens raised, only 1 had the rex coat we were looking for. But what a coat! As well as being rexed just like we wanted, this rabbit happened to inherit a long-haired gene from each parent, giving it the extremely rare long-haired rex coat!!! Another bonus is that this rabbit has longer guard hairs than usual. Although this has the undesirable effect of making the coat feel slightly harsher, and less soft to touch, it also keeps the coat matt-free. This is just great for us, because the breeds that used to have this coat used to have a tendency to become permanently matted, which was a real problem. This is what eventually led to their extinction. So we're very glad to be able to start with a matt-free coat, because it means we'll have a lot less to worry about later on. By the way, this rabbit's name is Opus. "Opossum" is a name for the long-haired rex coat, so Opus seemed like a fitting shortening of the word. As well as that, Opus is an Italian word which translates roughly to "an artistic creation."

Opus's brother, Basil, deserves a mention, too. As a bit of background, we weren't expecting to be producing any rabbits with lopped ears until at least the 3'rd or 4'th generation. That would be 1½ - 2 years of breeding... quite a while to have to wait. But then one day when the F2's were about 7 weeks old, I noticed that one of the kittens (Basil), and one ear lopped. I was amazed, and thought I must be seeing things. Maybe he was just hot, and had droopy ears. I pushed the thought aside, dismissing it as too unlikely to be true. But the next day I noticed that BOTH ears were down, and had the most pleasant shock of my year!! We had a lop in the 2'nd generation!! That pretty much meant that we had been saved a whole year's worth of breeding. We had an F2 with the long-haired rex coat. We had an F2 with lopped ears. That means that it is perfectly possible to remate the same parents to each other, and produce another litter which might have a true Silky Lop, with the correct coat AND lopped ears!! Progress is a lot faster than was initially expected. Praise the Lord!!

We will be expecting another F2 litter sometime soon, a repeat breeding of the last litter, but for now that is all there is to report. "That's ALL?!", I hear you say. Okay, I'm sorry I raved on like that so much today. I have trouble controlling myself when it comes to talking about my rabbits. Thank you for bearing with me, and if you have read my blog post all the way down to here, you deserve a medal. *Gives you a forbearance medal*

If you're lucky, it'll be a while before I decide to blog about the rest of my rabbits... *wink*. Any suggestions as to what else you would like me to blog about would be most welcome.

God bless.

Matthew. 

Homes

I was doing some random thinking yesterday (as happens fairly frequently in my mind), and it struck me how little so many of us really appreciate the place we live in. When was the last time you stopped to thank God for giving you the wonderful home that you have?

Our home on Bidgee Road is about the nicest little place in the country. We are conveniently situated on a 7 acre block only 10 minutes from town. The Murrumbidgee river passes by not far from the house, and we can walk to the river through the bush in about 10 minutes. We are surrounded by mountains and hills, so the scenery is amazing. Although there is bush all around us, we have been blessed with 6 acres of open fields in which we can keep alpacas and play soccer.

Another bonus is that we are only a step away from Canberra. It takes only 1 hour to travel from Cooma to Canberra. This has been a blessing many times over. I am now doing a music course at the ANU School of Music in Canberra, and every week as I travel up there on the bus, I am so grateful that God placed us where he did.

On the other hand, we're not far away from the coast, either. It only takes 1½ - 2 hours to get to Tathra from here. Not that we ever go there, much as we'd like to, but it's nice to know that we're not far away. 

Finally, as you presumably already know, Cooma is the capital of the Snowy Mountains, which means that in winter we aren't far from the snow! Fortunately we are just close enough to the ski fields for convenience, but not so close that the town gets swamped with tourists over the skiing season. While I'm not exactly a skiing/snowboarding fan myself, everyone else loves it, and we usually end up going a couple of times a year. But we don't always have to go to the snow - sometimes God sends it to us!! Most years we get at least one good snowfall, and it is always very exciting! The sensation when you get up in the morning and look outside only to see a pure white blanket covering everything is indescribable. Below is a photo taken by Joshua of our house in the middle of a big snowfall.

I think I'll leave it at that then. Hopefully I will be able to think up a more exciting topic next time I decide to blog.

Don't forget to thank God for the place he's given you to live in today!

Matthew.

Introduction

So I finally decided to make a blog. Although it only took me one morning to create, the decision to go ahead was quite a difficult one. I kept asking myself, "Why? For what purpose would you start a blog?" I wasn't able to satisfactorily answer the question, so I kept putting off the decision. Then one day I was talking with a friend about the value of keeping a diary, and about how difficult it is to find time in the day to just sit down and write. It takes me a lot of time and patience (neither of which I have very much of) to write much by hand - at the same time I didn't want to keep a computer diary, because my laptop is already getting old, and it would be a nightmare to invest so much time and effort into keeping a journal, only to lose everything when my computer died. It was then that I had a brainwave... why not use a blog as an online journal?! It would be perfect - typing blog entries would be immensely faster than writing by hand, but at the same time everything would be 100% protected!!! No housefire, no computer crashes, and indeed nothing short of a major earthquake would be capable of removing my blog from the internet. And then there is the added bonus that I can access it anytime, from anywhere with an internet connection. So that is how my blog was born.

Having just re-read the paragraph above, I now wonder why I felt the need to justify creating a blog. Does it sound like I am trying to justify it? I don't think I was (not consciously, anyway) - instead it seems likely that the reason for that paragraph was to kind of explain to any possible readers the purpose of my blog. I can imagine a lot of people coming to this blog and puzzling over the curious way it is written. Hopefully knowing the sort of person I am, though, and knowing why I keep this blog, they will understand a bit better.

For the sake of those readers who may not know me very well yet, I will make an effort to occasionally write a post basically just telling you a bit about a certain area of my life. Some areas I hope to discuss include my rabbit breeding project, music, my plans for life, any random thoughts I may have at the time, as well, of course, as recording significant or exciting happenings in my life.

So if there's anyone out there reading this, thank you for bearing with me, and hopefully my blogging will be less monotonous in future. I look forward to sharing this experience with you.

God bless you all!

Matthew.