It's a wonderful life, if by life you mean dosage.

.
Another snowy day up on the mountain. Time to do some baking! I've not been doing much cooking at all since the move but have been craving my jam thumbprint biscuits for some time.



Years ago I found a Donna Hay recipe for basic cookies with a dab of jam in the middle. Simple to bake, but delicious. The recipe was cut out and added to my little recipe book, a hodge podge of all kinds of recipes I find in newspapers and magazines.

Some were made with coconut butter carted up here all the way from Florida, and raspberry jam for the others.



The days are so long here. By 4 pm it's dark and with our alternative energy house, we can't be blaring all the lights and power so we tend to settle down in front of the telly and the wood stove with a cup of tea for the evening. Thumbprint cookies are the perfect accompaniment. Just hoping I can refrain from scoffing them all tonight.

Donna Hay Thumbprint Cookies

180 g butter

1 cup castor sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup self-raising flour

1 1/4 cups plain flour

jam

Preheat oven to 180 C. Place butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the egg and beat well. Stir through the flours and mix to a dough.

Roll 2 tablespoons of mixture into a ball. Flatten onto a baking tray lined with non-stick paper. Press your thumb into the middle of the dough to make a hole. Fill the hold with jam or a chocolate sweet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or untl golden, then allow to cool on wire racks. Makes 15.
.

Goodbye City life, green acres we are there.

Darling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

.My life is like Green Acres. As the theme tune says, 'hard living is the life for me'. What? How did this happen? It's certainly not true and might I say that I discovered dirt under my nails today and they were in sore need of a proper manicure.

My city sensibilities are just so offended by country dirt. I refuse to dress in the dowdy country style around here. Overalls are so un-flattering. One can still dress up a bit on the farm you know. I am sure the pigs will appreciate a touch of glamour in their little porky lives don't you? (wink)

From Marvellous Melbourne, to Trendy Tampa, how did this city slicker end up in living on top of a great big Mountain? In the words of the band Powderfinger, 'This life turned out nothing like I had planned'.

My dreams always involved living in the city, perhaps an exotic one like Milano or Venice, Vienna or even New York.

" I just adore a Penthouse view, darling I love you but give me Park Avenue"- Green Acres theme tune.

.

Instead of the fast pace of city living, I am residing on 40 acres and spent much of today carrying rather heavy logs of wood from the shed onto the wood pile on the deck. Not only that dear reader, and please be seated before reading on in case you find yourself dizzy from the shock, this fancy Countess was out chopping big chunks of wood into small pieces for kindling. That's right, me with an axe in my hand, dangerous and disturbing, and probably a violation of my parole. (joking)

.

So much for my dreams of being lady of Manor up here, it seems I am more like lady muck!

.

The wood shed.

Even in the country one cannot be without a three strand pearl necklace.

While Eva Gabor was allergic to Hay in the charming comedy series, I am in fact allergic to manual labour of any form. Imagine my horror at realising today's event was not something to do on a fun country adventure caper, but something needed on a regular basis to stop me freezing to death in sub-zero temperatures.

Firewood on the porch, the fruits of my labour.

This country caper is turning out to be such a challenge. My mission is to survive and do all the farm things, but to still retain my sense of style and elan and to continue to wear my fabulous Carol Brodie jewels, even if it's just to impress the chooks.

Let me just say this, Countess Chichi simply will not allow herself to become Miss Mountain Woman. It's pearls and Rolex and Tod's shoes for me. Throw in some lovely fancy frocks as worn by the gorgeous Miss Eva and you get the picture.

Just the frock I need for feeding the chooks in.

Will I become Miss Mountain Country 2010 or will the city keep on slicking right off me? Who knows, who cares you say, cheeky! If any readers see pictures of me wearing cover-alls and chewing on a piece of wheat or hay or whatever it is bumpkins chew on, please leave me a stern message, bring me back from the brink of abandoning all fashion sense and fanciness.

If that fails and you see photographs of me either riding a tractor or shopping at Walmart in a wife beater T-shirt with a mullet hairdo, I beg you to give me a good hard slap.

Despite the intervention were I to end up dressing like this cowgirl all hope would be lost and I should be institutionalised for my own good. Nuff said.

At least I think it's a girl. Not really 100% sure. Yeeehaw

Photo from peopleofWalmart.com

"The Chores, the Stores" - Green Acres theme tune

.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH NO.

.
Day 7, snow is still thick on the ground and the rain pours down in incessant sheets, but is it normal rain or is it, chubby rain? (reference to the movie ‘Bowfinger’). Problems still abound at the new home.

Our furniture was scheduled to arrive 6 days ago, it’s still not here. We are sleeping on a mattress on the floor and the only bedding we have is our Florida stuff, very lightweight and cool. My warm down Doona and winter sheets are coming with the furniture, what I wouldn’t give to have those warm and wonderful beauties right now.

We have wood fires and we get those burning, making the house lovely and cozy, however during the night they burn out, leaving us to wake up in freezing cold.

View from our drive way.

Our cat Tiger has a nasty cold and in vain I try to keep her warm. Having no blankets yet I swaddle the poor love up in towels leaving only her little head poking out. I fear it’s not very helpful but it does look very cute.

Kitty in a blanket.

We are totally off the grid here, it’s all well water, solar power and propane gas. Ideally, it means we are not dependent for our living needs, but right now the system is a mess. It’s not the stone age by any means, we have a lovely house with all the amenities, it’s just that when we switch on the power it comes from our solar batteries, not from city power. As electricity prices rapidly escalate, it’s a very appealing source of power. As our power goes out, it's not so exciting.

Keeping warm, kitty style.

Our eletricity keeps cutting out at the moment which is more than bothersome. It seems that the former owner of the place did not conduct the required maintance on the system, thus we have inherited some problems. The Colonel has been working hard to get it all back ship shape.

Today we had a man arrive to fill up our propane tanks. What an essential item that is. We use propane to run the generator each day as the solar panels don’t get enough light to fully charge in the winter. The refrigerator runs on the gas as do two heaters. As we are low on gas we have been refraining from using the heaters.

To my great delight the propane man arrived this gray and rainy morning to fill up our tank. Wait, there is a complication. Oh dear. It seems that since moving to Castello Chichi, it has been one complication after another. There is a leak somewhere which means we CANNOT refill the propane tank today. Horror.

Our driveway, it's a long one.

Someone must be summoned out here to find and fix the leak. In the meantime could this mean no generator power, no heating, no fridge? We can put the contents of the fridge outside as it’s cold enough, but that will just draw the attention of all the nasty beasties that dwell in the forest’s around.

A loo with a view.

As cute as Bears and Cougars and even Moose are, those darlings are deadly. We have a Moose that hangs around near our house. I have christened her Dame Nellie Melba and have already fallen in love. I am told that it's not a good idea to get up close and personal with a Moose so I am hoping Dame Nellie and I do not get well aquainted.

The house is nice and full of charm, but until we get the furniture and all this sorted out I am in a state of discombobulation that threatens to lead to hysteria. We have some plans for remodeling which when completed will be very nice indeed.

Eventually we plan to grow fruits and veg and make fancy jams, dried fruits and all that good stuff. There is an orchard here and a lovely big veggie garden, surrounded by Moose proof fence so those buggers don’t get in and eat it all.

A compost bin will fertilise the veggie patch and I found a chook shed near the house. Right now it’s just a wood building with no windows. I will be having none of that dear reader for my cosseted chooks. We plan on using that as a base and creating a deluxe chook house, complete with a big outdoor area all screened in with chicken wire so they can gambol around in the dirt while enjoying spectacular mountain views. (wink). In the spring time we will let them roam around eating up all the nasty bugs. Let’s just hope some wolf does not feel like KFC and devour them.

Will post pictures of the interior when the good arrive and it looks less like a bomb site.

I'm under 15 feet of pure white snow.

.
Day 3 in the new country house, without water for 3 days and now the power has gone down. What a freaking surprising adventure this is turning out to be.


Birdhouse and our Christmas Tree

Things have not gone to plan as yet. We drove up from Denver via Montana, an ardous 11 hour trip, the 8th day in a row of such trips. Imagine how wretched I was feeling at this point.

.

Ice hanging off our roof with a view to the Pump room with solar panels.

As our place is not the easiest to find we arranged to meet the former owner at a place we both know and he was to show us up the mountain. Unbelievably it was dark by 4 pm so we had to drive in the black of night with snow falling and on the roads. Welcome to the Winter Wonderland Countess. (grimace)

Ice, ice baby.

The drive up was steep and on unpaved road and as far as I am concerned, it was treacherous. That was enough to set me into a near fit of hysterics. I have seen it in the daytime and it’s much worse. One can see the mountains and hills and the drop on one side. I have been told not to worry, if one were to go off the side the trees will eventually brake my fall. Charming indeed.

Perhaps one day I will be appreciate to the view and the surrounds, perhaps one day I will by able to drive up there on my own. Crikey.

We arrived at the new abode only to find out from the owner that the pipes had frozen and burst and there was NO WATER. Indeed. I wanted to go right back to town into a hotel, but there was to be none of that. We have a water well on the property and with some borrowed buckets from the former owner we were to make do.

The Colonel on the tractor off to plow the road. We have to plow 2 miles of road, it's a long way from the concrete jungle. The day will come when I will have to get into that hunk of metal and do the plowing. (panic attack)

Not only did we sorely need to shower, clothes are in dire need of a wash.

On day two the former owner arrived and worked on the problem, thinking it was fixed he left only for me to discover that in a short time it stopped working but not before flooding the master bedroom.

As we don’t have our furniture yet, our mattress has been plonked down on the floor in there. It was soaked. Now we have no water, no dry place to sleep and our room smells of wet carpet.

It’s day three and the power has gone out, we have no idea why, we have a solar panel system, off the grid and all that and it’s all rather complicated for me to deal with. The plumber is here working on the water problem and I just heard him say, ‘oh shit’. Not a good sign readers. I believe he will be needed to get into a wall to fix the myriad of plumbing problems that seem to be popping up. Joy oh joy.

View from one of our rooms.

Moving to the country, I'm going to eat me a lot of peaches. The mountain change was the Colonel's dream and I am just along for the ride. So far I am not having the best time. The only reason I have not topped myself is because I can’t decide, a bullet in the head or an overdose on pills. Sucking a revolver is not a good option as it’s far to cold to be putting any metal in my mouth, nuff said.

This mountian change is not quite so wonderful at the moment. Perhaps when I finally have running water, power and my furniture arrives giving me a chair to sit on, TV and Internet I will feel much happier about the move.

Title from the song by Nick Cave

All pictures apart from the picture of the Idaho sign taken on our property.

.

Tales from the wide open road.

.

We have safely arrived in Montana. The days have been long and it's always such a delight to reach our destination for the night.

Yesterday we drove through Missouri and Kansas. I am sure many lovely people live in Kansas but oh my word, what an excruciating journey that was. It took most of the day to drive through that enormous state.

Kansas is home to the Great Plains. Well plain it is my readers. Nothing but flat land as far as the eye can see. Flat and boring. For some reason I have a strong aversion to flat land. I just hate it. Give me undulating hills, trees, rivers, creeks and streams and failing that, Skyscrapers. Gargantuan concrete and glass strutures jutting into the sky much more appealing to me than endless, outstretched plains.

Hay bails on the plains, the endless plains.

Typical view on the road through Kansas.


Imagine all day of this?

I love this thought provoking billbard, it was the highlight of the drive through Kansas.


The unbearable ennui at times overtook me and I thought about throwing myself out of the moving vehicle just to end it, however I just could not bear to have my stinking dead carcass hit the earth of Kansas, the horror.

What was Dorothy thinking? Stay in the Emerald City you stupid girl.

Colorado.

We made it through to Denver, Colorado where we visited with some friends. It is just beautiful there. After a wonderful evening we hit the road again and drove through Wyoming until finally reaching Montana.

Outskirts of Denver.

Wyoming.

Tomorrow should be the last leg of our epic journey. Time to go to bed and get my beauty sleep, goodness knows I need it. The air is so dry, not like the humid air of Florida, my skin is super dry and all this travel is not helping at all.

.

Road Trip

.

The great trip across the USA by road has begun. Driving all day, and I mean all day, is not much fun at all. It's all on Highways so we seldom get to see anything interesting or stop anywhere nice, we eat nothing but junk food and if the adage, 'you are what you eat is true, " then I should soon begin to look like a giant, greasy burger. EWWWWW. Alka seltzer is my best friend.

Runty and Tiger asleep on the front seat of the Jeep.

Fortunately there are plenty of pet friendly hotels here in the USA, where all 5 of us can keep warm at night.

We drove to Arkansas to visit with some good freinds of ours. While there the truck broke down and we had to spend most of the next day waiting for it to be repaired. It was so cold and I was unprepared. Fortunately the Mrs we stayed with made a gift of a wonderful warm pair of gloves for me. My hands were so cold they were about to fall off. Thank you Auri for the lovely gift.

Bentonville, Arkansas.


We have some wonderful friends and had a really nice visit in Bentonville, Arkansas. The Mrs cooked some wonderful meals for us which was a very welcome change from the greasy fast food. A wonderful time was had enjoying spending time with that wonderful family. They even had a gorgeous dog that I wanted to kidnap.

Arkansas was a pretty state and Bentonville was lovely. I got to see the first Walmart store ever, I love Walmart. The head office is there in Bentonville. Beth Ditto of the Gossip is from Arkansas, her music is great and she is a glamourous trend setter so the state is not the backwater people think.

The first Walmart store, now a museum.


Driving all day is just horrible. How do truckers do it? No wonder they pop Truckers little helpers, (amphetamines) all the time. Can't say I blame them.

I miss you Florida with your warmth and sunshine. Yes we had a love/hate relationship and things didn't quite work out, but I can change I promise. I can acclimatise, my blood will thin, I will stop complaining about your incessant heat and humidity. Florida, take me back, it's cold out here and this Countess is not liking it.

40th Birthday

.

Yesterday I turned 40. I still feel 28, shame that the looks don't match. Wrinkles and sun damage are starting to show on my skin, bugger that

On the way to my birthday dinner at the Vinoy Hotel we had a very unfortunate incident. The vintage Volvo went through a huge mass of water on the road and broke down. We have not had rain for the longest time in Florida, but yesterday the skies opened up and the deluge poured down.

The Colonel pushed the car with the help of some kind stranger into a petrol station, getting soaked through while in his finery. I remained in the car, well someone had to steer, besides I didn't wont to ruin my coiffure or my fancy outfit.

While working on the car at the station the Colonel was having no luck. Some random guy came over and started helping and when things were clearly not going in our favour, drove us home so we could get our second car. Honestly, what a rare, good hearted person to show such kindness to complete strangers and to go so far out of his way for them. I think he was an Angel in disguise and am very thankful to him.

We were able to get to our dinner, 30 minutes late and a bit frazzled but with ravenous appetites. All of my best friends made since moving here were there and I had a wonderful night. Not only did I imbibe liberally my favourite drink, the grasshopper, one of the guests bought champagne for everyone and offered a lovely toast to myself and the Colonel. Cheers!

Prawn Cocktail. I had chicken stuffed with Lobster, but got stuck in so fast I forgot to take a photo.

On the present side of things I made out very well.

Rolex watch from the Colonel.

Anyone fancy a cup of tea?

Wedgewood Jasperware tea set

Chocolate wine. Yum!

Lapis necklace bought back by one of my guests from Bahrain. It was picked out for me because I love lapis. So sweet.

A Survival guide written by this guy! It was meant to be a bit of a joke gift but honestly, where I am going it will be essential reading. This guy is probably considered hot stuff in Idaho. Oh dear!

There is also a pashmina bought back from Afghanistan. It's very lovely but I didn't take a picture as it has already been packed away in a sealed box. I have been assured it was not purchased from some crazy Talibani though.

Today we have been running about doing necessary errands and packing. Moving is just awful, I loathe it. Writing this blog post is a nice little break, it was either stop and do this or have a nervous breakdown, still not ruling out the latter.

This is my last post before I hit the wide open road. Not sure how long it will be before I am able to get Internet access again. Hopefully it won't be too long as there will surely be stories of surprising adventures acculumlated while driving across this vast land.