Huntsmen spiders as big as my hand and ants nest in my gumboot!

We arose before dawn again this morning and as I was helping to milk the cows that morning Geoff passed me some gumboots as it had been raining all night (94mm) and there is mud everywhere.  Pre caffeine and blurry eyed I put my bare foot in to be met by something nasty.  I whipped it off and tipped it upside down and there was an explosion of around a billion large ants running in every direction.  Nadia was right in front of me and we were both as shocked as each other.  Geoff is adament that it was unintentional, although funny and reminded me that I should ALWAYS give my gumboots a good bash before I put my feet in.  Lesson learnt and it certainly woke me up in a hurry!  Lachy helped me set up for milking and I managed to milk Rose with no problems, mmmm fresh raw milk what a treat!  

Sky and I both swam in the dam today and it was surprisingly warm or at least not as freezing as we expected.  Everyone else thinks that we only think its warm because we are from New Zealand.

Meet George, he/she lives in the composting toilet room.  He/she is rather large - in fact the biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life!  Nadia assures us that it is not poisonous and that it does a very good job of hunting out the less desirable (!!!) creatures that loiter in the vicinity.

Today was spent getting the place spick and span ready for the PDC on Sunday.  36 students are enrolled and everyone was buzzing around with long lists of jobs to do.  Nadia did a beautiful red earth and lime wash paint job on the inside of the composting toilet room.  The floor for the student camp bathroom and dining room was poured.  Everything was cleaned and tidied.  Still plenty to do tomorrow but everyone is pretty excited.