Life at Ohana

Josh is down town at the moment, so I've decided to take a few minutes to fill you all in on life at Ohana.

We've attended yet another market - this time was a one-off farmers market in Bundaberg. We were fully expecting it to be quiet (who wants to drink Port at 7am!?)....but we were blown away! (It is Bundaberg, after all!). By 8am I had nearly ran out of port and called up Josh to make an emergency dash in with more supplies. It was a great day and an awesome opportunity to meet with some like-minded producers and a captive audience.

Josh and I are about to become television celebrities! The TV show 'Queensland Weekender' is going to film a small piece on the wineries in Childers, and we are going to be profiled! They will be out here this week to film, so check back for some more updates on how that goes!

While Mum was here, we started our own miniature jam factory. We made 120 jars of Spiced Jaboticaba and Port jam, 15 jars of Dragonfruit Jam, 20 jars of Apple and Lemon Myrtle jam, 20 jars of Jaboticaba Jelly and I have some Mandarin and Kumquat Marmalade on the stove right now. We are gearing up for...

The Childers Festival! Once a year, the Bruce Highway (which runs from Brisbane to Cairns!) gets closed off in Childers and there is a big street party. Anywhere from 10,000 to 60,000 people (the number varies, depending on who you talk to!) descend on Childers for a big party. There will be market stalls (of which we will have one), food vans, music stages and all kinds of events over the weekend. I'm pretty excited to see how it goes...and hopefully we can sell some booze!

In other surprising news...I'm gainfully employed once again! There was a position advertised at CQUniversity in Bundaberg, for a part-time (one day per week) Administration Officer. I decided to apply and I got it! I start next week and I'm looking forward to the new challenge. It might be hard to juggle Ohana with the University, but it's only one day a week and a contract til the end of the year - so it's worth giving it a try. I'm looking forward to being back in a university community again...although I seriously doubt it'll be a great as my ECU/WAAPA family back home!

We had a pretty busy day yesterday. We had 9 booked in for lunch, and then a few other regulars showed up as well. We ended up serving 17 for lunch (surprise!) and sold some wines and liqueurs too. It's always nice to have busy days to counteract those quiet ones - but on the whole business has been really steady and we've had customers every single day for a long while now. This is supposed to be the 'busy' time of year, while the southerners are escaping the cold and heading North through Queensland - so I hope we can still maintain some of this stability through the quiet periods too.

Aaaaaaand, I think that's all!