Xmas day and a new pony

December 29.12. 2013

Wow, the year is nearly over. 2013 has been a difficult year and I am happy to see it end, surely things must go better next year. Al and Pip are having a hard time in the UK with terrible weather and my mum fading before their eyes. Perhaps they will realise how lucky we are in Australia despite iffy leadership and natural hazards.  One good thing already is that the new pope seems to be putting out an up to date message that heads away from fundamental beliefs. We seem to have a lot of Catholic relatives and friends who I suspect will be pleased.  

Christmas day was hot. My eldest grand daughter arrived early and caught the pony that Bo had hidden here. We put it in the house entrance where we store wood behind the bulrush gates Justin made. You had to look straight at it to get into the house but all three grandkids failed to see it when they arrived looking for the big present Santa had promised them! Bo had to call them back to look again!  The youngest aged 5 cracked us all up with laughter when she exclaimed 

” I didn’t know Santa made horses”!

Bo has started teaching all three kids to ride and so far the pony, Charlotte, has been very good. She is a bit small for the eldest boy but that is probably good at this stage.

We are gradually sorting out all the Xmas food. I have boiled up the turkey bones for dog food and made jam from fruit I turned out of the freezer to make room for the sliced turkey to go in. We are still making cheese several times a week too, so I have still not had enough time to sort the garden out. This is the first year that the zucchinis have not grown well. It has been quite wet and cold and even the grass is still green.

Yesterday was Edd’s birthday so we had a day off and went to the beach at Phillip Island. This seems to be the way we celebrate every year. This time it was just Edd and I so we dined out at the restaurant on top of the cliffs where the shear water birds come in at night. We shared a lobster and really enjoyed ourselves. Bo and JJ had done all the animals when we got home so the day was a real treat.

Next week my adopted son is off to the UK to meet his birth siblings. Yesterday I printed out lots of photos from our albums to send with him and put them together into a folder. He came over in the evening with a birthday gift for Edd. It is all an enormous step for him but I cannot think of much to do to make it easier.

Teddy flies to the UK

December 14.12. 2013

We had an early start this morning because we had to meet my eldest son and his partner outside the brewery very early. They are catching a plane today and flying to the UK so we had to collect stuff they wanted to leave in our keeping.

I am sad that they will be away over Xmas but I really need them to get to the UK and find out what is happening to my mother. My sister E-mailed me a few days ago and it seemed that as yet no one had decided on her treatment or if she could return to the nursing home.  I have not managed to speak with her whilst she has been in hospital, apparently bedside phones are all provided by a private company and are not accessible from over seas. My sister is leaving the UK today to join her husband for a holiday so I will not get any updates from her now.

My daughter, Bo, gave us a large soft teddy bear yesterday that she wants taken to my mother so we had to pass this over. Luckily my son’s partner is very loving and she actually looked pleased to be donated extra luggage at the last minute! I shall have to go on planning the Xmas feast without them. Everything has to be ready for next Friday evening!  I think I will try the mustard potato receipe that our friends from the UK taught us.  I have ordered two free range, chemical free turkey’s and the vegetables will have to wait until later in the week.

I have mainly concentrated on the table and it’s decoration. I have now got all the bits and am ready to make the Xmas crackers. I make my own because I resent paying for rubbish trinkets that no one wants. I put useful stuff in my crackers so that if they are left all over the floor at the end of the party I do not have to throw them away.

I have just had a call from Bo, who is on her way towards her younger’s son Ollie.  Apparently Ollie has had an accident at a friend’s party and is being taken to hospital in an ambulance! Bo thinks he has knocked a lot of teeth out but is unsure of the details. Poor Ollie, I just hope it is not too bad. Now I have two family members to worry about.

I have spent the morning in the garden. It is very much over run with weeds after this period of mild wet weather. The vegetables have done well , we had good  snow pea crop and broad bean crops but I have neglected the flower beds. The plan is now (due to the couple having to go to the UK) to have a wedding here in May.  This means I can hack everything back and it will have time to recover. At least that is the theory.

A fun Xmas party

December 22.12. 2013

Ollie has cost his parents a fortune for dental surgery and we are all desperately trying to stop him rowing and undoing all the work. He was over here on Friday for our family Xmas meal. The day started badly as the temperature just kept going up! We must have got well over 30C by lunchtime so I decided to cook the turkeys in the dairy and donga ovens. It was far too hot to light the Esse wood fired stove, but we cooked the vegetables in the house on the gas stove along with the Xmas puddings Bo had made. Bo’s puddings get better every year and I think the amount of brandy involved goes up too.

I cooked the mustard potatoes the way my friend Liz had taught me. This worked really well as they were attractive and not too greasy. I rigged up a massive steamer for the rest of the vegetables and that worked too. My adopted son and his partner and her mother brought lots of seas food for starters and Bo’s mother in law cooked an ice cream cake as well as fruit mince tarts so we had loads of food.

My youngest son, JJ , and his partner Robbie, helped me set out the tables in the hall. We had at least 25 guests expected so this year we used four tables lined end to end. I had brought several metres of cloth to roll out as a tablecloth.  Bo had decided that this years colours were to be turquoise and silver so we used silver coloured bowls for the dried fruit chocolates and Turkish delight and had silver tinsel and sparkles on the blue cloth. It all looked very festive but I was too busy to take a photo.

Luckily as evening approached the temperature dropped and it was possible to all be indoors with out cooking ourselves. My eldest son, Al , and his partner, Pip, are now in the UK with my mum so they could not be here for the feast but Pip’s parents came and her brother and his partner, so their family was represented. Al’s daughter brought her partner and Al’s son brought his girl friend. Our family gets larger every year! I wonder if one day my adopted son will be able to have some of his birth siblings at the feast.

I am at a bit of a loss to know how one relates to adopted children’s half siblings. Today on face book I find one of them seems to have lost their sister from the adopting family they grew up in.  I would like to send words of condolence but as we have never met it is hard to know what to say. I have seen the childhood photos of the two brothers and they look so like my son (even though they are have different birth fathers) that they feel like family.

There has been another sad event today. We were woken by the sound of helicopters flying overhead. They circled for hours until they found the place were an ultra light air craft had crashed yesterday killing the two passengers. They had set off yesterday from a conference centre just over the hill from us but never made their destination. The crash was in the forest with in sight of our farm but we never heard anything.

It is warm and over cast today and feels quite ominous. 

wow

December 7.12. 2013

So much for hot weather.  We have just endured more cold wet days. The sheep have suffered most. We finally got them all shorn just as the good weather ended, they look much happier with out their long coats but they made a fuss asking to be let into the fold so that they could shelter in the shed at night. Our sheep have learnt that they have options, and they have now taken the initiative and begun to ask for things they need. I am not sure if this is good or bad!

There has been a big family event this week when my adopted son was contacted by his half siblings in the UK and actually spoke to his birth mother. We are all so happy for him because he has wanted to find out more about his past for a long time. So far it seems that the information that the social services provided us with is basically correct. My son is rather over come by it all but he has plans to visit the UK with his partner already in place so now he may get to meet his UK family at the same time.

turning the heat up

December 2.12. 2013

It is hot today, plant-wilting type hot. I watered the vegetables early to try and keep them going but by lunchtime they were struggling. I really need to plant out more seedlings but it will have to wait until it cools down again. The snow peas are in full production so we are eating them every day, but today was the first time we could eat the new celery. The tomatoes are large and flowering but the zucchinis are still suffering transplant shock.

I think my eldest grand son is staying this week to earn pocket money for Xmas so I hope he will bring some compost in from the paddock where it was stored. I also need help moving the building materials behind the dairy. It is impossible to mow around them and the long grass is a fire hazard. We must start thinking about fire prevention measures now it is heating up.

Today our friends set off on the long flight to the UK. I do not envy them. It is a very long journey to be cramped up in an uncomfortable position. We

have had a wonderful time taking our friends round the district and showing them our Australian life style.  My eldest son and his partner are also leaving soon so that they can keep my mother company over Xmas whist my sister is on holiday. My mother is in hospital after a fall and I miss being able to contact her regularly on the phone. My daughter is going over in the New Year and we can only really leave the farm in winter so it was easy to decide who should go this time. My son’s younger children are going on holiday with their mother, so he would not be caring for them over this period. This week we have my youngest son staying and his partner should be joining us at the end of the week. We have never met her before so I hope she is not horrified at our rather peasant life style.

Our baby chicks are growing and Edd has made a new bigger box for them with Perspex sides. I have moved them into the mudroom and we have put up the Xmas tree as the new point of interest in the room. I am worried about the Plymouth Rock chicks who are not growing very well. At least we can see what is happening to them better now. The house stays a very even temperature so keeping the box the right temperature is relatively easy.

Friends, family and others

November 24 2013

We have had a really busy week with a school camp here. Some of the youngsters had stayed last year so they settled down quickly into managing the farm tasks. Several of them remembered how to milk goats too, which is a help. The group task was to clear up the paddock across the gully. It still had fences and wire on the ground from the fires that were rapidly becoming buried in weeds so we were really pleased to have this job tackled.

There was plenty to do because there was a mass of fallen timber and some larger dead gums that had to be shifted as well as weeds and wire. There was enough scrap timber to have a large fire down by the ruins on the last night as well as stocking up the woodpile for winter. Once again the school was very lucky and managed a week of fine hot to warm weather! The boat was rowed around the dam a lot but no one caught any fish. We see the fish jump every night but catching any is proving hard.

We also have our friends from the UK staying. We all went over to St Andrews market last weekend and had a meal in the pub after shopping. The good thing is that they are very easy guests to have around and having four adults to do the work has made things easier to run. Today our friends have gone on a train to see Melbourne and Edd and I are going to pick our youngest son up from the airport. He has been away for a year working in WA so we are really excited about him coming home for Xmas.

Luckily we still have lots of vegetables growing. The cauliflowers have all ripened and the broccoli is behaving better and getting ready to eat in succession. There is a good crop of broad beans and snow peas and we have a delicious crumble made from mulberries my grand daughter picked. The cucumber plants have been slow and I am yet to get the zucchinis planted out which is very remiss of me.

We are now in full cheese making mode and so I have broken into the last of the cheeses from 2012. The one we are eating now tastes good but I cannot remember what type it is and the label is gone! This year I am going to try a new starter culture used in some Italian cheeses, which I have not tried before. Feta and cream cheese are easy to make so I do them if I am short of time. They are also popular with our friends.

problems

November 12 2013

How can we handle what is going on at Fukashima?  The plan is to move the fuel rods from the pool because it is up at the top of the ruined building and in danger of collapsing. Any accident could seriously affect the world even worse than has happened so far. It seems mad men build nuclear power stations to get materials to make horrific weapons of war. We are managing well from solar power so what is the problem!

Also today we have all the photos of the damage in the Philippines caused by the hurricane. It looks awful. I know first hand what it is like to loose everything in a few hours but we had the advantage of being on a farm where we at least had enough food and water to manage in the short term. My heart goes out to all those people and I feel over whelmed by their suffering.

Today’s problems are not totally limited to over seas. My Grand daughter has decided to leave her job at the outdoor education centre and needs picking up. None of us could contact her father at first, so I was preparing for a long drive but luckily he was soon available, and is setting off to fetch her home. I am not sure of all the details yet but I expect they will come out gradually. Edd is teaching all day so he is not available to help.

On the farm I am still getting ready for our UK guests; they on the road down from Sydney, so we expect them here before the week’s end.  The room is all prepared for them and yesterday I sewed small sand bags to hold the doors shut. The doors do not have any latches yet, so something was needed as an interim measure.  I am doing all the sewing that has built up over the last two years whilst I have the sewing machine all set up. I have commandeered a corner of the sunroom to act as a sewing room and it is very convenient because there is space to lay out even the big things like the curtains on the floor.

I am also making the first hard cheese for the year. I made some starter culture last night and carefully milked all the goats in an order so that I could avoid using milk from the few that have been wormed or have just kidded. The milk has been pasteurised and is now ready to add culture and rennet. There is more milk now because four of the male kids have been adopted and now part of a new family. All the other seven kids use the feeder but there are still three more goats to kid.

I have done some soul searching this week about how we will cope with Edd’s knee problems. He really finds walking painful so we need to reduce work here to an amount I can do sustainably on my own. After much thought, I have decided all the cows must go. I hate the idea of parting with Donna because I trained her to hand and machine milk myself and she is like a family pet. The two calves we have just raised must also go and Donna’s fat daughter Sharron. It will cut out a lot of walking and winter feeding. The only snag is that we have still not built the stockyards and we need them up to load them when they leave.

My daughter tells me she is hoping to buy a pony for her children for Xmas so the cows leaving would actually fit in with having another pony here. We already have a tack room set up for my eldest granddaughter to use when she rides the hafflingers, in fact we are quite well set up for ponies.

work stops for a horse race

November 6 2013

All work stopped yesterday for the Melbourne cup. We had a BBQ in the ruins with some friends and family.  I probably drank my whole alcohol ration for a week, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day. The weather was perfect and the company the best. It is even hotter today and we are back to work. I am making a feta cheese and have done some much needed weeding. We have friends from the UK coming to stay and a school camp the following week so there is a lot to do. It always seems to go from being too wet to weed straight to hard dry conditions. Consequently weeding work is erratic at best.

We have been eating the first of the snow peas and the last of the lettuces, which are trying to bolt. We ate the first of the new broccoli last week and the broad beans are now plump. The tomatoes are rushing up but the cucumbers and basil are struggling to get going. This hot weather should help them. I need extra space to grow the zucchinis and pumpkins but that involves more work.

We have faverolles eggs in the incubator and have to remember to turn them night and morning. The incubator stays at a very stable temperature in the back cellar but some of the eggs might be too old or not fertile so we are not counting on chickens yet. I am weaning the third set of goat kids today. We have boys of all colours but only two girls this year. I think I have found a sale for four of the kids to a home where they will be pets and blackberry eaters. Mostly male kids go for meat so it is great when some can look forward to a longer life.

I have not seen my daughter for a few days because her restaurant has been very busy and she has been hard at work. It is very much the high season for her with the racing carnival on and Xmas parties starting soon! She also has her daughter starting school part time to get ready for next year. This starting slowly for a few hours is good for the kids but a pain for their parents who never seem to stop driving them around.

A friend brought over the research DVD that was made about trauma after the fires. We were pretty worried about this as we endured hours of interviews and might have said just about anything! Luckily the girl who made the film was very kind on us all and it was not as embarrassing as we feared. It was pretty sobering though because it questioned the sensibleness about living in these fire prone hills. Basically, no one is really accepting the danger that is part of the natural cycle of this type of forest. At least we had built a house to cope.

November 3. 2013-

November started with a taste of summer weather. Yesterday we had blue skies all day, and my grandkids and their friend got hot enough to enjoy leaping off the boat into the dam and making mud slides.  We are not at all worried about wet muddy children, everyone is thrilled to see them having old fashioned fun rather than fiddling with screens.

I have completed the curtain making and have even sewed covers for the sofa and chairs in the solar hall room. I had just draped fabric over the seats before which looked OK if no one sat on them for long. Edd has also made all the doors and today Stevo came over to help him hang them. The blokes only got one door hung but we did a lot of catching up and relaxing, after all it is Sunday.

Now the big challenge is the shower. We can have showers in the donga again now that it is empty, but we do have to do our own one here. The blokes put up the architrave around the doors in the mudroom too so I now have no excuse to avoid doing the rest of the tiling.

Is it foxes or wild dogs?

We live under this green hill.

October 29. 2013-

Last week concluded better when Edd and the mechanics at the shop found out what was wrong with the milking machine. Some parts had been replaced wrong way round at repair attempt one! The good thing is that it is now working fine and in heavy use twice a day. I have weaned the second batch of kids and the first gang of four now feed together from the feeder bucket. There are only four goats left to kids so the bulk of work is done now.

On Sunday morning we woke to a horrid surprise. The lamb that I was bottle-feeding had vanished from the fold over night. We had lost one very small twin lamb earlier but I had thought that the bottle fed lamb was too big and heavy to be a prey for foxes. There was no sign of blood or of a struggle if the lamb had been dragged through the fence so if it is foxes they are behaving differently to usual. It is all very worrying and so sad too. The little lamb was a cheerful friendly fellow with a pink and black nose and was almost ready to be sold as a pet.

Some one else has gone too. My friend Beni has moved out of the donga and into her new home. It seems lonely here with out her but I expect she is thrilled to be in a proper house again.  Edd and I ate at my daughter’s house last night because it was her husband’s birthday. We all had a wonderful meal of swordfish with piles of amazing vegetables and a cake made mostly of nuts and fruit. It was a very special meal. My daughter’s eldest son played the ukulele and sang for us whilst his father accompanied him on the piano and my daughter helped with the singing. It is such a delight to have this talented musical group as part of the family.

Today Edd is doing his once a week teaching day at the High school and I am back to sewing curtains. The sheep escaped this morning and are grazing on the house roof! They seem very happy with this arrangement. It certainly needs some of the grass grazed down. At least it is all green this year. I rather like the idea of living down under a little, green hill. The faverolles have started to lay in their new shed and Edd has repaired the incubator so we can try and hatch some of their eggs. Pure breed chooks are getting very expensive now so it will be good if we can get back to rearing our own. The faverolles are a heavy dual-purpose breed so spare roosters will help feed us too. 

Edd's marathon with the milking machine

October 25. 2013-

Edd has had a terrible week. He has been to collect barley from the brewery three times but on all these occasions the brewers forgot to fill our buckets so we have been stuck with bran as a substitute. He has also taken the milking machine to be fixed three times and had it stop working as soon as he tried it back here. Twice he took it to our local pump repairers but when that kept failing he drove all the way down to the place we got it and let them have a go.  Today he is driving back there for try four.

Meanwhile I am hand milking. This is not too bad as the five new kids are still getting colostrum from their mothers. Vesna had two almost black bucks and has managed it all beautifully. She is very much a non-fuss goats and allowed me to milk her for the first time as if she had been milking for years. The first four kids born have now accepted bottle-feeding and are almost ready to learn how to suck up milk from the bucket feeder.  I have one remedial learner who is slowing the process down but even he fed better today. I will have to offer the other kids a first bottle soon because their mothers are out to graze with the rest of the herd.

It has been dry today so I rummaged through Edd’s shed until I found a suitable colour of paint and I have put two coats on the newly erected chook shed. The feather footed, faverolles have moved in now and are getting used to the extra space and light in their new home. The next step is to build the fence round the orchard to give them a safe area to free range. Getting chooks to keep down the grass under the fruit trees is an important step for fire protection. The old apple trees and plum trees survived in the old orchard because the chooks had kept them in a cleared area.

There have been terrible fires in NSW this week.  About 200 houses were lost but thanks to a superb effort by the fire fighting teams there has been minimal loss of life this time. It is still horrific to contemplate the huge area of the Great Dividing Range that is affected. When my daughter was in Sydney this week she said the heat was a real shock, right up in the high thirties. The planes were delayed and the city smoky. It is a very early start to the fire season and has everyone worried what is in store for the rest of us.

The days have been pretty full since kidding started but the weather has been wet and given me time to finish all the large curtains. I am now laying out the cloth to cut for the bedroom curtains. They are much small and less intimidating. I shall be most relieved when this job is done but then I have to get back to tiling again, which is just as worrying. Already we are planning for Xmas. We will have our feast earlier this year at the solstice so that we spread the family occasions out better. It is a bit much for our married kids to do one big meal right after another to try and fit everyone in.

More kids

October 22. 2013-

On Sunday evening the wind suddenly dropped and we decided to have a try and get the chook shed up. There are four large sides and a roof that have to be screwed together on top of the platform we made. Luckily Beni arrived home just after we started and the whole thing became possible. It was not easy but by the time the light was gone we had four sides up and we used Edd’s ute as a platform so that we could get the roof into position. It was too dark to screw it down so Edd lashed it in position with lots of ropes for the night.

Next day it was still standing and we were able to find the screw holes and complete the job. I have painted the inside this morning with a first coat of salmon coloured paint that I found in the shed. It looks quite flash. I just hope the chooks like it when we move them in. The shed is across from the dairy and backs onto the nut and olive orchard. We will have to build a large pen round the trees to keep foxes out and chooks in but it should be a nice area or them. The trees will give them shade and they will keep the grass down around the trees. Chooks do a good job maintaining fire breaks in hot weather.

It has been a very busy morning. Wilma kidded and produced a large buck kid and I have begun making the first Feta cheese for the year. I think Zoe is about to kid too so we will need an extra pen tonight. I have just walked up into the paddock to check her but so far she is OK.  The first four kids are in the weaning process and all but one white buck are taking the bottle well. The white lamb is now a confident feeder and the little black lamb takes a bottle twice a day as well as feeding from her mum. We are now into the busiest time of the year and the milking machine is still not working!

4pm  Zoe has kidded, two enormous black buck kids. Fortunately she came back to the shed to give birth which saved both of us a lot of trouble. She needed help to deliver the kids and she is now licking them off. Wilma’s kid is a lovely fluffy boy and feeding well. The rennet for the cheese is still working so I have cut the curds for the first time and left them to settle. Now I am waiting to see if I am needed to pick my youngest grand child up from day care. Her parents have been away to some work do in Sydney and they are not sure if they will be back in time. This gives me a short break to work on the last of the big curtains.

kids, lambs and curtains

October 20. 2013-

It is hot today and very windy. Luckily the grass is still green and lush, so we are not in fear of fires here yet. NSW has not been so lucky and the news tells us that about 200 homes were lost last week. As I write new communities are being evacuated and so far we only know of one person who has died. Many fires in the mountains are still out of control and hotter temperatures and greater winds are predicted for the week so the danger is very real.

I am back in bottle-feeding mode. One lamb has been rejected by his mother and one of a pair of twins needed supplementary feeding to gather strength. I am slowly trying to convince Zero’s boys that they will be bottle fed from now on but the milking machine that Edd took to be repaired has now seized up so I am not happy about the extra milking.

Edd went into town for the engagement party on Friday but I elected to stay on farm duties. It was lucky that I did because Melissa kidded just as Edd left and had to be helped to delivery a doe and a very large buck kid. In the past we have actually helped lambs be born wearing evening clothes because of last minute emergencies but I just don’t have that sort of energy any more. The new kids are doing well and Melissa went out to graze with the herd today.

I am still sewing curtains but I am now on the last of the four big windows. These curtains have three drops each and take a lot of effort to make. I use heavy tape to make the pinch pleats easier but I still hang each curtain to check the length before I do the bottom hem. There are three curtains needed for the end bedroom but they are much smaller and less intimidating.

My friend Beni has started to move her belongings out of the donga and into the house she has brought. She hopes to complete the move over the coming weeks. I am happy for her that she will now have her own home again but I will miss having her around. She has been a very easy person to share with. Next we have Edd’s friends coming to visit from the UK and various school outings. There is always so much to do.

We have prepared the base for the new chook shed and Edd has straightened and strengthened all the wall sections but it has been too windy for days to actually put the shed back together. I am hoping we will get that done next week too, surely this wind can not keep up for ever.

Zero comes first

October 15. 2013-

The first of the goats kidded this weekend. Edd got the last run of goats into the shed and noticed that five came in instead of six. After a bit of working out we discovered zero was missing. Beni helped me search the paddock and we found her with two large white buck kids below the small dam. For a first kidder she had managed very well and the new family all looked healthy. We led Zero back to the shed and carried her kids in wrapped in old towels. I helped Edd build them a private pen in a nice warm corner of the shed so she could have a peaceful night.

Today Zero went out to graze with the herd after milking and I have just given her kids their first bottle. One little chap worked it out straight away and sucked eagerly but the other larger kid is not as sure about the new milk delivery system. I went out to buy new teats earlier in the day and came home to find a sheep cast on her back and the horses heading up our grass roof! The sheep was easily rocked back onto her feet and the horses followed me back to their paddock lured by some lucerne chaff. Someone must have left the latch improperly fastened on the gate, as it was wide open. I don’t think the horses have learnt to undo gates yet. I think I have now restored enough order to treat myself to a cup of tea.

This last weekend was very busy. We had some friends staying from NSW who were down south to run an art workshop and we also had a permaculture group on a site visit on Sunday morning. Edd had to go to the market on Saturday because once again we have produce to sell so I got up and did all the animals early so that I could do the art workshop with my friends. I do not often get whole days out with friends so it was areal treat. The subject concerned was the use of colour and I am all inspired now. I just wish there was more time for painting.

This is such a busy time of year because we are now into our growing season and all the vegetables need planting and tending. The broad beans are almost ready to eat. We have lovely lush lettuces and the snow peas are racing up their trellises.  I have fed the last of the old celery to the chooks and planted new seedlings and we have even put out tomatoes, cucumber, and other frost sensitive crops. Once again I am running out of planting space and have started to build a new raised bed. It is no good putting seedlings too close or they all bolt before they are good to eat.

The strawberries have fruit already and the mulberries and loquats are in the process of ripening. Little pears are forming and the season is off to a flying start. It must be all these rain showers that drive me crazy. The worst bit is that we are heading fast towards the Xmas season, which is totally at the wrong time of year in Australia. We also have a family wedding to plan for next March that could possibly take place here so that will mean extra planning. I do not mind. I enjoy things to look forward to.

friday 13

September 13 2013

I have just worked out that it is Friday the thirteenth of a thirteen year! So far things have been OK. I am mostly over the virus that made life hard last week and I have moved rubbish and broken bricks into the base we are building for the new chook shed. We will concrete over the rubble and then put up the shed with out worries that a fox could dig in. There are still piles of rubbish left from the fires four years ago but most of it can be reused in some form. I got rid of some treated pine pole ends this time by fitting them between the bricks.

Now I am back in the house clearing up after Steve and Edd put up doors and curtain rails last week. The work meant we had to dig into the lime render, and once you do that it leaves a mess everywhere. We have friends from the UK coming to visit us later in the year and it will be so nice if we have curtains and doors for privacy. I will just deal with the mess as part of a spring-cleaning effort.  I do have to sew the curtains, which I am not very enthusiastic about.

The sheep look heavy in lamb so we are bringing them in to a small croft by the shed at night. The foxes are less likely to trouble them if they are up close to the dogs. Years ago we lost every lamb to foxes when we tried leaving them in their paddock over night. The foxes just killed them and left them lying there which was doubly annoying.

The sheep have to share their night space with Banjo the white buck goat. My friend came in after dark one night and found all the sheep in a circle round Banjo staring at him. I expect they thought he was one of them who had been shorn and they were trying to work out which of them he was!  Sheep are not very bright and have trouble recognising their own mother after shearing.

September 6 2013

Tomorrow we have an election and the general feeling is that the Abbott government will get in. I am sad about this because I think the Rudd government did a good job of managing the economy over difficult times. I will never forget that Howard committed this county into the war with Iraq without Parliament of the peoples backing. With the trouble in Syria very careful diplomacy is necessary. I fail to see how military intervention can help the people there be any safer.

On a happier not the rug we ordered in Turkey has arrived and it looks great in Edd’s room. I always worry when I have to guess the size and colour needed but in this case everything worked out OK.

spring has sprung

September 3 2013

The early morning mist cleared and the sun set all the dew on the fresh growth sparking. My poor husband has to teach maths today at the local high school but I got to stay here. Even the goats were in a relaxed mood and milking them was a pleasure. Most of the adult goats are pregnant but we get enough from them to feed ourselves and the two calves. Milking is a peaceful occupation at this time of year because we do it by hand. The milking machine takes a lot of cleaning after use and it is quicker not to bother with it when the goats are not in full production.

Our new chooks are laying well and the vegetables and grass grow noticeably  over night. We are eating rocket, silver beet, celery. spinach, parsley, and stored pumpkins. The broad beans are in flower and there the snow peas have started to climb their poles. I need to get the potatoes into the ground and start some summer crops off indoors.

It is also orchid flowering time. My youngest son has left me in charge of his native orchids that have tiny pretty blooms. I was given an orchid buy a guest last year that had a perfect magenta flower. It lasted so well for so long that I actually checked just incase it was an artificial after a couple of months! Now that  I discovered that I can  actually have orchids around with out killing them I have treated myself to something quite spectacular, which has even better flowers. It is now the star of my indoor jungle.

There are no plants  outside  by our new house because I do not want the work needed to prevent it becoming a fire hazard. Instead I have a rock garden between the house and the big dam. The view of the hills and the bush beyond the dam gives us a picture window outlook from the house with out any additions at all. the vegetables and fruit trees are have stayed round the ruins of our old house were there they can be watered from the dam water tank. The old brick floor that we had in our old house is now a patio area, and we have put up a roof to provide shelter from the sun and rain. It provides a wonderful venue for parties and tour groups.

We are still putting the final touches to our new house. This week my husband has had help from Steve to put up the doors he has been making. they are made from thick recycled wood and look very solid. At the moment there is no privacy here at all , which has not really mattered because we have no houses or roads that can see in. We have been pinning up fabric over the bedroom door openings when we have visitors but the wooden doors are a big improvement. We have even got curtain rails ready to put up. Once they are up I will have to sew curtains and I am not looking forward to that job.