plants on the move

more plants move in for autumn

edd's new tractor

indi's home

April 30 2015

We are getting warm sunny days and cold clear nights. Yesterday Edd helped me move the big plants into the house with the tractor. The mango tree has grown into a problem when it comes to moving but the new tractor did the job easily and carried all the pumpkins as well as the plants. My sunroom is looking more like a tropical forest every day!

The big news is that we have started work on the bathroom. Edd spent this afternoon working out how to put in the drain holes. There are two, one in the bath and one in the floor and they both need to be in before we do anything else because the levels need to be right.  Edd is essential for all the jobs at present. I even needed him to help with the food today when I got the big knife stuck half way through a large pumpkin. Probably an iron bark pumpkin!  I get so annoyed when I am not strong enough to do things. We eventually got pumpkin soup for lunch, the first for the year.

Birthdays in Autumn

April 24 2015

It is still very dry. The paddocks should be green by now but although the due is enough to germinate the dormant seeds there is not enough moisture for real growth. The deciduous trees are putting on their autumn colours and already there are dead leaves on the ground. There has been some extreme weather in NSW around Sydney, with flooding and wind damage but nothing startling down here. It is very much business as usual with the routines of farm work and family.

The tomato plants have mostly died and we have started to eat the pumpkins. For greens we have lots of lettuce, mizuna and parsley but the kale and silver beet are still at the seedling stage. We are eating the beans and there are eggplants and capsicum so no real difficulty planning daily food.

With the colder weather I am cooking vegetable soups for lunch using the extra vegetables from the evening before’s meal. It is often cloudy so I light the stove to cook on in the evenings and get plenty of hot water and a warm house over night. 

We are also moving in to winter mode with the animals. Edd took a trailer load of sheep to market this week. I hate selling the sheep like this. They are friendly and trusting but we do not have enough feed left to keep them and they are escaping into neighbours’ property. Most of the goats we need are mated and we are drying them off. The kids are almost weaned and we are wondering if we should buy a calf or two to drink the extra milk.

I have a big pile of manure cleaned out from the goat sheds by the ruins garden and yesterday I moved some and spread it on the new camping spot were the small poly house used to be. I hope it will encourage grass to grow there. I have a few more plants to go in round the edges but the area now looks well under control. I plan to use the rest of this manure pile on the lawn surrounded by grow beds. It just goes to bare earth in the summer because I do not want to waste water growing grass so it might as well be watered and grow vegetables.

We had a small party in Bo’s house for Indi who has turned 21. The plan was to have it on Bo’s new deck but it was the one day that we had rain and hail so we retreated indoors. Bo cooked up a feast and we all danced to some game she had on the TV that chose the person who most closely followed the screen. I have no idea how it worked but it was good fun and everyone was dancing and laughing.

Josh has had his birthday this week but all we could do was phone up with messages. Edd and I plan to visit him at the end of May before Wayne’s baby is due. He is only two days away now so it is possible to drive up and we are already planning the route and working out what to stop and see. I fancy the hot spa at Moree. Indi says she will care for the farm with help from the rest of the family. This should not be too hard now that she lives here.

strange pumpkins

Arran jacket

birthday flowers

April 14 2015

Edd changed the tap. Fantastic. I can now turn it off without grazing my knuckles on the wall and spilling water behind the units. I now need help cutting tiles because they are too thick for my little tile-cutting device. At least I have now painted the wall behind the sink with sealing material so it is waterproof. The paint is green so it actually tones in with the rest of the décor whilst I wait for the next stage.

Edd is busy making a stand for the forklift device that came attached to the new tractor. It is much to heavy to leave on the tractor all the time so it needs to be stored at a height that makes it easy to put back on. He is also getting ready to take the excess sheep to market. There has been so little rain that we have no feed left in the paddocks. We have sent the goats off onto the hill to eat blackberries. I had to walk down and find them last night before dark because they were sure that there must be an easier route home. There is, but we do not want them in the house site.

I am planting winter vegetables. This week kale Bok choi and silver beet went in. We are eating beans and still have lots of tomatoes and eggplants. But the zucchinis and cucumber are finished for the year. It is now olive harvesting season and I have a jar of olives and salt in the kitchen that I stir each day. Last weeks batch are drying over the wood stove before being stuffed in jars with chilli under oil.

The lettuces are doing well now that it is not so hot and we have harvested most of the pumpkins. I had one pumpkin in the front beds near the cucumber and zucchini and I suspect we have some hybridisation going on. We got lots of huge pumpkins but they are very pale inside and look unlike any pumpkins I know. Luckily they taste fine in a different sort of way.

Only 8 weeks now before Wayne’s baby is due. He came up this weekend with Dani and they are both very excited. I got the Arran jacket finished for them and I am now knitting gloves hats and bootees.   I get very frustrated that all my old patterns charts and notes were burnt, but I am gradually building up a new set. Luckily I still have photos of things I made but I miss the lovely old books I had that gave me so many ideas.

Rain at last

New cacti garden

April 8 2015

The big news is that we have had rain. Not just a tiny sprinkling, but enough to turn the dust into mud and save me an hours work each day watering. We have also survived Easter. Plans got a bit disorganised because Bo’s second son got chicken pox, so all our planned holiday activities were off, but we did manage a get together at Bo’s house when Simon cooked us a fantastic meal last Sunday.

Last night a friend of Edd’s came to stay with four of his young grand children. Luckily they brought sleeping bags so we all fitted in for the night very comfortably with three kids in the snug and Trev and James in the small bedroom.  The kids were very good and had fun helping look after the animals this morning before they moved on. They all had labels so that if Trev lost any they could be returned easily but really I think he was coping very well considering how young they were.

Once they had left the farm seemed very quiet. It was still raining but my indoor job preparing the kitchen for tiling has come to a stop whilst I wait for Edd to change the tap for me. The taps we have been using leans back towards were the tiles should be and as well as being too close to the tiles, the taps are also far back. My hands are always wet when I turn them off so the area around them is always flooded. I have brought a new sort of tap to see if we can change this.

But, as I said I need male help before I do the next stage. I now have three jobs going with this same issue so I have reverted to knitting and am designing and making woollies for the new grandchild, who is due in a few weeks. I have decided to work through classic traditional styles and so far I have made an Icelandic yolk cardigan and a Norwegian style louse jacket. The one I am working on now is Arran.  This is rather fun.

The museum of fire relics that the school group made was in use the day after they left when a friend brought some one interested in fire and housing over to look round.  The new fence was put into action two days later because the goats got out from our top paddock into the neighbours. We had not been able to take hay up there because our loaned tractor had to go home so they decided to look after them selves.

The cacti that Josh left in the old poly house had been brought down into my sun room where they were causing trouble by grabbing passersby and spilling themselves over the floor. I have now rounded them up and wedged them in the Slovakian dough trough with scoria. I am not sure how they will like this but they are now on wheels and much more manageable. Josh deserted plants when he left home which was an improvement on some of the other kids who left big things like horses and old cars.