comings and goings

Silkie, Ollie and morgan withGracie and Tommy

August 16.15

We have another warm day and I have been digging over the soil in one of the grow beds and moving goat manure to the place where we plan to build the next bed. I have picked the last of the boc choi, which we will eat tonight when Bo and family come over and I have picked and cooked some of the rhubarb to make a crumble for desert. The wood stove is up to heat and I have already started cooking a large organic chook.

Last night I avoided cooking for the second night because we went into Bo’s for the evening meal and met the new dog. Simon’s mother had brought round food she had cooked so we had a second birthday party for Ollie. Bo had been busy all day with a lamp-making workshop that she has organised to be ready for the lantern festival next weekend. She has been flat out working as a chef at her restaurant for weeks but she added the work for the festival just to make sure that every moment of her time was productive! No one can believe how much she gets done and she always remains good tempered, friendly and helpful to everyone at the same time.

Other local news is less happy. We heard today that a son of one of Bo’s school friends was killed in a road accident last night. Young blokes were driving unsuitably in Yarra Glen and this tragic accident happened. I am afraid that young people we know die far too often in cars round here. It is a small enough community that we all feel the pain.

August 15.15

We have actually seen some sun shine this week. The daylight hours are getting longer and the maple tree is coming into leaf. The wattle trees are covered with yellow blossom and the daffodils scatter cold at feet level. The year is definitely beginning to wake up. The goats are also close to kidding, too. We have wormed all that are not in milk and changed the paddock they graze in.

The workload will go up a lot once the kids arrive so Indi has organised new homes for the bucks and the ram. I tried to sell them but no one is buying and the effort it will take to feed and keep them is not worth their value to us. They are too closely related to the females to be used on the stock we have retained here.

Yesterday it was Ollie’s birthday, and we went with Bo’s family to the Indian restaurant in the evening. Al and Ti came so we were quite a crew. We all had a very merry time with lots of good food and Ollie showed us pictures of his new dog that he had on his phone. I have not met her in person yet but she is a rescue dog from the local pound of what looks like beagle and spaniel descent. Ollie is thrilled and so is Morgan’s dog Tommy the golden retriever.

Today Edd is pumping water up to the head tank for the dairy. He looked in the tank and found the water there is getting low. There is plenty of water in the big tank by the dairy but it has no roof so we do not use it for anything but watering animals and trees. The big tank below the old house is not full either. It has been a funny year, lots of dull, drizzly days but no heavy rain. Luckily the dams are full so we will have enough water for the stock and vegetables when summer comes.

I have been struggling to sort out the accounts. We have had so many medical expenses that we are quite stretched and now the insurance company wants more too! We need the insurance to cover Edd staying in hospital for a long period if anything went wrong, so it looks like we will have to keep it up for another year at least. The trouble is that you still pay extra on top of what the government and the insurance refund you. For instance none of it covers anaesthetist bills, which seem to come out at about $500 per procedure.