moving cows and neighbours

Edd making stockyards

Native mint and rosemary in flower

September 27.2015

Mum got it right and her friend is now living a few rooms away from her. I am really glad because this week Mum’s phone is broken so I have not been able to get through for our daily chats. Once again we have had a warm sunny weekend and we have worked long hours outside.

During the week we collected our cows who have been on our neighbours property to visit their bull. Our cows followed Edd on the tractor but another neighbour had a young steer who has been with them and he was very difficult. Eventually we got all three animals about to go through our front gate but at the last minute the steer leapt up the bank and went straight through the fence back onto Hargreaves Hill!  We did not bother to go after it because to tell the truth we did not really want it in our place.  Two days later it went through our top fence and into my tree plantation but I was able to get it out and into the paddock with our cows.  At least it is not being a traffic hazard on the road any more and I hope it will stay here until our neighbour can fence it into his place.

The neighbours moved out on Wednesday . We took them up Hargreaves Hill beer and cheese on their last night and said a tearful good by. It is the end of an era. The Hargreaves family have been on that land for many generations but they have been living with out a house in a draughty shed since the fires and had had enough.  A new couple have moved in this weekend . They are not here full time and have a house somewhere else for now. We invited them down for a cup of tea and a look around. The shed on their hill looks directly down on our green hill with its chimneys, so we are probably their closest neighbours though we do not share any boundary fences.

They do seem very nice but we were horrified to hear all the conditions the council has imposed on them before they can get permission to build a house. We did not even know that we have been rezoned into “green wedge”.  It seems now that other people have the right to decide every aspect of our lifestyles. We are so lucky to have grown our children up in a time when there was so much freedom and space. I would not like to do it again today in these times.

We had cooler weather in the week and I spent two days doing the grouting for the bathroom tiles. I am really pleased with the results. Edd has kept working on the stockyards and they are nearly finished too.  Other than that, we are just planting our new season vegetables and I am clearing up in the gardens. I have chopped back the mulberry trees so that I can mow under them and today I moved a large dead hebe and cut back the ornamental vine that was trying to choke the one remaining avocardo tree.

September 9 2015

Last weekend was bliss. Warm sunny weather and blue skies brought us all back to life and we were able to tackle various garden issues with enthusiasm. My broccoli is now ready to eat and we have planted out the first tomatoes and a capsicum, both protected by polythene shelters. The snow peas have started to climb up the frame I made and the new lettuces are growing fast. I need to get the new bed built as fast as possible to accommodate all the new seasons stuff.

We have several new lambs and yesterday Edd and I drove down past Colac to pick up a young male goat kid. The traffic on the Western Ring road was awful and took hours to get through. A lot of new housing estates are being built on the west of Melbourne and the traffic from them shares the airport road. It is all a bit of a disaster, or a planning failure. Along with a new male goat kid we have also got a new prime minister. This is a big relief. Well, both of them are. Perhaps we should call the kid Malcolm, but we might regret that later.  At least this new PM is prepared to listen to scientist about climate change and he is aware that we live in the present times.

Today Silky is in hospital for minor surgery and I am due to pick up Ollie from school. The school holidays are about to start and Bo plans to take her family to the Gold coast where Simon has some beer business. Indi is going off for two weeks to run outdoor Ed programs for school kids but Ti has to stay in Box Hill with his mum who has decided to cancel their holiday. Edd and I will also stay at home; with all the baby animals it is a busy time of year. Indi has brought another horse. This time it is an older one that she can ride. She is agisting  at a place not too far away that has horse facilities.  Her young stallion, Monti, is getting very frisky now that the spring grass is coming through.

My mum tells me that her friend Jean, who was our neighbour when we were kids, is going to come and live in the same nursing home as she does. I do hope she has got this right because it would be wonderful for mum to have a friend to talk to. So far mum has hated being confined to the nursing home and is terribly bored because she has lost most of her eyesight. She has days when she cannot separate her dreams from reality so I hope that she has got this one right.