People everywhere!

Camp kitchen in action

Edd working on camp kitchen roof

Ella aged 4 months

October 28.2015

It was the power outage that killed the Internet line. The batteries in the box went flat and some software failed. After a week someone was sent out to fix it and we finally were able to communicate again. The power did go off on Sunday too, whilst I was running the goat’s cheese making workshop, but I had got up early to heat up the boiler for pasteurising the milk and I had filled bowls and buckets with water in strategic places so we were not really too troubled by it. Right now everything is working again and we are already half way through the school camp.

On Friday night I hosted an accidental dinner party for 15. Our friends were staying from NSW and Wayne’s’ partner, Danni brought our youngest Grand daughter, Ella, for her first stay on the farm. Then all the rest of the family decided to join us for the evening meal and we asked Indi and her boy friend, because we could not leave them out. Bo’s whole family came but she also brought a fantastic roast of slow cooked beef.  Everyone brought something so there was just enough food to go around.

The following morning we had another early start getting ready for a Permaculture tour. Over 20 people came but they were all very nice and it was a pleasure having them. As soon as they left Edd and I had to dash down to the ruins and continue our work on the camp kitchen. Edd made a frame for the sink top whilst I ran the cheese workshop on Sunday and the kitchen was ready for action when the school camp arrived on Monday.

The camp focus this year is on preparing food from basic ingredients so every inch of the new kitchen has been used. The cupboard is the old fridge from the dairy that broke down and we added a 4-burner wok on a trolley to join the BBQ plate. The camp brought 4 camp stoves and boxes of cheap cooking sets and absolutely every thing has been fully used.

The kids also help with the farm work. They do the usual chores helping feed animals and milk goat and the shepherds have learnt how to crutch the sheep and mark the lambs. The chicken keepers have cleaned out the chook sheds and the gardeners have re-potted seedlings and herbs. For main tasks a group have cleaned out the large poly house and moved the plastic from under the wood chippings. We are going to plant new fruit trees there next winter.

A second group have moved the corrugated iron fences around the old chook pens and we are recycling them as walls for new grow beds in a permablitz operation on the small lawn by the ruins.  It will become an area of grow beds for vegetable production. Smaller groups are trying to locate the water pipes that ran from the old house to the big tank and if people get too hot they are catching the tadpoles that have invaded the swimming pool. In the afternoons every one goes to help clear the Northeast fence line so we can repair it to a goat proof condition. The weather has been hot so this is followed by boating activities in the dam. Last night we burnt the huge burning pile of waste timber and some people slept out by the fire.

Somewhere amongst all this we used the newly completed yards to load Donna’s large female offspring onto a borrowed trailer that Edd drove to market.  Indi’s boy friend helped us get an ear tag into this large beast and push it up the ramp. The yards are a success! One cow gone; now we have to find a home for Donna and get the neighbour’s calf back to the neighbour.

Everything speeds up

Clancy and Indi

Spring flowers in the ruins

Edd and the big cauliflower

October 10.2015

Why does everything happen at the same time?  After a quiet winter we are plunged into the hectic progression of spring events. The weekend after this  one I have a permaculture site visit on Saturday morning and I am doing a cheese and goat keeping workshop on Sunday the 25th.  On Monday the Montessori school is arriving with 26 kids and some teachers for a weeks camp and activities!

Today I find a letter in my mailbox telling me that the power will be off on the Sunday 25^th!.  How could they!  It was off all Wednesday this week and when it came back on in the evening the internet would not connect. I tried to get it going in the afternoon whilst Edd was fetching oats and he tried in the evening when he got back.

We rebooted the modem, fiddled with plugs, connectors, and lines and basically ran out of things to try until Edd had the brilliant notion of phoning Eva the neighbours on the land beyond us in the bush. She had the same problem but had found out that someone had dug through the optic cable and we would be off line for a few days whilst it was repaired. This is not fair. I bet it was the electricity people who disabled the internet line too! I wish we had installed  a back up battery system, but we are waiting to do this at a time when the technology has been developed further.  We still need power for water pumps to work the taps in the dairy and fill the toilets at the ruins and the donga. The power was off for a day last time there was a school camp and it made things very hard.

Edd has almost finished his work on the stock yards. Today we hitched the tractor to the top of the tallest of the ramp poles and pulled it back straight. We have the old over head metal bits in place now and they will old the poles firmer in position.  I am cleaning out the ruins and surrounding gardens. We have broad beans forming pods and snow peas in flower. We have eaten all the brocholi and have started on the cauliflowers and bok choi. We have had several meals of asparagus and still have kale and silver beet.

Unfortunately all the weeds grew just as fast as the vegetables and each day I remove basket after basket load. I am waiting for Edd to complete his yards and then help put the roof on the camp kitchen. We brought the roofing iron today, and I found a camping stove top with four burners when I went to pick up bottles. We will have to find a way of supporting the sink and workbench. That will keep us pretty busy next week!

Indi rode her new horse over here this week. Clancy is a good looking Bay with a high wither and a slightly worried eye. He is watching everything but stays wonderfully calm. He is 14 or older and very experienced at everything from dressage to barrel racing. He seems a very suitable horse.  Indi does seem to find sensible animals. Her dog Rosa is the best behaved dog in the family. Bo’s new dog is an escape artist and needs careful watching.

Pasties and football

Wayne and Ella

Goats' cheese and pasties

taking time to concentrate on football

October 4.2015

Yesterday the Aussie football finals where on, and Friday was declared a bank holiday in celebration. Not all our family are sports fanatics so we have our own celebration to ease things along. This is the one-day a year that Edd, and helpers, make traditional Cornish pasties and eat them. We harvested all our swedes in honour of the occasion and chopped up carrots and onions. Grand mothers made pastry, (mine was not the best), and Beth and Edd managed to deal with the ingredients and produce a feast.

I had savaged the rocket to make pesto and prepared finger food featuring goat’s cheese, our own olives, humus, and kangaroo sausages and Al and Pip brought very special bread and cheese so that we had lots to nibble before the pasties cooked.  Simon provides beer and was forgiven for being actually interested in the sport.  Ti had a slack rope for his birthday that was strung up from a fence post on the house roof and this provided an alternative activity as everyone tried to walk along it.  Pip turned out to be the supreme champion and helped Silky and I along so we did not feel left out.

We were really looking forward to Dani bringing Ella for her first visit to the farm but someone crashed into their car when it was parked and they had no transport.  Wayne was far to serious about the football to want to mess with pasty eaters, but his team won, so he was happy anyway. Today the hour changed and everyone is taking time to recover from all the above.

In the week Edd and I achieved our aim and moved the smallest chook shed up nearer the sheds so that we could move the 20 chicks who had outgrown their second cage.   We managed to tip the shed onto the back of the ute and move it all in one piece, which saved time. The new position already has three sides of an outdoor pen so the next stage is to complete the final fence and let them out on the grass.

Now that the chicks have room to cope Edd is back working on the yards because the sale for the young cow Sharron, is next Friday.  Last Friday our neighbour, Craig worked with his huge digger to move the trees that have fallen over our boundary fence. We need the fence restored so that he can have his cow his side and our goats stay our side.  In the six and a half years since the fires the fence that the volunteers erected has been mostly destroyed by fallen trees and mud being washed down the creek. 

We hope we can clear enough space to put ringlock on the upper section where the animals graze.

This dry sunny weather is really helping. But having such nice helpful neighbours is more important. We can see that the new lot have stayed on Hargreaves Hill this weekend but we have left them to settle in.  No one moves out here unless they put some value on privacy and it is a fine balance to get the feeling of being part of a community and privacy in proportion.