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.