An Indian summer lets outdoor work proceed

 The new roof on the water tank.

 Edd cleaning up the paddock

Ben dug out the posts left when the vineyard burnt down.

February 26 2017

We now have a corrugated roof on the water tank but no sign of rain to fill it with water.  Our supplies in the other tanks are rapidly dwindling and it looks as if we will have to buy a tanker load of water to tide us over. Indi, her boy friend, Ben, and his brother seem to live here a lot of the time so we use quite a lot for clothes washing and showers.  I found a fifty-dollar note in Indi’s washing when I hung it up today so I teased Ben about money laundering.

Ben has actually been doing us a great favour this weekend. He has borrowed the twelve-ton machine from our neighbours to clear some ti-tree and he then pulled out all the remaining poles in the old vineyard.   Edd is thrilled because he can now plough the paddock and work on it much more easily.  Ben is thrilled because he can use the posts to fence off an area for Indi and himself with out having to buy any poles. We are hoping we can use the machine to clear the route for the fence line across the gully before it goes.

There is a lot of urgent fencing that needs doing.   Edd has been trying to do as much as he can but we have got to the stage where we will need to pay for someone else to help.   The animals are all getting out into the wrong places and that will cause other troubles.  I found that a lot of the goat kids had got out onto the road on Friday but I lured them back home and shut them up in the yards. I was just feeling good about averting this disaster when I discovered that one of the male kids had got out of his pen into the hay.

We have now sorted the kids into two safe yards and put the older does together so we can start weaning them whilst continue to feed milk to the younger kids.  This also means we can just feed the goats instead of milking them in the evening and feed the young kids from milk in the fridge. This cuts down our work a lot and makes timing more flexible if we want to do other things.  If the kids do not like it they only have themselves to blame. We were too busy at other work to move them until they moved themselves.

Al and Pip stayed with us on Friday night so that they could collect stuff from a shed at their old house.    Before they drove home we all had dinner together in Bo’s restaurant with Bo and Simon. It is such a joy to have all the family together like this.  We are very lucky.  Bo’s restaurant may not be the most financially successful place around, but it has provided all our family with a safe harbour and a place to relax and socialise.  It has also provided work for the younger family members and friends. 

The tomatoes continue to ripen in abundance. I have put kilos of prepared tomatoes into the freezer as well as eating them and giving them away.  We even sold them at the market on Saturday along with eggplants and zucchinis. The lettuce and the Bok choi are also large enough to eat and on Friday night we ate goat curry and aloe began.  We are enjoying beautiful autumn weather.  Crisp cool nights and hot sunny days.  Pale golden paddocks beneath deep blue skies. This is one of the best seasons.

repairing and cleaning the water tank

 Working in the water tank

Naked ladies are in flower everywhere

The physic garden is doing well,

February 18 2017

The water tank has now been cleaned, had holes filled and new roof stands welded.  Edd has been filling the big holes with a special compound and today we painted over the small holes with Mr. Crystal, a product that strengthens the concrete with crystals.   We are expecting Stevo to come early next week and help Edd put the tank roof on.  Then we need to sort out the drains from the gutters to the tank and wait for rain.   Luckily it  has been hot and dry. Ben's friend could not do the welding if there was any water in the tank.  This week three people died inside a water tank they were cleaning.  It is thought that they got carbon monoxide poisoning from the equipment they were using so it was probably a good idea to do all this work before we put the roof on.

The fires in NSW have died down a bit with the weather change and there is still no sign of fire round here.  I can feel in the air that autumn is on the way so the fire danger period will soon be over for another year.  The goats are just starting to cycle and the chooks are going off lay.  In the garden the eggplants are nearly large enough to eat and the pumpkins are huge.  With the cooler nights the runner beans are setting again and the tomato crop just keeps coming.

The goats discovered that Edd had taken down the fence below the house site to repair it and they nearly found the way into the vegetable garden.  This means that they are now confined to the small croft by the shed and they are not happy. This week I have cut out evening milking for most of the herd and we can get away with only using the machine once a day.  It also means we can start the milking early just after watering the garden.  We do very long days over summer and it is sometimes 9pm before we cook tea so this change is very welcome. I long for the start of summer after the cold short days of winter but I like the change back too.

With all the work on fencing, woodcutting and the tank we have still not got the sheep shorn.  I think we did them last February but we do not want to leave it much later or it will be too wet and cold for them.  There always seems more to do than we can fit into a day.   We have, however both found time to go to the dentist for the first time in years. A dentist has set up in Yarra Glen for the first time so it has become easier to do this.  Dentists are incredibly expensive so seeing one had to work it’s way up the list of priorities.

The media is still in shock after Trump got elected to be the USA president.  Over the last few years Australia has been supporting the USA in various over seas wars but a lot of people are not behind this.  There is a lot of worry about the new system and what it will mean for us.  I have never heard the media talk so often and so negatively about another countries leader before. Climate change is getting harder to dismiss too so we may be in for interesting times.

Nearer home we had a telephone drama when workmen cut the cable from Dixon’s Creek and we all had to do with out Internet and landlines for a few days. There is still no mobile reception on our land so this was a disaster. It was back working when I got up this morning much to my relief.

Fire season but not here

More tomatoes ready for the freezer.

February 15 2017

This weeks the nights and mornings have been cool but the day heats up as it goes on, and the plants still need watering.  There have been horrific fires in NSW, with several houses and lots of stock lost but fortunately no lives. We had one day of very strong winds and fire danger but luckily no fires started. This is the same time of year as the 2009 fires so they are in everyone’s minds. 

Pay TV has shown the film we were in that followed 3 families through the fire recovery period and for good measure they put on our grand designs show again.   Rather too much exposure!  Everyone in Yarra Glen feels obliged to tell us we have been spotted.  Morg was also on TV last week, flying drones at his school, but only Wayne spotted him.  We went down and saw Wayne and family last weekend.    Little Ella is very cute and is now starting to talk.  It is a long way to their house so we don not visit as much as we would like.

We were hoping that we could fly up to Brisbane to see Josh and partner but we are in the middle of lots of jobs that have to be done urgently and the chance of going anywhere seems to have slipped away.  I think it will be best of we postpone the trip until winter when the farm work is at a minimum.  One good thing has happened.  The timber mill delivered our yearly supply of hard wood off cuts for the wood stove.  The truck drives into our big shed and tips off the load.  It is the easiest job of the year and means we have hot water and hot radiators as well as cooking all winter for a very reasonable price.

The first Permaculture field trip came last Saturday. I think perhaps I am taking too much for granted.  No one seemed to have any idea that you milked goats twice a day. I sort of think that everyone knows how their food is produced, but maybe I am not right.  Yesterday I brought a new mobile phone.  It is a very basic model with buttons but amazingly no instructions.  I asked the man in the shop and he said how to use it was obvious!   Well, not to me, it has a red slide knob on the back that could do anything.  With living in an area with no mobile coverage I rarely use mine, but I have used them enough to know that they are all slightly different. I think the gap of understanding between rural and city folk is widening fast.

The fence below the dam is down because of the fallen trees and the goats have discovered that there is nothing to stop them coming up into the house area.  They are now restricted to a small croft by the shed until we get the fence fixed.  Edd is still working on the new water tank.  We have totally cleaned it and are now waiting for Ben’s friend to do some welding so that we can put the roof on. Edd still has some cracks to fill as well but we are making progress.

Hot days and preparing for winter

 Ella and friends

February 8 2017

It is one of those really hot days today.  The house has stayed a respectable 24 degrees but I have had to venture outside to water the vegetable garden several times.  We had lots of ripe tomatoes in the fridge so I stewed them up with onions garlic and herbs and then put them in pots in the freezer to be used for winter soups and sauces.   I also picked another batch of blackberries and froze them ready to be stewed with apples once we get some.  It is great having a large freezer once again and having enough storage room to preserve everything .

Al and Pip are enjoying their new home by the sea, which is probably the perfect place to be in this weather.  I miss being able to drive over and visit them but Al does come up and see us most weeks.   We are feeling very happy because we have discovered that we get a part pension from the UK.  It is not means tested like the pension here, so everyone gets something.  It is not huge but enough to make quite a difference.   Edd plans to travel this winter to visit friends and relatives.

February 5 2017  

There is so much we need to do before winter.   Last week we got some help and started to cut firewood from the dead trees that threatened to collapse on the fence between the gully and us.  Some of them were very large but already they have started to rot internally and had reached a dangerous stage.  Even our local expert tree man had difficulty getting them to fall right.

Edd had pumped all the water from the new tank by the dairy but there was a thick sludge of algae left in the tank that had to be cleaned out.  I used ladders to get into the base of the tank and brushed and scooped the mess into buckets.  This was a very messy job and I ended up soaked and splashed with so much black gloop that I had to strip off all my clothing and have a shower! Fortunately Ben and his brother helped Edd on the following day and made a bucket chain that effectively moved the mess into the nearest paddock. We now have to clean and repair the tank before the new roof goes on.  Edd has brought the corrugated iron to make the roof so that bit is ready.

The new freezer is now on and full of goats meat.  We had a young buck who developed a bad hernia so he went to the butcher before he got into any pain. I have harvested lots of beans and the garlic but now the tomatoes need to be possessed ready for freezing. We are eating lots of fresh tomatoes and they are really tasty this year. The cucumber crop has failed. These last few weeks of heat and no rain came at exactly the wrong time for them.  I have been watering the vegetables twice a day but everything has still been struggling.

Luckily it rained today so the plants are looking a lot happier. The two olive trees that we got from the back of Bo’s restaurant are hovering between life and death.  I water them every day and count the green leaves. The first tree only has seven but this number has stayed stable.  I am not sure if this is good or bad but whilst there is life there is hope.  My olives still have fruit on them and the chestnut trees are covered with small green prickly balls, but I am not sure if they are getting enough water to develop them into nuts.

Drama in the community

February 2 2017

The Landcare BBQ in the ruin went really well. Edd did a wonderful job cleaning up all the edges and paths and we set the tables with clothes and spaced them around the inside and outside areas.  This worked well because much to everyone’s surprise 38 people turned up so we needed space.

We did house tours and a hands on goat milking session before the BBQ began and everyone had a lot of fun before feasting on local food and wine. Angie and her husband did the meat cooking and sorted out the food and I only had to provide the chairs, tables, crockery and cutlery.   We were helped by the weather that was in the pretty much perfect range for outdoor partying.  The next week was quite good too because the house and garden were all so well cleaned and worked on that I had a relaxing week.

Bo had a much worse time.  A local man received a suspicious parcel in the mail with a mobile phone attached.  He put it in his car and drove to the police station, which sent the police into overdrive mode.  (It would take a bomb to do that in Yarra Glen).  The police put the town into lockdown; stopping all, traffic from entering and calling in the bomb squad.   I have no idea what they found but local rumour blames it on a feud between two guys who live here.   Recently a car was torched in a driveway near Bo and the shops are continually being broken into.  There was also a domestic incident involving the drug Ice.  This one had overhead helicopters and a police break in.  The locals are sure they know who the culprits are but the police have not put a stop to it yet.

Everyone is a bit sensitive after the incident in Melbourne recently when a guy drove a car down the pavement killing 6 and injuring 30.  So many people we know were very close.  Bo was doing an exam a block away and nearly went down that street to get lunch before the exam started!  Some other friends were outside Flinders station when the guy was spinning the car round.  The drug thing has got really bad everywhere.   Yarra Glen seems a very unlikely place for bomb scares.

On the farm life goes on as we begin what is usually the driest month of the year.  We have emptied the new water tank by the shed and are in the process of cleaning it, repairing it and getting a roof put on so that the water we collect next will be clean enough to use domestically.  We are also still moving the dead trees that keep on falling and destroying fences so that we can get those fences repaired and new ones put up.

The goats have ignored all the fences, electric and otherwise because it is blackberry season and they traditionally graze on the hill at this time.  They seem to think that they have rights to keep their own traditions going in cases like this. Last night, Ninki was missing and Edd and I walked miles inspecting gullies and the bush looking for her.  I walked all over the hill calling and Edd went to the top of the gravel pit paddock.  We gave up when it got dark and fed the small kids where much to our surprise we found Ninki in with the female kids!  I was too relieved to be cross, but we are feeling very sore today after all the walking and clambering over fallen trees in gullies last night!