plans for Toby'd garden

April 29 2017

The grass is growing vigorously with the abundance of rainfall.  It has been fairly controlled here but Al tells me that down on the Geelong way there have been floods and high winds doing all sorts of damage. The garage in his new house is not waterproof and the gutters are not adequate.  He tells me the plan is to convert his new property into an example of Permaculture, showing what can be done on a suburban block with retrofitting.

On our farm autumn has definitely arrived.  I light the wood stove every day to keep the water hot now that there is not enough sun for the solar system and I am finding excuses like “accounts” to stay indoors once the morning milking is over.  The quinces and figs have gone to Bo and today I started to harvest the olives.  The pomegranates are ripe, and this year we have more chestnuts. Last year’s crop was not hard to beat because there were only 3 nuts!

It has been over three weeks since the first goats were mated and they have not come back into season so by all logic they should be pregnant. Feta and Wilma are now ready to move to their new home but I was pretty stupid and forgot to get the number to phone their new owners.  We are now trying to find them through friends.

Last years kids are all due to be off milk. They are looking well at the moment and are mostly the mixed colouring that I like.  The chooks are also coming off lay and we are due to buy extra point of lay birds to provide winter eggs. The problem is that we need another chook shed to retire the older birds. We now have a big pen ready for them under the trees on the old drive but we will need to buy a new shed and put it up.

Al stayed with us last night and this morning we discussed the plans for Toby’s garden.  Al has already located some interesting plants and I brought some saltbushes and another type of native shrub at Garden world.  We went down there this week on a lightening tour of things we need to get.  We looked at trailers, brought tiles for the dairy and ordered bits for the tractor lights.

We also called into the spa place and decided on the colour and other details. We had a spa for the business before the fires.  Water is scarce most of the time and it makes sense to soak in a hot tub and treat the water rather than waste loads soaking in a bath.  I would like the school kids to have the use of a spa because they work so hard and must need ease for aching muscles as much as the rest of us.

My idea is that you walk into Toby’s garden through a seating area with a fire pit before you get to the spa house.  Al is going to design me a spa house that fits in with the rest of the house and completes the far corner.

rats both friends and foes

April 24 2017

The days are really short now. It is really dark by 6pm. We are getting some rain but also sunny quite hot days.  The pumpkins are only just starting to get mildew and are still enlarging young fruit so I have left them in place.  The same thing goes for the tomatoes; this year’s crop is going on forever.  The first round of wintergreens is in the ground but we need more space before we plant any more.

We are slowly getting the goats mated as they come into season and we have sold two of the young buck kids.  We have put the seven girls in a pen together and will wean them any day now. I am working on the milking herd to dry off as many off as possible. It is working and we will soon be able to switch to hand milking.  All this is part of the usual autumn program.

Now that Stevo has done the shed wall Edd no longer has to be chippies mate and he has been able to get back to fencing. The professional fencers have done a great job, but we still have some left to do. The next objective is to complete the hill boundaries and then the goats and horses can use the high ground during the wet season. There is not a lot to do but it is complicated work and takes time

I have just returned from Queensland where I went to spend a few days with our youngest son.  It was his birthday and his partner was away visiting her family so I thought it would be nice to keep him company. He has to stay at home because he has a geriatric rat that needs medicating twice a day.   There is not room in their town house for much in the way of a garden or pets but Josh has an amazing under water garden in his fish tank and Bobby has a luxury apartment for her very well cared for rats.

Indi has also had dealings with rats.  She is busy trying to sort out her stuff in the donga and has discovered that she shares her home with rats that have used anything available to build nests.  Last week we moved the units that she and her friends have been building so she is getting closer to having her own place for her stuff.  This involved a crane truck and was fairly scary, but with a combined effort we moved everything without any drama. 

Josh has been a great help and managed to use a devise I brought to get an old tape onto a computer format.  Edd and I had totally failed. I have only a very few tapes left that I found in a box of treasures that I saved from the fires. One is an old one of Beth singing before she even trained and the first one Josh worked on was some songs from the musicians at Yuendumu.  They recorded this tape when we worked up there in the early 90’s.  It brought back so many memories when I heard it again. I am really so lucky to have anything from the past.

fencing and building

April 15 2017

The rain has stopped, and Stevo is here starting work on the sidewall of the big shed. The idea is to give the goats a bit of extra protection against bad weather this winter. The fencers have gone now but they created a new paddock below the dam and fenced off the gully by the side of the old drive as well as banging in all the posts needed to repair the fence in the gravel pit paddock where the horses were escaping.  They had all the right machinery so putting in fence post took no time at all.  The ground below the surface is still dry and rock hard and it would have taken ages to do the posts with hand tools.

It is Easter but almost everyone we know is working. At least it is nice having Stevo here so we get to laugh with one friend.  Bo is working all weekend in the restaurant and Simon got up at some ungodly hour to brew beer. Silky is here with us. I have been finding craft activities for her this holiday and at the moment she is very busy making loom band bracelets.  Our youngest grand daughter, Ella, went home with all Silky’s previous efforts after refusing to be parted with them.

I also left Silky with a big bag of Easter eggs to arrange in baskets for various family groups but this was a bad idea. With two hungry brothers at home most of the eggs have already disappeared! Perhaps I will replace them with real eggs as they might be safer to leave in the baskets.

Eggs are not my biggest worry.  I am disturbed by world news and fear that we might be slipping into world war 3.  I get the terrible feeling that I should be doing something but I can’t think what.  

April 12 2017

Our beautiful warm sunny autumn has been interrupted by storms last weekend. On Sunday it absolutely poured and ground water accumulated behind the goat sheds making gumboots essential.  It is only today that the whole area becomes navigatable again.  This is important because now all the goats are coming into season and we need to cross this area to get them to the buck.

I feel sorry for the goats.  Unlike us they cannot just put on winter clothes when the weather changes this suddenly.  I have put down lots of fresh straw for them to bed down in and made sure they have stomachs full of roughage to create internal warmth but there is not much else I can do.  They are not complaining and the sun is out again today which helps.

Help with fencing

 Ella is really growing up.

 Autumn colour starts.

 Fencing the gully

April 5 2017

We have had a great week with friends from the UK staying.  This gave us a wonderful excuse to stop work so we had a BBQ up in the forest by the cascades and meals out.  Monday night in Bo’s restaurant was music night and everyone who works in the restaurant or has relatives that do crowded into the back room and supported each other to perform.  This time we had a guy with a fiddle who was brilliant and a chef who really sang out.  So lovely to see children and young adults making their own entertainment away from screens.

Rosie the large black goat went off to her new home today.  She left in a trailer covered with a tarp this time, which I felt happy about.  Wilma and Feta are going to the same home once they are mated so she will be joined by her friends soon.   We are selling several of the older goats this year because we have too much milk now that the kids are almost weaned.  Usually we buy a calf but this year they are very pricy so we are just trying to slow milk production down instead.

We are still having warm dry sunny days but the valley has been a bit smoky from controlled burns in the forest.   So far they have stayed well under control too, which is good.  In the garden the tomatoes are dying back but the pumpkins are showing no sign of mildew yet. We are still harvesting a few zucchini and amazingly we still have Tuscan black Kale to eat from three of last year’s winter plants. We have lots of beans stored in the freezer and with them a huge amount of tomatoes so we have plenty to eat.

It is good that the dry weather has lasted because at last the fencers have arrived and we are getting some help with our internal fencing.  They are doing the fence beside the old drive that stops anyone falling down the gully and putting a new fence behind the big dam so that the sheep can graze there and still let us drive to the house with out opening gates.  They have been able to use the poles from the old vineyard, which is great.

On the down side, Indi’s bees have not done well at all and she tells me that other beekeepers are having the same problems.  It has just been a really bad year for honey with plants in flower and the weather not working together well.  It is also a strange year for goats.  I have not noticed any of them coming into season yet, and it is well after the usual date when they start to cycle. 

We are now on winter timing and with the hour change it is dark at 7pm instead of 8.  We now do the evening chores at 4pm and have a much shorter working day. This week Phantom has come into season.  The goats have been very late starting to cycle this year, so I was relieved when she started calling out and carrying on to attract the buck’s attention. Despite selling goats I have probably still got an over supply of milk so some pregnancies might help.