feral foes

June 30 2017

Things have gone better this week.  It has been relatively warm today so I cleaned and aired the house. Yesterday I baked and the loaves came out really well, there is a great satisfaction when I load the freezer with good bread. I used to make up to nine loaves a week when we ran the host farm, but recently baking has not been a priority. I have also made up a months batch of muesli, this is all packed away in glass containers in the cupboard so I am all organised for when Edd returns on Sunday.  One more day to survive, what can possibly go wrong?

The worst thing this week has been the feral deer.  They have discovered the young trees in the stone pine plantation and have destroyed several years of work we have put in down there.  It is just heart braking when despite all our efforts things go backwards.  Wombats have also been busy digging large holes under the new fencing and basically reducing it’s stock holding capacities.  The wombats do not confine themselves to one route but are happy to dig a new passage each night if a fence is in their way.  Wombats may look cute but they are hard to live with.  The deer have bred up from escaped farm stock so I will not even try to be tolerant about them but will do what I can to persuade them to eat elsewhere.

I am glad that our new orchard is under the old polyhouse frame and is very well fenced.  The deer and kangaroos are down from the hills in large numbers this year probably because it has been so dry.  The kangaroos feel pretty safe and sit around in our paddocks all day.  Luckily they do not do a lot of harm to infrastructure but they do eat the grass we grow for our animals. So they are not totally benign.  All this wild life was great when we ran the tourist business but there are fewer positives now.

I have moved my orchids into the house for protection as all three have flouring stems.  We have a frost expected tomorrow so I have moved in the chilli peppers too.  They still have fruit on them and actually look quite decorative.  They survived last winter but will need re-potting for next year.  My next spring cleaning job is in the sun room where my jungle needs all the dead material moving and plants need pruning or putting into larger pots.  I usually bring in the coffee plants but it has been doing very well in the porch all summer so I am inclined to leave it there.

The mango tree has sprung to live since I brought it in but I have left the tea bush outside, as it does not like the sunroom conditions and nearly died in here last winter.  The other plant that is struggling is the pepper vine.  It is still alive but I nearly lost it once.  The vanilla orchid is much happier but will be hard to re-pot as it is entangled with all sorts of things.  All this and the accounts are the next tasks to be tackled.

Most of this afternoon was taken up listening to hold style music courtesy of our phone company. They have cut off my inter national calls so I cannot have my usual nightly talk to my mum.  Mum is blind, immobile and lonely so for her to miss this chat time is a big deal. Luckily Edd will probably visit her before he sets off home so that will make a difference while the phone company tries to put things right.