Sickness and weaving

 Amazing form almost too perfect to eat

August 23 2017

Slkie is still sick.  She spent all last week lying on our divan, feeling too nauseous to eat or drink anything much.  By Friday she was starting to perk up and I got her a small weaving loom so that she could learn to weave.  I have been pretty busy weaving myself and have experimented with simple tartan designs that look quite good.  I have even sewn up the first cushion made from homespun and woven cloth.

Over the weekend Silkie was much better and was eating and bouncing around like any other eight year old.  Wayne came up to the valley with his family and some friends and we all met up for lunch at Bo’s restaurant.  It was a sunny day, so quite packed out but Indi , Ben and others managed to fit in making a continuous stream of our mob coming by to talk to us.

This made for a very jolly time and the two small kids were surprisingly good.  After we had eaten we took them to the park to play.  It is an amazing playground with lots of things to do and after having two large glasses of wine I quite forgot I had a bad knee and was leaping from boulder to boulder with the kids.  This was not such a great idea and I was very sore on Monday but worse Silkie was also sick again.

Bo spent all night in emergency at the children’s hospital with her and was told not to give her the medicine the local doctor prescribed.  Every one knows something is wrong but no one can find out what.  It is all very worrying. She is staying at home with Bo today and I expect she will be back here tomorrow.  Edd has gone off to collect the boys from school after fetching barley from the brewery this morning so we have been fairly busy.

I have been planting more seedlings in the vegetable garden and moving the dead dogwood tree that Edd cut out of Toby’s garden yesterday.  I piled all the branches up to burn with some broken pallets that were left over from the stone we used when we were building.  Now I just have to dig the tree roots out and then everything is clear to start on the landscaping.  It has all taken quite a lot of work and the winter weather has slowed everything down.

The goats continue to get larger and bag up more. They will start kidding in a few weeks and our workload will increase.  Edd has finished the slashing the ti-tree and bracken that was starting to take over the top paddock and is now back to fencing.  Volunteers put us up boundary fences after the fires but they were plain wire and they need to have ringlock added before we can use that area for sheep.

Meanwhile the sheep are grazing in the house site and keeping the grass neat on our house roof. They do a very good job because the manicure all the edges and tricky bits.  It is nice seeing the little lambs playing around the house too.

winter's end

August 14 2017

The winter continues to retreat. This week the cherry blossom in Yarra Glen has lit up the trees like pink clouds and the buds on the oak trees have started to swell.  In doors, in my newly organised jungle the orchids are in bloom, well the first two are but the buds on the third plant have yet to open.   Orchid season is always a real joy though the plants are no use for anything but decoration.

Edd is off on the tractor slashing the dead black berry canes in the old vineyard.  The goats have done a great job on them, all the leaves and green shoots are gone and only dead canes remain.  The gulley is transformed since we started the goats in there.  The snag is that we can now see the massive extent of the erosion that has occurred since we had the big fire in 2009.  The gully is so deep that we will just have to live with it.

Today we inspected fences and checked on the red gum trees that were planted in our wilderness zone.  Much to our delight they had all survived and there were no signs of deer damage.  It is a very beautiful day, sunny warm and fresh.  It is pleasing to find that each year we are slowly putting right everything that was destroyed by fire.  The new fences look great and order is returning.  It has been nine years of huge effort but the task no longer looks endless.

I have been pruning and feeding the fruit trees and working in the vegetable garden.  We had some help last week when a group of eight, year nine kids arrived from a local high school to get volunteer experience.  They turned out to be excellent workers and one group loaded up all the old treated pine into the new trailer so that Edd could take it to the tip. It is too toxic to burn so we had just collected it all into an ugly heap. The approach to the house now looks so much better.

Another group swept up the dead leaves and cleaned up in the ruins and the last group shifted the final load of pebbles from Toby’s garden site.  I now have to remove the dogwood bush that has seeded there and then we can start construction work.  I suppose the wall extension is the first step.

The older sheep have now started to lamb and we had three new babies last week.  I am having fun spinning and weaving the wool from last years shearing. My plan is to make cushion covers but I have not actually sewn any up yet.  They need a backing with a zip and I need to get a zipper foot for the sewing machine to do this. I have been using cheap brought wool to experiment with colour and design.  The colours react in, (to me); unpredictable ways when I weave and at this stage I have no idea how a piece will look before I start. It is quite challenging.

We have spent some time helping Bo by picking up her kids from school when she is at work.  She has to drive right into the town to get to the children’s’ hospital but she has loved the work.   This week things got more complicated because Silkie got flu and has been really ill.  Bo had to take a day off work and take her to hospital on one day. Bo says she is a bit better today but still not well enough for school.

mid winter and the festival of light

Bo and Simon setting up the festival stage

                    Lights on the church

August 5 2017

We had some good rain last night and Edd is busy today pumping water between tanks so that we can store as much as possible.  With the roof on the new tank we now should have enough storage to get us through the summer months despite the fact that it has been such a dry winter.  The power bill for the last quarter has come in and even with the large freezer we have still made a profit from our solar panels.  I am pleased about this because with Indi and Ben here we are supplying two households with power.

The goats are starting to look pregnant.  Nola and Petra are very wide and Olga has started to bag up.  I was worried about her because she failed to get pregnant last year. Very occasionally we get an infertile goat so you never know.  I am only milking a few goats but we have enough to make cream cheese at least twice a week.  I could have fed a calf but with Edd being away for a month we decided to give that a miss this year.  The last calf we reared, Josie, is over a year old now and ready to sell.

It is very cold at night but the wattle is in full bloom, the daffodils are forming yellow banks and the native wisteria and rosemary are toning things down with shades of purple.  The vegetables have been very slow but this week the parsley has shot up and the frilly gold lettuce seedlings have germinated. We have rocket, celery, and silver beet, mixed lettuce, Kale and mizuna ready for eating so we can wait a bit for the rest.

Luckily the sun is shining today, because Bo is busy setting up in Yarra Glen for the festival of light that she organises each year.  I have instructions to bring in the market gazebos and two fold up tables.  Last night Bo rang up wanting me to do a site map of Yarra Glen showing where the lantern parade starts and finishes plus where to find entertainment, toilets and parking.   My efforts were not exactly a masterpiece but Bo has already put them up in shop windows around the town!