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.