Shearing and harvesting

Wednesday 28.2.2018

I set off early today so that I could pick up my grandsons and take them to school. The sun was rising as I drove towards Yarra Glen and they sky looked spectacular with pink fluffy clouds to the west and streaks of luminous orange formations in the east.  Even the boys had noticed and enjoyed the sunrise!

We are very much in harvest season and I am swamped with buckets of produce. The freezer is about full to capacity and we take bucket loads of vegetables into Beth’s restaurant each evening.  I am trying to find out how I could run the freezer from a generator if we had a long power cut.   We produce more solar power than we use and the power company still pays us but unfortunately our system cuts out if there is a power cut, which is maddening.

We have asked about trying to fix this but if we alter the power system we get cut off the good rate we get for power sales.  The contract lasts till 2024 so we are hanging on hoping storage batteries will be cheaper and better as that year gets closer. Putting a generator in as a back up is hard because we have two-phase power (what ever that is). My latest idea is to get a smaller portable generator and plug the freezer straight into it in an emergency.  I would hate to loose all the food I have grown, carefully packaged, and stored.

We had a big weekend. On Saturday morning Edd met twenty permaculture students in Yarra Glen and they followed him out here in a long string of cars for a site visit.  We spent the morning explaining all that goes on here and then we ate a shared lunch in the ruins.  As soon as they left we sprang into action because the shearer was coming.  We have waited for him for weeks so we were not going to argue about the timing.

He was a lot later arriving than he though he would be and it was starting to rain so we had to put the goats into the small pens and get the sheep in the shed under cover.  This man is very good because he does the sheep’s feet, worming and anything else we need at the same time and also does the alpaca.  It is a great relief to have someone else do all this now we are older.

Getting the sheep in was easy.  Last week a committee of sheep accosted me and made it very clear that the time had come to supplement their diet with barley.  I had started to do this so they were all primed to come when I called and follow me.  They went out with equal ease.  We have them in the house site at present and they are doing a great job grazing the roof.

The mellowness of early autumn

Friday 16.2.18

We had a sad day today with everyone gathering at our community centre for Dave’s funeral.  Dave has been a neighbour for many years and has often helped us in the same way he always helped everyone he knew.  He had a terrible time after the fires when he lost his home, his beloved guitars and many friends.  For years he and his wife have been managing in a shed whilst he built them a new house. They moved in last year but by then he was already sick.

There was a huge turn out for the funeral with lots of food alcohol and music.  We were all given guitar plectrums to put on his coffin as we said our personal farewells, which was a nice idea.   The weather was perfect and everyone was happy to stand around after the service to talk.  Our small community seems very united these days.

Last week, at our little swap market, only a very few regulars came, so instead of having community announcements we all sat around a round table to sort out the necessary business.  It felt as if we were a council of elders exchanging news of upcoming events, and who was sick or needed help.  It all felt very grounding.

Sunday 4.2.2018

This week we have had an unusual moon event when there was a blood moon eclipse and blue moon combined with a super moon.  Luckily we had crystal clear skies here and could watch it all.  Since then the weather has changed and is now just about perfect.

It feels like autumn.  We are now having cool nights, crisp mornings and warm sunny days.  We are still enjoying the glut of delicious summer vegetables, but it is now cool enough for us to work on the farm.  I have been sticking down the mosaic section of tiles on the dairy floor, (a job that I have been putting off for ages), and Edd is working in the donga putting up blinds and new fly screens.   We have a few weeks grace before school camps start again and it almost seems too quiet.  After years of regular contact with our kids and grandkids their absence leaves a bit of a gap.

Bo still lives close but she has no chef for her restaurant and is doing all the work herself.   This means she works all day and half the night even through week ends.   I am totally impressed with how she has learnt to make chef style food for huge, unplanned influxes of people but we just hope she finds someone else to take over before her uni work starts again.     Her kids have now gone back to school and Indi is also away a lot of the week with her job, so we are not seeing much of the younger generation.  I am not sure what Ti is doing this year.  We were all hoping he would be offered an electrical apprenticeship but we have not had any news yet.