Hot and dry

Sunday 12 March

It is a lot cooler today but we have had the hottest driest weather for days and everything is suffering.  I have been watering the vegetables and trees twice a day but the olives look wrinkled and the vegetables are not producing so much fruit.  The fig tree is the exception and I get a bucket full of figs everyday.  Bo’s restaurant staff are complaining about the amount they have to deal with! Bo has given me a fig and nut cake she made that was too crumbly for restaurant use.  It is delicious.

Ollie is recovering from the loss of his dog and is beginning to hope he can get a replacement puppy soon.  The snag is that we are all working long hours and have no time to give a puppy the care it needs for the first three months.  A solution will have to be found.  Bo has still several months left of her training for music therapy and her chef has resigned so she I the head cook at the restaurant again.  Edd and I have four week long school camps coming up in quick succession so we will be totally occupied.

Al’s new baby is due in two weeks and I was hoping to get down to visit before it arrived.  There is no chance to do this until the Easter break.  Maybe it will hang on till then.  I am busy knitting small gear for the babies first winter that I hope to get finished by a week today when camp one arrives.

One good thing about this weather is that the sun starts to heat up the sunroom at this time of year. I have been able to dry various leaves for herbs and teas just by spreading them out on the table in there.  Perhaps I should try to dry some tomatoes.  The freezer is full and the restaurant over supplied.

Edd is working to fix the fences in the gravel pit paddock.  He has nearly made the fence on the gully side and will then need to work his way up past Indi’s area.  The horses have eaten everything they can off the hill, but we cannot move them to the gravel pit paddock until at least the bottom fence is done.  This fence will enclose all the zone 5 land where the fern trees used to grow. In Permaculture zone 5 is left for nature to do as it pleases.

The new cat has settled in but shows little interest in catching mice.  He has one odd skill in that he has learnt how to open the latched door from the mudroom into the rest of the house.  He kept escaping from the mudroom and I could not work out how but I actually heard the latch open last night as he got out for the second time.  He does patrol the big dam and the wood ducks have gone but I am not sure if these two facts are related.  I am very happy the wood ducks have gone, they are really geese and make a terrible mess whilst eating all the grass.