Smoke haze

I have painted the water proofing layer onto the garden wall.

March 10, 2019

The valley has been full of smoke from the bush fires in the ranges and all of Victoria has been under health alerts for air quality. The distant hills are invisible, and the close ones are blurred.  There is still no rain and the paddocks are turning to dust that whirls upward with each gust of wind. Many houses have been lost in these fires but luckily no people. We have not been under threat, but we monitor all that is going on very closely.

All we can do is try to carry on as normal.  Edd has plumbed up the dam water system so that we can now pump dam water into the new plastic tank.   We can  then use it for watering the plants by the house and the fruit trees.  It makes the job of keeping plants alive much quicker and easier especially as now two people can water at once.   I would love to put plants in Toby’s garden around the new gazebo, but just at the minute they are safer in pots. 

Edd’s next job is to fix the fences so that we can move the horses and goats up onto the hill. There is no feed left in the gravel pit paddock and they are driving Indi mad trying to raid her vegetables.  She also has to open and shut the paddock gate every time she goes anywhere, and this is a big ask at now she is so close to giving birth. The dam in the hill paddock is broken and empty so we will need the horses to have access to the small dam . This means having an electric wire on the top of the fences below the dam, so they do not knock them over.  The hafflingers do not like taking “no” for an answer and barge right through fences if it is possible.

Today Dan and I pulled out most of the zucchini because they were going down with mildew.  We also need somewhere to start the winter crops.  We also pulled out the sweet corn which has also been harvested.  It was not as good a crop as last year even though we put in more plants.  On the other hand, the pumpkins have gone mad and taken over everywhere.   This year some are very large, green and warty.  They are probably from our saved seed and may or may not be edible.  Pumpkins are inclined to cross pollinate with anything, so we often get unexpected results.

At least one of the sheep is bagging up and looks heavily pregnant.   We have just started feeding them brewers grain which they are very happy about.   Even the sheep who turned their noses up at grain last year have dived in with enthusiasm today.    We have now weaned the buck kids  and are winding down the milk for the doe kids.  The goats are producing much less now, and it will soon be possible to go down to once a day milking. None of them has come into season yet so it looks as if we may have another year with late kidding.