Cornish food week

22.7.20

Things have not improved much.  The weather continues to be miserable and wet and Victoria is now in the second wave of 1Covid 19.   We are on an up graded stage 3 restrictions, which is much the same as the last lockdown, except everyone now has to wear masks when out of their homes.  Nursing homes and now the prisons are proving to be hot spots, but it is more dangerous than last time because the virus is spreading from through the community rather than from single source hot spots.

So far, our family has remained virus free.  Al got tested twice and had to spend a night in hospital but as far as the tests went, he had a different virus. This week it is Wayne and his family who are in quarantine because they had wood delivered from a man who was positive, and they are known contacts. Edd and I are staying on the farm and keeping away from people as much as possible.  We have made masks from socks while we wait for a delivery of something better. I started to try and make cloth masks, but they were not very successful.

Luckily, we have a lot to do here, especially when the rain stops.  I have now sorted out all the old corrugated sheets that were stored in the chook pen.  The good ones can be used to make the vegetable garden fence.  I have cut away all the low branches where the fence has to go and laid out a string line for the fence to follow.  Edd is still working in the water tank mending cracks but we worked together to clear a space for the new shed.  I hacked all the stored fence wire free from the grass that entangled it and Edd moved the farm machinery that was stored there. We then took down the buck paddock fence and put pegs in where the shed has to go.  Now we are waiting for the earth moving people to dig in drainage and prepare the site for a concrete slab.

The goats are starting to look pregnant and some of the sheep are heavy in lamb.  The chooks are now laying well and I still get enough milk to make cheese several times in the week.  I have also frozen some milk so that it can be used for the kids when they arrive if their mothers are unable to give them what they need. The war against slugs continues in the vegetable garden but we now have enough silver beet, kale, rocket, lettuce and snow peas to feed ourselves.

The broad beans are in flower and the asparagus is sending up shoots so we will soon have a change of diet.  The cauliflowers Graeme gave us turned out to be sprouting broccoli, so we are eating that too. The fruit and vegetables I froze last summer are a great addition to our diet. The sweet corn, beans and tomatoes are very welcome.  We still have several pumpkins and I have eventually discovered that if I attack them with the hatchet, I use to prepare kindling I save myself all the stress of trying to get into them with a knife.

This week we have had Cornish food.  We made Cornish pasties one night and then Edd used a complicated recipe and made saffron cake.  I have been studying regenerative agriculture on the internet whilst. I spin the wool and mostly we are keeping ourselves entertained.

Things get worse

7.9.2020

Things are not good.  We had a small amount of time when life became more normal but now all the area around Melbourne is in lock down again.  We are actually living just on the border, but our shire stretches south towards the city, so we are counted in with those places.  This is probably right because anyone living here would go to Lilydale quite regularly.

I was pretty sure that restrictions would be on again soon, so we took the chance to visit Wayne and family in their new house.  They had not unpacked but we got a feel for how the place would be to live in.  It is very spacious and light, with areas for everything.  They were very happy, and I think they will be even happier now they know that they got the move in before they were put into lock down again.

The wet weather and grey skies have continued.  No one can remember a year like this. We have had years when there have been floods but they come and then go.  This time the ground has stayed saturated with continuous drizzle.  Everywhere we walk there is a sea of squelchy, mud.  Thank goodness we get a day or two of sunshine most weeks. I rush out and work in the garden and get the laundry done.

Edd has been at war with an army of slugs who have night-time raids in the vegetable garden.  We have beer traps made out of milk bottle bases and Edd does a late-night patrol. I am not sure, but I think the slugs are still winning!  We also have a bigger something that also raids the garden.  It ate all my rocket and lettuce plants that were just reaching the stage we could eat them, (the vegetable not the slugs).  

Our family is suffering.  Simon had beer in kegs all ready to supply the pubs that had re-opened. They have now  shut down again, so he is now trying to get the beer into cans.  Morg’s work at the airport has stopped, no one is flying, and the grass runway is flooded. Schools will close again at the end of the holidays, and our family in WA has had salary cuts.  Al is still very sick.  His first test for covid19 came back negative but he has now been retested. 

The saddest thing is that people are trying to find someone to blame. This seems very counter productive to me.  This time the lockdown will be harder to recover from so of course people are upset and afraid, but we should all work together to manage.  The border Victoria has with other states is now closed so there is no escape. This will not make much difference to us, but it has wrecked lots of families’ holiday plans.