Death at the party

 20.12.2021

Events took a tragic and unexpected turn this weekend.  Usually, we have a big gathering for friends and family as close to the solstice as possible. This leaves our kids free to visit other relatives for the actual Xmas day.  For as long as I can remember we have had this do at the farm but this year Bo offered to have it at her place and as there is a teenagers hang out in the big shed, and a beautiful pool and spa area everyone liked the plan.

 

I soon realised that I had just dumped 90 percent of my seasons work on Bo but I tried to help her prepare as much as possible. Bo and family produced a fantastic feast and the weather was hot and sunny so we were all set up o have a wonderful time.  Wayne and Danni arrived with their daughters but Al and family arrived first with Amy , the great Dane.  Indi came with Rosa and Bo already had her two dogs there so the place was soon swarming with very young kids and dogs. 

 

When everyone we expected was gathered the feast began. Then Amy began to stager and look very sick indeed. Josh, Ollie and Pip loaded her in the car and headed for the vet. Soon Al and his boys followed them as it became clear their dog was unlikely to survive.  We soon heard that she had passed away which rather dampened down the party. Josh and CB were planning to leave early for a camping walking trip to Wilson’s prom but they did not get off on time as planned.

 

Ollie and Stevo went off to the farm to dig a grave and we had a burial party before dark and planted an oak tree on the grave. We were all so impressed with Ollie. He was very traumatised as a child when his dog was attacked and fatally injured whilst he had her right next to him on the lead. Then he had to nurse her in the car down to the vets where she had to be put down. This latest misadventure was a complete re-enactment of the same situation but he could deal with it in a very mature way this time and won everyone’s’ admiration.

 

Luckily the small kids where all so young that they took this in their stride. They continued to frolic in the pool and gleefully unwrapped their gifts. Alvyn’s sons even took part in the burial with no outward signs of distress. They spent the night here and then we all met up at Bo’s place for lunch as there was lots of food to eat up. The day was very different.  Thunder storms had raged all night and the day was cloudy and dark. It echoed the dark cloud that hung over us all.

Summer arrives

 12.12.2021

Finally, the weather has changed, and hot dry days outnumber the cool ones each week. Last month we had another storm that brought down trees and power lines and we endured days with out power and floods. At least I didn’t have to water the vegetables!  Now the earth is drying out fast, the grass has gone to seed and everyone is trying to work out how to get the hay done. There used to be teams set up to cut and cart hay but finding someone now is getting harder every year. No one is catering for the small farmers any more.

 

We prefer to have traditional, small ‘square’ bales. They are not really square, but the big bales are called ‘round’ which isn’t strictly true either. You can feed out the small bales easily as they break into neat sections, the round ones fit in a bale holder and are good for feeding cows in the paddock. They are difficult to store in the shed unless you have special lifting equipment and they are also much more work to feed out in small amounts.

 

To make things even harder this year Edd needs a hip replacement and is really struggling with the pain and not being able to walk much. This all came on very fast, but he has an appointment with a specialist next week so things might get set in motion.  Luckily, I have already sold half the goats which reduces the work we do every day. We have Josh here and if I am not around to help Bo comes and does the milking and animal feeding. Edd has been very useful fixing machinery and doing stuff where walking is not essential. The milking machine broke this week but he took the thing to bits and got it running again very quickly.

 

A couple of weekends ago we had a celebration in the ruins for a dear friend who had passed away.  His partner organised their friends to come and Bo did most of the food. I cleaned up and prepared the ruins and for once the weather was perfect and everything went off well. This was a great relief for me as most of the people who came were strangers. The ruins are fabulous party space for this kind of thing. The walls are now covered with creepers so it is very much a garden setting but we have a roof or shade and two toilets.

 

I am still doing too much mowing and cursing myself for selling too many sheep. The vegies are going well. We have heaps of snow peas, and at last, zucchinis. The lettuce is still plentiful and the garlic is about ready to harvest. The pumpkins keep getting eaten by slugs and snails but so far, the beans are OK. This year we have loquats again and we are eating our raspberries and strawberries for breakfast.

Back to winter!

The goats only go out to graze on dry days

  The view of the forest still shows fire damage with the twisted dead trees looking white
 

18.11.2021

 

Last week was awful. Right back to winter temperatures below 20C degrees and rain all the time. Getting things done outdoor was more or less impossible and I had to light the stove to get hot water once the solar system could not do the job.  

 

 We are getting used to the new anti-virus system.  Every retail outlet and hospitality facility door is manned by a person who makes sure you are checked in with the code system and are double vaccinated. Most of this happens automatically on our mobiles because Josh set them up with the right app.  At the tiny local market last weekend, people were complaining that to do this was impossible. It would have been impossible for us without Josh, too.

 

There has been massive protest in Melbourne about a new bill the Victorian parliament is trying to bring in so that there are specific laws in place to handle pandemics. Some of the complaints about the legislation are valid but sadly the protests are being taken over by the more militant anti vax, far right groups who are inciting violence. They put up a scaffold and noose and were saying they should lynch our head of state.  This is pretty low as in my reading of things he has put in a massive effort to try and save lives.

 

We can’t do much about peoples’ behaviour, so Edd and I are trying to get our heads round the concepts of regenerative agriculture.  But we can set up to try and improve our soils. The first step is working out what soil tests we need. We plan to sample the best and worse areas on the farm and see how much our present systems have affected the soil. The vegetation is massively different and in the worse areas we have sundew plants and bent grass.  Edd has brought a plough that will rip and aerate the soil with out too much disturbance. Then we will need to replace any important trace elements. (We did this 40 years ago but something was missing and nothing much happened). 

The aim is to get more carbon absorbed into the earth and get better grass.

Lockdown ended, well, sort of.

 

8.11.2021

 

The weather is now at what I call the ‘build up’ stage.  It gets hotter and hotter and then there is a thunder storm, lots of rain and the temperature drops back down again.  Last week we were in the heating stage and the ground dried enough to mow some of the grass and prepare vegetable beds.  We have now had the storm and are still in the cooler wet phase.  

 

We have had much more rain than we usually expect and everything is growing like mad.  We have added snow peas and strawberries to our diet and the zucchinis and some tomatoes have flowers! The mizuna all went to seed and so did the rocket but there are several types of lettuce to choose from and wild rocket.  

 

Our regular farm work is reduced because we sold all the young goats to some very nice people who I think will give them lots of care.  The kids have moved out of the shed and now have a croft to run round in. We had one goat kid a couple of weeks ago but luckily, she had just one male kid and we could sell him as a pet very quickly.  It is good to reduce the work now, Lock down has ended and Bo is back seeing clients face to face instead of helping us.

 

Despite lock down ending Victoria still has over 1000 covid cases a day and the hospitals and ambulance services are over whelmed. In a strange twist everyone has two weeks for shopping and then only vaccinated people are meant to go into non-essential shops! I have no idea how this can possibly work, especially with Xmas coming soon.  

 

One good thing is that Wayne brought his daughters up for a visit so we finally got to see the girls again. Maya is incredibly cute and remembered where the  toy box could be found.  Ella, who is usually very cautious with the animals actually got in the pen and stroked the Persian lambs.  They were cool about this too.

Out of lockdown as spring advances

The bee swarm

23.10.2021

 

Strange times. Lock down is over and we begin a new phase of freedom for vaccinated people.  We met Al for coffee in a Healesville beer garden yesterday and getting in was problematic.  I had a print out of my vaccination certificate and Edd has his on his phone. This was not good enough. You needed your phone Q card linked to your my Gov vac certificate page.  Oh my Gosh! They expect everyone to instinctively know how to set all this up. Even Josh did not find it easy to get our phones to the first stage!  Luckily the hotel had a man at the door and every potential customer was having the same problems so he used his common sense and we all got in.

 

Life on the farm is much easier to manage.  We had several dry days and I have been able to weed vegetable beds and deal with the grass that is growing flat out.  The snow peas and zucchinis have just started to flower and we have broccoli and various salad plants in abundance.  Josh’s young chooks are almost adult size and his new bee swarm is still here (we hope). Bo has been helping us with the animal feeding and milking.  We enjoy seeing her regularly as much as we appreciate the help.  Lock down cut us off from all our friends and family which was hard.

 

Josh worked all week with stevo building and helping at the brewery.  He has better down loads speeds in his cabin than we get because he built a special arial from scratch.  Edd and I are wondering if we should get a new TV. We got the old one in 2009 after the fires and it is not set up for modern technology. There are a few TV shows we enjoy and being able to watch them later when we miss them would be great if we could work out how.  

 

Chaos and floods every where

 15.10.2021

 

We are still in hard lock down, and the daily number of new cases remains near 2000.  Gradually we are getting everyone vaccinated and if we follow the trend in NSW this might start to ease. NSW new pm has just declared that he will open up to the world again and allow freedom. This is in contrast to what our federal pm wants so chaos is the main issue today. I mean how can it be for people to fly into Sydney from anywhere and then travel to Victoria when we are still restricted to curfews and travel restrictions!

 

The weather is equally chaotic. We get hot sunny days and then, like today, we have cold and floods. It poured down last night and water on the roads and in the creeks is flowing in torrents.  We are better off than the animals who can’t adjust there clothing to suit the conditions.  Mostly we make maximum use of days when the ground dries out a bit.  I dash around on the ride on mower and dig the vegetable beds and Edd whipper snips the bits I can’t get to. We are just managing to keep everything under control but it is a battle now the grass is growing so fast.

 

Edd has been in a lot of pain with a dodgy hip. Last week he had X-rays that probably mean a hip replacement.  This is not good news as our medical system is over stretched already so nothing is going to happen soon. Bo has been wonderful helping every day on the farm but we also know that it is probably best for us to still get out and do everything we can. I try to get up to start the milking early to save Bo’s time and then she gets up even earlier to beat me to it!

 

Josh found a bee swarm and collected it after work so he now has two hives on the property.  I am in awe of anyone brave enough to tackle a bee swarm and drive a car with it in a box. Josh tells ne that attempt one to sweep it into a dustbin failed but a bee suit and cardboard box worked well!  He also astounds me with bee facts from the many study papers he has read. Who knew that bees could count and understood the concept of zero?  Don’t ask me to explain how people worked this out. 

 

 

 

 

A very wet spring

 3.10.2021

 

Everything is water logged. We have never known it quite so wet.  Josh had to drill holes in some plant pots to stop things drowning.  It is actually quite warm, so there has been lots of growth and today when it is sunny all the pumped-up vegetables are looking deflated!  The snow peas are shooting up and I try to help them cling on to the supports as mostly they are not very good at doing this themselves.  No flowers yet but it can’t be long. 

 

Also, I have planted out the first of the zucchini seedlings. They have been growing in pots, but today I made clearings in the mizuna patch and put them into the ground. It will be so good when we actually eat zucchinis again. They seem to have so many uses. I think the last broccoli crop will be ready first. The heads are now almost harvesting size. Meanwhile we use lettuce, silver beat, celery and various lettuces. We ate the last cauliflower but there is a second planning on the way. The asparagus have started to shoot too. Most noticeable are all the fruit trees that are in full flower and the oak trees that have now a full canopy of bright young leaves.

 

Our preserved vegetables in the freezer are depleting too. This is good because I need to get to a point where an almost empty freezer can be cleaned out and ready for the next years’ crops.  The beans and tomatoes are almost all gone but we still have fruit that we eat with our muesli for breakfast. This year I have frozen cauliflower which has worked a lot better than I thought it would. 

The animals are not really happy with the weather. The sheep have wet feet and resulting problems and the goats are staying in the shed for much of each day.   This week Bo has come up everyday and helped us do the farm work so that we could get an odd sort of at home holiday.  It is at least 2 years since we had any break at all, so this has been very welcome.  Edd and I are both feeling age related problems this year and even getting an appointment with a physio is almost impossible.

 

We have not seen any of our great grandkids for months and it is feeling a bit too long an interval. We are lucky that Josh and CB live on the farm or we would feel much too isolated. The good news is that cases in NSW seem to have peaked and there is hope the same thing will happen in Victoria as the numbers of vaccinations mounts.  There have been anti vax protests in Melbourne and we got a surge of cases after football grand final parties but most people are trying to do the right thing.  We are just keeping our fingers crossed.

Chicks stink out the mud room

Zak waiting to be adopted

 18.9.2021

 

Every day the number of new virus cases in Victoria goes up. NSW has completely lost control of the pandemic and it looks as if we will soon be in the same situation.  We still do not have enough vaccine for everyone but at least Bo’s boys are now booked in for their first jab.  Silkie is on treatment for a bee sting so she has to delay the vaccine until she has completed the medicine courses she is on.    I will be much happier when all the family is vaccinated.

 

Everyone is now struggling with lockdown; it has been too long and as birthdays and other event pass uncelebrated for the second year it is harder to keep a positive outlook.  We are lucky because we have plenty of “at home” space on the farm, but others are restricted to one hours outside exercise a day.  I feel that we would be very selfish if we complained but this does not make things easier.

 

Half way through the week the chickens became large enough to stink out the mud room. Josh has moved them to a slightly larger pen in the ruins’ but they are growing so fast they will need moving again very soon.  He has almost finished building himself a cabin and is making more bee hives.  I have taught the lambs to suck a bottle of milk through their pen fence. When they first came, we needed to catch them every feeding time so it is much easier to care for them now.    We have also sold the male kids to a local family and the remaining 7 kids are together in one pen, so looking after them is much faster.

 

The weather is typical of Spring. We get some glorious sunny mornings when CB sits outside on the donga porch and serenades us on her concertina with Irish tunes. The music reminds me of a stream gurgling along over rocks and is a good tempo to work with. Then just as we get going with all the outside work the temperature drops and we are back to near freezing nights and wet windy days.  

 

 Today we started to build a sheep handling area with a foot dip.  We were doing quite well before a storm hit and we had to retire to the house.  The lettuce seedlings I trans planted yesterday are getting a battering from the wind before their roots have got a good grip, which is not helpful.  Josh has spent the week with Stevo doing building work.  We miss having him around to help with things but he is enjoying having a legitimate reason to be away off the farm for a bit.

New arrivals and our first proper Spring day

 4.9.2021

 

This week we had the first really warm day at 26C. Unfortunately, this did not last and a huge, thunder storm yesterday heralded in torrential rain that turned all our roads into rivers. Once again I was glad we have the big moat drain at the front of the house. It channelled the water away fast enough to avoid floods. Today we are back to miserable drizzle and 14C.

 

It is far to wet to work outside but luckily Josh has now got the roof, door and windows in his cabin making it water proof.  Last weekend I brought two female Persian lambs.  They are just babies and I had to train them to drink goats’ milk from a bottle.  They are in the shed next to the goat kids but and seem to enjoy the company of the goat herd.  They are amazingly solid and heavy but have spindly legs. The goats were terrified when they first arrived but they are cool about them now.

 

About 25 of Josh’s chooks hatched.  They are under a heat lamp in the mud room. This week Josh has added a tree section into the cage so they can learn perching.   It seems to be working.    Josh was worried at how difficult it was to get the point of lay commercial chooks we brought to perch at night so he decided early training was what his little chicks needed. The chicks are growing fast and we will need to move them to a bigger set up soon.

 

When the sun shines, I love working in the garden.   I have moved the raspberries to what I hope will be a better location, and am slowly weeding and sorting the flower beds.  The snow peas have started to climb and large numbers of lettuce, mizuna and wild rocket seedlings have sprung up so I have plenty for us and plenty to share.   Indi brought the horse float over and filled it with goat manure for the garden beds she has built.  They look fantastic and Bo has ordered her a load of mushroom compost to top up with.

 

We were lucky that the paddocks were dry enough to visit with out being bogged for Indi to get manure and for Josh to set up his new bees next to Indi’s hives in the old vineyard paddock.   Moving life stock is one of the few things we are allowed to do in this lockdown, so it gives us a little window of interest we can exploit with out risking anyone’s health.   Australia is gradually coming to terms with the fact that the virus is not well contained and that we are way behind with vaccines.  It is all very worrying. Indi and Bo’s sons have tried to get shots but there are none available for weeks.

Babies are arriving

 23.8. 2021

 

The buds on the oak tree are slowly uncurling and the daffodils are in full bloom.  I did not write anything during the weekend because the weather was warm and sunny and there was a lot to be done outside.  I even did the first grass mowing for the season and slashed the cape weed in the second croft. We helped Josh put up the walls and ceiling in his demountable but we still need to put corrugated iron on and the car port roof needs doing too.  We need dry no wind days for that.

 

Most of the goats have now given birth and we have multicoloured kids everywhere.  The first two are now totally bottle fed and I have started to train the rest with varying degrees of success. A lot of patience is needed at this stage.  We name the kids by working through the alphabet, twins having names that both start with the same letter.  This year we have twin girls who needed names starting with X.   They ended up as Xanda and Xylene.  We have put their names on green tags attached to yellow collars.  At this stage it is easy to forget who had which kids, especially as the some of the mothers feed anyone’s kids.

 

There is a lot of noise in the incubator where josh’s chicks are hatching.  The box has to stay shut for at least a day so that the humidity needed remains high enough for all the fertile eggs to hatch.   Josh has set up a rearing box in the mud room on the only bit of bench not taken up by his seed raising set up. 

 

I have planted out the snow peas he grew and today I should transplant the zucchinis into bigger pots so they will be ready to plant out when they are a bit less vulnerable to slugs.  The trouble is that I don’t feel like doing much. All the news is just so depressing. The Delta virus strain seems impossible to contain and vaccines are not available yet for over half the population. Regional Victoria is now in lock down and some very stupid people organised big protests on the weekend, which will no doubt result in even more cases. 

 

A happy lockdown weekend

 15.8. 2021

 

We have had a weekend of glorious sunshine and warm temperatures.  The new seasons vegetables are sprouting and the trees are in blossom. A mob of over 20 huge, yellow tailed, black cockatoos are making a lot of noise as they wheel around overhear and as the sun sets I have spotted a few swallows. It is all very peaceful and enjoyable.

 

There is so much to do here that we scarcely notice that we are in lock down. It has lasted over a week now and new cases in the community are stubbornly still occurring.  Our regional areas are now released but unfortunately, we are just on the city side of the border as far as lockdown boundaries are concerned. We are just out of the city area for deliveries so we miss out both ways.  NSW has a much worse situation and the whole of the state is now in lockdown.  Numbers of new cases are still climbing there, too.  

 

Our sheep are gradually accepting the new Persian ram.  At first, they would not even come up for food.  The brown sheep missed a whole week of meals before hunger overcame fear.  The first of this season’s goat kids have arrived.  Rita had twin girls, one black and one white. A real Yin and Yang pair.  I have started to train them how to drink from a bottle when their mother has gone off to graze. Some goats return to the shed to feed their kids at lunch time but not Rita!

 

Josh has been building. First, he helped Stevo put up the edgings on the car port roof and now he is constructing a demountable room down by the ruins. At the moment he is living in Indi’s caravan and just using the house for showers and most meals.  It is a great help having him back around again.  We have got so much done with his help. He is ready to get his own bee hives but the lockdown has slowed everything down. He has managed to put eggs to incubate and hopefully we will get chicks in a week’s time. 

 

It was Ollie’s birthday this weekend and sadly lockdown rules prevented us having a family gathering.  We have not been able to celebrate any birthdays since April when we met up for Pele and Yeshe.  I have a pile of cards and stuff I got ready for a planned mass birthday party at Bo’s place but sadly it had to be cancelled. Edd and I were so lucky that we had a day out when we fetched the ram. It is lovely here but a change of scenery also helps.

electric slug fencing and Persian sheep

6.8. 2021

 

Today we start our sixth lockdown!  We had just started to ease out of the fifth one so this is not welcome news.  There is still such a massive shortage of suitable vaccines that it looks as if we will be in this limbo situation for quite a bit longer,

 

The good news is that yesterday, when we were still allowed to travel, Edd and I managed a day out driving to Shepparton and buying a young Persian ram. We brought take away food and ate lunch in the park at Violet town. All day we drove through rolling hills that were cleared for stock grazing. There was almost no other humans to be seen but we went through a beautiful valley with stunning rock formations and twisted pale barked gum trees. 

 

Today I let the ram into the paddock with the other sheep. I was worried they might bully him but instead they ran away, terrified!  I admit that with his rough hairy coat and short skinny tail he does look very different, but he is still a lot smaller than our remaining 4 sheep. He is a type of sheep that does not need shearing or tail docking and in theory he should be quiet and easy to handle.  I need sheep to keep the grass down in our fire reserve and on the house roof.  The goats would jump on things like the solar panels so they are no use for this work.   The hard bit will be finding ewes to breed more purebred Persians but until we manage that we can start breeding with the sheep we have.

 

Whilst I am writing the first batch of bread loaves are baking in the oven and the second bread batch is on its first rise.  Luckily this is a warm indoor job. We had warmer dryer weather earlier in the week and we planted out the first snow pea seedlings.

 

  Josh made some slug guards out of plastic bottles.  He tied copper and stainless steel wire round the guards to try and make an electric fence on a slug scale. So far, the seedlings have not been eaten.  I put sand and lime round some broccoli seedlings I planted and they have been slightly under attack.   Last year Edd put out beer traps but they just seemed to be the basis for midnight slug parties, all paid for by us. Edd next started slug patrols to try and curb the worst effects. None of this solved the problem. I do not want to put down poisons so we just keep trying. 

 

working through the winter of lock downs

4 generations

Josh and Stevo working on the car port roof

22.7. 2021

 

3.17pm and the light is fading as the clouds obscure the sun. Luckily, even though we have icy winds, it has staid dry all day and Stevo, Josh and Edd have been able to continue the work on the car port roof that they started yesterday.  The beams are up and finally we can see how it fits into the landscape. Building it into the hill has been a difficult and expensive task but I can see that aesthetically it hits all the marks.

 

We are now in our fifth lockdown and it is hard to keep feeling positive. I go through the motions. Today I planted out cauliflower seedlings, washed clothes, milked the goats and cooked a hearty soup for the men’s lunch. The house is warm too. It was still at 22 C when we woke up and was still warm in the late afternoon when I lit a fire. Mostly, I admit, to try and make the place look more cheerful as the light faded.

 

We have been fighting this virus for over a year now and I am grieving for the lifestyle we have lost. Usually when the work with the animals is at its lowest in the mid-winter, we have a holiday and head north to warmer areas. Border closures between the states have made this impossible for the second year running. There have been gaps when we could have left but there was always the threat that we could be caught interstate and unable to return so it did not feel worth the risk.

 

I phoned a friend yesterday and then realised that I had nothing to say!  Nothing cheerful, anyway.  Yesterday there was the funeral for Edd’s brother- in law in the UK and I have a goat that got injured possibly chased by a neighbour’s dogs.  

 

It is freezing cold outside now and apparently even Queensland has really cold weather. The news is all about covid and lockdowns across most of the states so weather news was welcome in that it was about a different topic. Seems like the rest of the world also has floods, fires and the virus so not much joy from looking further afield. I have to keep telling myself that things will improve.  The wattle trees and native wisteria are in flower. Daffodils and the camelia are also in bloom and the first of the cauliflowers is nearly ready to eat. Things will get better.

 

 

Ini moves house

The start of winter knitting

 10.7. 2021

 

Sunday today, and the sun is shining. It is warm enough to be outdoors without a coat.  There have been a couple of frosty mornings this week, but we always expect July to be the coldest month here.  I have seedlings to plant into the vegetable beds but the slugs are very active so I am waiting for the seedlings to grow more first.  We have broccoli, snow peas, silver beet, celery and lettuce available from the garden and pumpkins, round beans and runner beans stored from last summer.

 

The virus is now a problem in NSW.  They delayed calling a lockdown until too late and even after two weeks of partial lockdown the case numbers are still rising. It is the more infectious, Delta strain, so I suppose it will be a miracle if we manage to stop it spreading into Victoria.  There are still some restrictions here but none affect us too much. Long may this last. 

 

We were very busy last week helping Indi move house.  She has found a companion with a child Alice’s age and they plan to share the rental of a huge mud brick house with enough land that Indi can get her horse back from the lady who had her on free lease for the last few years.  On Friday Edd, Indi and I loaded her stuff and furniture onto Edd’s ute and trailer and moved things to the new place.  We were all totally exhausted when Bo arrived after work to help unload the last trailer full.

 

The house is built like an 80’s muddy, with a split level and high ceilings. There did not seem to be a good heating system but when we got there a man was installing a new dish washer.  There is a pool at the back but luckily the maintenance is included in the rent.  We just hope it all works out for them. On Saturday, josh and other relatives moved the heavy stuff like Alice’s cubby. I think Indi’s mother has offered to organise cleaners for the old house. It is so difficult for Indi to do much with Alice into everything.

 

I did manage to get my own house thoroughly cleaned because some clients that Al is designing a house for wanted to look at our set up.  I needed something to get me motivated on deep cleaning. I usually do it before we have the midwinter feast but of course covid has stopped us doing all our usual events

Good and Bad News

The solstice has passed and though the days will gradually get longer, the coldest days of winter are yet to come.  This week has not been too bad. We are into he third dry day with sun shine, not that the mud has noticeably started to dry up yet.   It was dry last week too and the machinery arrived and put all the earths back around our new carport. It was too wet to do the top soil but the back hoe was able to lift the car port roof beams up into position.   Luckily Edd and Stevo had got all the measurements correct again, and the bolt holes all lined up perfectly.  It was all pretty worrying, especial having machinery on the slope behind the carport. I chose not to watch!

Indi is moving house. She and a friend who also a single mother are renting a mud brick house on a small holding,  She is even able to get her horse back again.  Moving with a toddler is hard and she is very stressed but we will all go and help later in the week.  She also plans to move her bee hives but luckily Josh is very keen to get his own hives here so we will still have the benefits of pollinators and honey.      Indi has brought her caravan here and left it by the ruins so Josh could move in to it. I am sure he likes having his own space but I am missing having him around the house already.

This morning we had sad news from the UK because Edd's brother in law has passed away. He has been in hospital for weeks but took a sudden turn for the worst this week.  We feel so sorry for Edd's sister. At present Edd can not even phone her because she can't hear us.  We are not sure why but think there is a problem her end as we can phone every one else in the UK.   Luckily Edd's niece is keeping in contact with us.  We just feel so bad about being unable to help or offer support.

This has been a bad Covid week too.   Most states are in some form of lockdown now that the Delta strain has got loose in the community. Victoria is OK for the moment but things could change fast. The problems are that hotels have been used to provide suboptimal quarentine accommodation and there does not seem to be enough of the recommended vaccine. Al and Josh have had two shots but the rest of us only one. There are long waits for appointments.

 

Bad gets worse

14.6. 2021

 

This week has probably been the hardest one we have experienced recently. On Wednesday night the state of Victoria was hit by horrific storms.  The electricity went off in the night as trees fell and took down all the power lines. After a few hours all the phone lines went dead too. There are electrical connections on the mobile phone towers and thel nodes on the landlines that have a limited time of battery backup.

 

We were already under covid lock down rules and so when we lost communications it was illegal to physically visit anyone. To make matters worse the torrential rains caused the flooded rivers to overflow into the surrounding land and closed the main road into Yarra Glen, among many others. 

 

Indi had a friend who lived in a yurt by a river. On Wednesday she gave birth just before the floods started to rise. The midwife, (who we all know), was worried about the family so she ended up swimming through the water next day so she could check up on how things were going. The water was just below the platform supporting their yurt, and she was worried that the whole set up was in danger of floating off in the flood. The baby’s father was not worried and felt that if the worst happened, he could load his family into his canoe!  Somehow the danger of being afloat in a raging flood had escaped his thinking.

 

When Indi heard about this, she tried to ring the SES, but of course the phones were out of action and even the triple zero emergency line was not working. She thought about going to the police but as the living arrangements for the family were not exactly legal, she decided to mount her own rescue.  She could drive through the water to a certain point but then she had to wade to get everyone out. They all ended up at her mother’s house, but I don’t think anyone got much sleep.   Some candle wax got on the carpets too, which did not go down well.

 

We were all very relieved when our power was restored, and we could communicate again. We are the lucky ones and only had this situation for 4 days. Other areas with more trees down are still waiting and it might take another three weeks. Our house works OK without power too. The water still flows by gravity, the stoves are wood, and gas and our toilets still work without the pressure pump. We also had brought a generator so we could keep the freezer and fridges cold, but everything still took more effort.

 

Honey harvesting

 5.8.2-21

 

Winter is officially here, but the weather is variable. Some days are warm and sunny, and some are wet or cold. Today we combine cold and sun for a change.  The steel roof girders for the car port have been delivered but the man who is to put all the earth back could not come last week. There is no point replacing the stone on the drive until that work is done so we are having slosh through mud every. time we go to the sheds or get into a car. Not much fun at all.

 

Josh and Indi tackled the bees last week and took out more honey than they expected. Indi has taken the frames to a friend who is going to spin them, and Josh has been working with everything left over to extract the wax, honey and honey water. The honey tastes fabulous. There is still a lot left in the hive to keep the bees over winter. I love having bees as part of our enterprise but I am fairly allergic to bee stings so I can not work with them myself.   It is quite amazing to me that Indi and Josh can get stung and have no reaction!

 

Last Wednesday I had my first covid jab and so far, I have not had any aftereffects. Less encouraging is the fact that the delta virus strain has now been found in Melbourne. This is the bad one and up until today no one could find how it arrived in the community.   There have not been enough cases here for spontaneous mutation.  Now it has been traced to an arrival from overseas, so there is hope that restrictions can start to be eased.

 

Everyone seems to be finding the lockdown very hard this time.  Usually at this time I am planning for our midwinter feast but now it is looking as if we will have to miss out on it again this year.  Our tenant CB is suffering from the isolation and has been joining us for some evening meals.  That makes 4 people to cook for but at least we all have a laugh.

 

Yesterday Edd and Josh managed to pick up planks to build the car port roof. We need to move the soil before they go up because the soil has to be lifted over the walls and this would be impossible once the roof is on.  This is a very slow building project but once again school visits are off so we can all just keep going with the building.

The goats are pregnant and not giving much milk but the bit they do give is rick and once again I am making hard cheese. Three goats have been sold to their new homes which is sad but necessary if we are to have room for the kids once they arrive.

2 steps backward

 28.5.2021

 

We are in the two steps backward stage. Rain has made it impossible to continue work on the carport and we are back in lockdown for at least a week. This time it is the Indian variant that is spreading in the community. Someone caught it in hotel quarantine, and it has spread very rapidly through community contact.  I am booked in for my first vaccination next week, but it still feels a bit like playing Russian Roulette as we hear of more clotting cases.  

 

I have been busy cooking. With an extra body here our food consumption has shot up.  It is now worth the effort of baking bread and turning all the leftovers into soup.  I am missing the zucchinis and we have probably harvested the last of the tomatoes. We got a huge harvest from the quince tree, and we have sold some at market as well as given heaps away. I am slowly tackling the pumpkins with the aid of a small hatchet I got at St. Andrew’s market and rendering them into freeze able form.

 

Josh has done a total sort out and clean in the mud room. This has helped sort out the stored vegetables and allowed josh to convert the space to some sort of laboratory. He has a large container bubbling away in one of the sinks and something massive called a heffor filter,

 (No-idea how it is spelt) is now taking up most of one worktop.   Obviously, Josh has not changed during his years away.  This morning he has ignores the weather and planted replacements for the stone pines that the deer totally destroyed. More trees survived than we expected but we have been rearing replacements in pots to fill the gaps.

Progress with the car port at last.

 27.5.2021

 

We have been lucky. The weather managed to stay dry and warm enough to allow work on the car port.  Josh dug the mud out of the trenches and he and Edd laid down the drainage pipes and covered them with chippings. They then fixed Drain cell to the walls and put in the down pipes that will take water from the future guttering.    Then it was a matter of getting Skiddy, our geriatric skid steer loader and carefully tipping scoria behind the walls.    Edd worked the loader and Josh got behind the walls and raked it into the correct places. My job was sweeping up spilt stuff and painting water proofer onto the front of the wing walls.

 

The result pf all this effort is that we are no longer worried about mud being washed down into the cavity between the walls and the earth cut out. Actually, we now need mud there and hopefully a bigger, younger piece of equipment will arrive next week and move the huge pile of dug out mud into its final location.  We can now park our cars in this space, but we cannot put the roof on until the steel beams arrive.  Edd borrowed Josh’s car and drove up to Shepparton last week to put in the order for the steel, so that is on the way too. 

 

We just got our work done before a storm hit us. Lots of rain turned the drive into a muddy mess and the power was off for most of the evening.  We have candles and Josh has all sorts of torches so with the gas cooker we could do all the usual evening stuff.  The water can run by gravity, even without pressure pumps and the fires use the dead wood we have collected. Josh has set up a way we can have music on our speaker from our mobile phones, so we had a very relaxing evening.

 

Edd is still feeling very sore after running into the glass door at the post office last week.  

(This is dead true; I swear I did not hit him).  He got two black eyes, a massive scab on his nose and a sore hip and wrist from when he fell backwards.  The people around him wanted to call an ambulance but he just came home and has been going a bit slowly.  He found that working on skiddy made his head woozy and his hip painful.  He has stayed at home until he has begun to look a bit more presentable.

 

This meant that it was only Josh, Bo and I who went to the opening of a friend’s exhibition in town.  The traffic was awful, and it took ages to get there but we had a good time to talk and enjoyed the exhibition when we finally arrived. The art was all these pastels still life works that vibrated with colour.  Josh liked one of sunflowers the most. Sadly, our friend’s husband was not there due to worsening dementia, that was just starting when we were last together about two years ago.

 

The big news is that Bo’s family is considering buying a Tesla car. Simon is test driving one this week. We get together with Bo’s family most Sunday evenings for a family meal around the huge table in her new house.  The whole family is much happier in the new place.  The boys are both in trade apprenticeships and only Silky is still at school. 

 

 

fungal forays

16.5.2021

 

This weekend a cold front has hit us and combined with the wet weather to insure we keep outdoor work to a minimum.  Josh has been foraging and arrived home with pine and field mushrooms in abundance.  Field mushrooms are common on our farm, but pine mushrooms are harder to find. I have never actually found any but obviously I have not looked hard enough because Josh found them growing under our old Xmas tree today.

 

Yesterday we went to our friends 50^th wedding anniversary at DeBortoli’s. We had a wonderful afternoon catching up with many of the friends who worked with us in the desert. That was about 30 years ago now, so we have known them a long time and we have a rather special bond with them after all the time we spent living and working together. It was real community living with all our time spent in walking distance of each other. Josh had been too young to remember most of the people there, but they all remembered him.

It was a great way to spend a miserable cold wet afternoon.

 

A sea of mud is developing in front of the house where the drive has been dug up to build the car port.  Edd put down a load of chippings but they immediately sank into the mud and have done little to improve anything. On a better note, our new storage shed has stayed completely dry, and the water is draining away from behind it down the gully.  The shed has an open front, but it is in the rain shadow of the larger shed and the rain so far has never blown in.

 

Storage in the house is harder. Josh and all his stuff have to be fitted in somewhere. Josh is using the spare room for storage and has out his swag down in the back storage space. He finds he is less disturbed there.  We hoped he could have his own space in the site office, but it is too damp, and the roof has started to leak again so that idea failed.  I really enjoy having him home after so many years so accommodating him with some of our space is fine.  I imagine he will get sick of it long before I do. 

 

 

 

Changes

 4.5.2021

 

It is horrible outside today. Cold damp and miserable. Even the dog would not come outside to do the farm work with me!  The mornings chores are not so bad once I start.  We do the same routine every day, so it is like a dance routine, and works out so everything gets fed and the goats milked with the minimum of effort. If we follow the same routine everyday all the buckets and gear end up in the right places without having to think about it.

 

Luckily until yesterday the weather was sunny and dry.  Edd and I worked on the drainage and water proofing of the car port walls. We are not quite finished, but we are getting there.  We would not be this far if it were not for our son Josh.  He was over from Perth and dug out behind the walls to make room for the drainage pipes.  We have been unable to find anyone who would do this job by machine or hand, so we were extremely grateful for Josh’s superb effort.

Sadly, he was able to help because he and his partner of several years have split up.  I really thought they were a good match and wish they could have sorted out a shared future that suited them both.  When there seemed no hope of a new start Josh flew back to WA to pick up his car and cleanout his stuff from their rented house.  He should arrive back here any time now.  It is a marathon road trip so I will be much happier when he is safely home.

 

Travelling in Australia is a bit unpredictable at the moment. Whenever a case of Covid gets found in the community there is the risk of lockdowns and border closures. It is possible to get stuck away from home or sent into expensive and not very safe hotel quarantine.  There were some cases in Perth recently, but Josh has managed to get backward and forward without penalties. He says he has had no check points on the journey, but there was no guarantee what he would encounter.

 

We have more drama coming up with my granddaughter. She has been told that she must move out of the house she rents in September. This is such a shame as she has worked so hard on the garden. She has beautifully tended vegetable plots where there was once a scrappy lawn, and she has a small pen for her chickens in a corner under a tree where nothing would grow. For her daughters second birthday she has set up and repaired a little cubby house for her and her friends to play in.  We are worried now because for her to find another rental place as nice that she can afford will be really hard.  

 

On a better note, Bo’s family look really happy in their new house. Edd and I joined them and Simon’s parents for a meal last Sunday 

 

Easter celebrations

 4.10.2021

 

Time passes so fast. The figs are almost over now, and it is the quinces turn to ripen.  I need to get them netted but last week I had a bad cold and really did not get much done at all.  Luckily, I was well enough on Easter Sunday to go to the feast party Bo had in her new house.  It was both Easter and my birthday, so I sort of had to be there.  Bo put in a tremendous effort and the food was fantastic.  Roast turkey and lamb with lots and lots of different salads and vegetable dishes.  All the family members of our age were there and most of the kids and grandkids, Wayne’s two girls loved swimming in the pool with him and sitting in the spa.  Indi’s daughter also had her first go in the spa and very much approved.  We all had a wonderful afternoon with family and friends.

 

The week before something happened that we have never experienced before in 50 years of goat keeping. Almost all the does came into season on the same day and stood in front of the buck’s pen screaming out to him.  We did our best to take goats in turn to be serviced but we tried hard not to overload the young buck, Ronan.  He was just learning his purpose in life and had only just worked out which end of the doe to mate.  This will probably mean we have several goats kidding on the same day if they take, which could be interesting.

 The hardest bit when this happens is making sure that we know whose kids are whose.  Last year we collared and labelled them all, but they sucked the writing off the tags which made everything harder.

 

I am still working on processing tomatoes and finally we have egg plants to eat as egg plant parma.  I think there are now some parsley seedlings sprouting and the pumpkins are about ready.  This year the Queensland blues did nothing at all but the balloon shaped bright orange ones I grew from saved seeds have been most prolific. I will have to buy replacement QB seeds and see if we do better next year.

 

Last night our TV viewing was interrupted by a news team announce the death of Prince Phillip.  Whilst I was listening and watching the news readers Edd looked at the news headlines scrolled at the bottom of the screen.  One read that the zookeepers in Sydney were horror struck at the sudden death of their chimpanzee.  Edd did not think this was a good look so he phoned the ABC.  At first, they thought he was one of the hundred who had rung up complaining about the interruption to the show they were viewing but when Edd finally got them to listen the reaction was “Oh shit, I’ll ring then”!   A while later the headline was replaced.

 

As someone pointed out for most people listening the queen and her husband have been a constant all their lives.  It makes you wonder how long the queen can keep going and how things will change. With our present politicians I don’t think a republic of Australia would be an improvement.