Operation pitter patter.

wattle

wood ducks by the house

Edd's shed
 30.7.2022

 

We are getting more sunny warm days but they are often accompanied by over night frosts. These frosts have been unusually severe and plants that have been happily living in the same spot for years have been badly affected. We were really lucky because we had a permaculture group tour here last Saturday and the weather changed completely to give us a warm, dry, sunny day. About 25 people came so this really made a difference. 

 

When everyone left, we drove to Bo’s house and met up with Al and his family. We have not seen the little boys or Pip for weeks.  Pip had dressed them in the new jumpers I had knitted and I was really relieved that they were the right size.  Indigo called in before we left. She has just recovered from Covid but is still feeling exhausted. She looked very thin and washed out.

 

Josh is getting organised for operation “pitter patter”. So far this has involved taking Ollies dog to get mated and making up vitamin powders and a whelping kit. Bo and Josh have decided to breed dogs for the family.  Dogs have suddenly become really expensive here. Thousands of dollars for a pup whether it is pure bred or a cross.  Edd and I are still recovering from the loss of our last dogs and are not sure we are ready to replace them yet.

 

My plants have had a few disasters. Rats ring barked my mango tree and the horses trampled my ferns in the gully. They did so much damage that we have moved them into another paddock and left the hill to recover.  I can now understand why people are getting so upset about the brumbies in the Kosciusko National Park.

 

 I can‘t do much in the vegetable garden because the earth is so wet but the plants are still growing and we have swedes, silver beet, lettuce, leeks and for eating. We are getting through the summer crops that I froze but luckily there are still lots of beans and sweet corn left.  We are getting through the tomatoes because we use a lot in soups.

 

Spring is getting closer. The wattle and lucerne trees are in bloom and the chooks have ramped up their egg production.  Sev is still finding enough fire wood to keep us going and we only have one more month of winter. Edd and Stevo have begun work in Edd’s machinery shed. Edd has cleaned the whole thing out much to everyone’s surprise. He has a reputation as a messy shed person.

Family matters

 18.7.2022

 

The weather has returned to winter wickedness. Leaving our warm house to care for the animals takes a lot of resolve.  There is no way I would be out in this weather unless I really had to.    When I am not caring for the animals, I am sat by the fire knitting for the grandkids or doing our accounts.  Last week was pretty quiet with all the kids away. Bo and family came home late into Friday night and then had to get ready for Bo’s 40^th birthday party on Saturday.

 

Lots of friends and family turned up for a very Jolly evening with a huge spit roast and piles of salads. I was really happy because Wayne came with his youngest daughter, Maya. Like the rest of the family, they had also just got home from a QLD holiday. Maya has a huge mop of curly soft brown hair and looks incredibly cute. 

 

Edd and I went home fairly early but others partied on even after Bo had gone to bed.  She got to sleep but then was woken a few hours later by Simon and his mother who were in great distress.  They had been searching everywhere and could not find Simon’s father.  Then they all noticed that he was asleep in bed next to Bo!  He had obviously got the rooms confused. Bo thought it was very funny.

 

The other news is that Al and family have arrived home from the UK.  They had to delay their return for a week until the boys tested negative to covid. Fortunately, they found replacement flights and arrived back safely.  They are hoping that the travel insurance will cover most of their extra costs.  It is a great relieve to have them back again.  Covid and flu are causing havoc here, and the medical services are getting over whelmed.

 

Businesses and schools are also having a hard time with so many staff missing. The worst bit is that people seem to be getting sick again quite soon after their first infection.  We were all told that herd immunity would click in and solve the problem but that now looks impossible.

 

 

Winter sunshine

 7.10.22

This has been a good week. On Wednesday Edd and I drove north to Nagambie to buy Lucerne bales.  It was a lovely sunny day and when we had loaded the bales we went into town and had a pub lunch. It was amazingly good and very cheap so we sat outside and basked in the sun like lizards. Many people on the street stopped for a chat as they past me as I walked along and Edd sat on a bench and looked out over the lake. Even with this we were home in good time to do the animals and so it was a surprisingly restful day.

Now, we have another glorious sunny winter’s day. Edd is off doing a pruning workshop with Graeme and I have been back in the creek area cutting out more blackberries.  It is all so quiet here. Bo and family are off holidaying in Qld and Al has had to delay his flights home from the UK because both his young sons have co-vid.   He and his family are staying in rented accommodation in Cornwall and visiting relatives has had to be cancelled.

 

Josh and CB are also away.   Josh is dog sitting for Beth.  One of their dogs is a very elderly golden retriever who needs a lot of care. Tommy is a very special dog and we all adore him.  It is so sad that we all got dogs around the same time after the fires, so they are all old together.  Edd and I are now dogless and so are Al’s family.  Indi’s dog Rosa is also the same age but still going strong.

 

On the farm we are about the best sorted we have ever been. Our young worker, Sev, has worked miracles and with his help everything is looking very neat and maintained.  He has been too good to be true and so he now has more work and can only come here for half a day a week.  It is better than nothing.  He stacks up a pile of fire wood by the house door every week as well as working in the garden, with the animals and at building and fencing jobs.

 

Edd has started to clean out his shed. This is amazing, but it shows how tidy we are becoming as everything else is done!   We still have to put the upper floor in the big shed and put the second coat of lime render on the walls, which is quite enough work to keep us busy for years.

 

I have spent most of the day back in the creek area where I am continuing the work of cutting out blackberries. The goats and deer have killed a lot, but in some places the blackberries are so tall that they are out of reach, so I am slowly getting these ones down.  There are a lot of beautiful ferns and some kangaroo apple plants that I hope I can protect once the blackberries are down.   The creek is not running.  It only really runs during or after heavy rains.

 

Most of the rain has been falling in NSW where people have had their houses flooded as much as four times this year. They are in despair. I feel so sorry for them, it is awful losing all one’s stuff and financially horrendous to have to repair or replace a house.  The cost of insurance is going up, of course, and it may not be affordable much longer in certain areas.

 

Happy times

                                                            Winter knitting is in full swing.

                                                            Our natures' Stewards group.
 25.6.2022

 

This week it has been warmer but still very wet. We have now past the solstice so the days will gradually get longer. I do not think it will be possible to have a mid-winter feast this year because Al and family are over-seas and there is still lots of covid and flu around.  The hospitals are working in crisis mode and most business have staff away with sickness every week.  It is very hard to get a routine going.

 

This week Stevo brought a work experience student over and they helped Edd move the timber and the big shelves in the shed. Edd is now ordering beams for the upper story floor. We took the old cardboard and burnable rubbish down the paddock to join the burning pile and set it alight. Despite the rain it is still smouldering several days later.  It is so good to have the big shed cleaned out and all the stuff sorted and stacked on shelves in the storage shed. I hated the mess that was there and it was hard to find anything.

 

Stevo has now taken the rest of the scaffolding to his place so that he can clad the walls and get some protection from the weather. Josh is helping him through the weekend and next week, weather permitting.  Sev started to take down the old broken fence between the sheep and the hay paddock.  We have so few sheep now that this is a good time to move and replace fences. This one was burnt in the 2009 fires but we have propped it up and sort of managed since then. It has now too many holes to be any use at all. The wombats are horrors They dig under fences in multiple places and destroy lots of our good work.  Without the dog the native animals are getting bolder. We had a big male kangaroo on the roof on Friday!

 

5.7.22

 

At last, we have some warmer sunnier weather. On Saturday the people I met at the Nature’s Steward course came here for a catch up and working B. several car loads arrived quite earlier and had great fun learning how to milk goats. Then we had a tour of the property before morning tea and cakes. Next, we all walked through the bush along the creek bed and cut out black berries whilst Mia helped us identify native plants.

We found several fern types and kangaroo apple plants as well as the trees and mosses. I had made a big pot of soup and everyone brought a dish so we all had a fantastic lunch and sat talking for most of the afternoon. It was a really fun day with lots of laughter.