10.9.2023
The last few days have been wet and cold but next week predictions are for 25c days. I hope this is right. Today I have lit the wood stove to heat the water as there is no solar.
Despite the weather we have made some progress. Stevo and Josh have put a veranda on his cabin to protect it from direct sunlight and Sev helped gather up lots of the leftover bits of iron and old fencing wire so that we could take them for recycling. We sold three goats, but I need to sell two more before we move last years’ kids in with the main herd. It is good if this happens before they are full grown (and heavy) because some years we have to lift them onto the bale until they know to jump up.
Sev and Edd have put up a fence along the drive so that the sheep can graze on the roof but still let us drive out with out opening gates. This all went well except that it has really annoyed a wombat. We found this out by seeing the massive digging effort it had put into trying to make a passage under the fence. The hole is huge but with the rain it filled up with water, which was not what the wombat wanted. I think this wombat is vindictive because it has now flattened all my daffodils by trundling right up the daffodil bed. I may be wrong about this because we get kangaroos there too. The new fence has acted like a sort of kangaroo filter and we now only get the very large ones by the house. I think they are tall enough to leap over the new fence with ease.
Luckily, we have also been getting war sunny days and I have loved working in the ruins garden. The vegetables are doing well and we have eaten most of the turnips. I am hoping the swedes will mature at the start of next month when we need them for our pastie/ grand finals day. The snow peas have started to climb and the mizuna is growing well. We have cauliflowers and broccoli eat as well as lots of lettuce. We still have stored pumpkins, beans and tomatoes from last year so the freezer is still half full. Soon it will be time to germinate tomatoes and zucchinis. There was a huge amount of waste biomass from the gardens and I am wondering if we could by a chipper mulcher and recycle it as mulch. Usually, we take it all to a burning pile and have a bonfire but it would be better to use it to help build up top soil. It seems that there is a bewildering choice when it comes to these machines and we are still researching the options.
The puppy Sarah is at a very bouncy teen-age stage and has spent the last week trying to test for weaknesses in our house site fence system. Edd and Sev have put wire netting onto the base of the fence to stop her squeezing out of the fence holes but she has all day and night to try and work out other methods of escape. We have now released the lambs and their mothers from the sheep shed and the last thing we want is for Sarah to start chasing them. I am sure she would, given half of a chance.
Bo has two extra teenagers, her brother in laws daughter and a friend. She seems to be collecting teenagers at an ever-increasing rate, but she is happy to have them around and safe. We will worry until Ollie gets home. He has flown off with his mates for a holiday in Bali. Bali is a bit of a party place for young Aussies. I have never been there but some Aussies have found themselves in terrible situations over drug laws which are draconian compared to here.
