22.2.2025
Today there is a total fire ban because it is hot, very dry and windy, so far OK, but all my friends that I talked to at the market this morning are worried. Last week we had some cooler days and Indi helped me tackle garden areas that I had failed to keep under control. Everything is bone dry and all the deciduous trees are dropping their leaves a month early. The Virginia creeper is turning red despite my daily watering efforts. I was hoping this would happen when we had the permaculture day but it now looks unlikely.
The feed in the paddocks has mostly gone and we need to sell stock. The trouble is that all the local markets have closed making stock reduction a mammoth undertaking. Before we sell the sheep, we need to shear them and tag them so nothing is going to happen fast.
We did tackle one problem hard this week. Our milking machine has been on its last legs this year and it is now not possible to get new parts. I was hoping it would last a bit longer so we could hand milk over winter and take our time sorting out a replacement. No such luck! The next problem was that we could not find anyone selling a machine to milk two goats at the same time. Edd decided on a single cow machine and reconned he could do the adaptions using parts we had. I hated to spend money on something that was not what we wanted, but Edd was right and he quickly got a useable machine set up and working.
Our next problem concerns kangaroos. There are huge mobs of them everywhere. They jump into the house site and eat any grass they can find anywhere. Josh hit a big one and damaged a wing on his car and my friend’s son wrote off his car in a similar way. To make matters worse they closed the main highway going north from Yarra Glen which forced everyone to use small unsuitable roads. There were several accidents and they have had to reopen the road and rethink One good thing. Indi found macadamia nuts on one of my trees that were as good as brought ones.
