23.16.2013
We have a helper this weekend. Arden is staying and doing all the jobs that I have put off because they were in the too hard category. He has pulled out all the bricks that made a path down to the toilet in the ruins and stacked them by the new house so they can be used to build a water feature. This means that the area by the donga will be much easier to mow now. It is important to keep all the grass short because it is still extremely dry and hot and there are fires starting everywhere.
Next he shifted compost from the piles mucked out of the goat shed to my vegetable garden and later if he has any energy left he can hammer in fence posts for a sheep paddock. We fetched the new young ram from Seymour last week so I am keen to move all the sheep onto better grazing. It is fantastic having a young fit worker on the farm again. Edd, Beni and I do our best but we are all limited by age and health issues.
The next job is to core fill the block walls round the base of the goat shed. Once that is done Stevo and Edd can put up the rest of the walls. There is still lots of work needed to get back the amenities we had before the fires but now Edd is teaching two days a week things are going even slower.
I am so glad I resigned from the fire recovery committee. There is trouble brewing over what a logo should look like! I worked with that group for a year to try and get help for people still struggling with big life issues and not having proper housing, I do not think a logo is needed and care even less what it looks like!
Even so, we all had a laugh last night because the words under the logo said “enhancing, connecting, embracing”. Edd felt they were really suitable for this time of year as it is mating season for goats and sheep in the valley. The male goats enhance themselves by spraying their heads with urine and semen (they can’t get to a shop to buy aftershave), but if all goes to plan this will be followed by a lot of connecting and embracing so that we will have a crop of goatlings next year.
Bo and family are now in England staying with my mother. I was thrilled to hear how happy she sounded now that she can meet those three great grand children for the first time. I feel like phoning up every day so that I can share in the experience but I do not think anyone would really appreciate that! We all had a send off party for them at Bo’s house last Sunday. India came because she was picking up our old ram who we are giving to the camp.
He is extremely heavy but we managed to roll him into a wheelbarrow and then into a trailer. We loaded him into India’s van at the last minute after the party for the trip to his new home. The mind boggles at trying to imagine how they will get him across the river to the camp. Maybe on the flying fox? We have not heard from India since she left but we do know there are strong young men at the camp so she will have had help.
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