The tank is ready but there is no sign of rain

February 26 2017

We now have a corrugated roof on the water tank but no sign of rain to fill it with water.  Our supplies in the other tanks are rapidly dwindling and it looks as if we will have to buy a tanker load of water to tide us over. Indi, her boy friend, Ben, and his brother seem to live here a lot of the time so we use quite a lot for clothes washing and showers.  I found a fifty-dollar note in Indi’s washing when I hung it up today so I teased Ben about money laundering.

Ben has actually been doing us a great favour this weekend. He has borrowed the twelve-ton machine from our neighbours to clear some ti-tree and he then pulled out all the remaining poles in the old vineyard.   Edd is thrilled because he can now plough the paddock and work on it much more easily.  Ben is thrilled because he can use the posts to fence off an area for Indi and himself with out having to buy any poles. We are hoping we can use the machine to clear the route for the fence line across the gully before it goes.

There is a lot of urgent fencing that needs doing.   Edd has been trying to do as much as he can but we have got to the stage where we will need to pay for someone else to help.   The animals are all getting out into the wrong places and that will cause other troubles.  I found that a lot of the goat kids had got out onto the road on Friday but I lured them back home and shut them up in the yards. I was just feeling good about averting this disaster when I discovered that one of the male kids had got out of his pen into the hay.

We have now sorted the kids into two safe yards and put the older does together so we can start weaning them whilst continue to feed milk to the younger kids.  This also means we can just feed the goats instead of milking them in the evening and feed the young kids from milk in the fridge. This cuts down our work a lot and makes timing more flexible if we want to do other things.  If the kids do not like it they only have themselves to blame. We were too busy at other work to move them until they moved themselves.

The tomatoes continue to ripen in abundance. I have put kilos of prepared tomatoes into the freezer as well as eating them and giving them away.  We even sold them at the market on Saturday along with eggplants and zucchinis. The lettuce and the Bok choi are also large enough to eat and on Friday night we ate goat curry and aloe began.  We are enjoying beautiful autumn weather.  Crisp cool nights and hot sunny days.  Pale golden paddocks beneath deep blue skies. This is one of the best seasons.

Today I am stewing up apples and blackberries to make winter breakfast fruit. The enormous freezer is filling up alarmingly fast.  I would like to plant broccoli and kale but it is so hot and dry that it would be a battle to keep them alive. The pumpkins are huge and plentiful.  They also take up a lot of space. It does not seem to matter how many new beds we build it is never enough!

In the water tank

February 18 2017

The water tank has now been cleaned, had holes filled and new roof stands welded.  Edd has been filling the big holes with a special compound and today we painted over the small holes with Mr. Crystal, a product that strengthens the concrete with crystals.   We are expecting Stevo to come early next week and help Edd put the tank roof on.  Then we need to sort out the drains from the gutters to the tank and wait for rain.   Luckily this week has been hot and dry. The guy could not do the welding if there was any water in the tank.  This week three people died inside a water tank they were cleaning.  It is thought that they got carbon monoxide poisoning from the equipment they were using so it was probably a good idea to do all this work before we put the roof on.

The fires in NSW have died down a bit with the weather change and there is still no sign of fire round here.  I can feel in the air that autumn is on the way so the fire danger period will soon be over for another year.  The goats are just starting to cycle and the chooks are going off lay.  In the garden the eggplants are nearly large enough to eat and the pumpkins are huge.  With the cooler nights the runner beans are setting again and the tomato crop just keeps coming.

The goats discovered that Edd had taken down the fence below the house site to repair it and they nearly found the way into the vegetable garden.  This means that they are now confined to the small croft by the shed and they are not happy. This week I have cut out evening milking for most of the herd and we can get away with only using the machine once a day.  It also means we can start the milking early just after watering the garden.  We do very long days over summer and it is sometimes 9pm before we cook tea so this change is very welcome. I long for the start of summer after the cold short days of winter but I like the change back too.

With all the work on fencing, woodcutting and the tank we have still not got the sheep shorn.  I think we did them last February but we do not want to leave it much later or it will be too wet and cold for them.  There always seems more to do than we can fit into a day.   We have, however both found time to go to the dentist for the first time in years. A dentist has set up in Yarra Glen for the first time so it has become easier to do this.  Dentists are incredibly expensive so seeing one had to work it’s way up the list of priorities.

The media is still in shock after Trump got elected to be the USA president.  Over the last few years Australia has been supporting the USA in various over seas wars but a lot of people are not behind this.  There is a lot of worry about the new system and what it will mean for us.  I have never heard the media talk so often and so negatively about another countries leader before. Climate change is getting harder to dismiss too so we may be in for interesting times.

Nearer home we had a telephone drama when workmen cut the cable from Dixon’s Creek and we all had to do with out Internet and landlines for a few days. There is still no mobile reception on our land so this was a disaster. It was back working when I got up this morning much to my relief.

Tomatoes galore

February 15 2017

This weeks the nights and mornings have been cool but the day heats up as it goes on, and the plants still need watering.  There have been horrific fires in NSW, with several houses and lots of stock lost but fortunately no lives. We had one day of very strong winds and fire danger but luckily no fires started. This is the same time of year as the 2009 fires so they are in everyone’s minds.

The watering is helping us with out bumper tomato crop.  This year’s is probably the best we have ever had.  The plants that we put by the upright frame has done amazingly and as there are too many to eat fresh today I harvested lots and prepared them for freezing.  We have lots of large pumpkins too and as usual we cannot even give zucchinis away.  The eggplants are just starting to have their fruit ready but the snow peas are over and the beans are slowing down too.

One good thing has happened.  The timber mill delivered our yearly supply of hard wood off cuts for the wood stove.  The truck drives into our big shed and tips off the load.  It is the easiest job of the year and means we have hot water and hot radiators as well as cooking all winter for a very reasonable price.

The first Permaculture field trip came last Saturday. I think perhaps I am taking too much for granted.  No one seemed to have any idea that you milked goats twice a day. I sort of think that everyone knows how their food is produced, but maybe I am not right.  Yesterday I brought a new mobile phone.  It is a very basic model with buttons but amazingly no instructions.  I asked the man in the shop and he said how to use it was obvious!   Well, not to me, it has a red slide knob on the back that could do anything.  With living in an area with no mobile coverage I rarely use mine, but I have used them enough to know that they are all slightly different. I think the gap of understanding between rural and city folk is widening fast.

The fence below the dam is down because of the fallen trees and the goats have discovered that there is nothing to stop them coming up into the house area.  They are now restricted to a small croft by the shed until we get the fence fixed.  Edd is still working on the new water tank.  We have totally cleaned it and are now waiting for Ben’s friend to do some welding so that we can put the roof on. Edd still has some cracks to fill as well but we are making progress.

Preparing for winter

February 5 2017

There is so much we need to do before winter.   Last week we got some help and started to cut firewood from the dead trees that threatened to collapse on the fence between the gully and us.  Some of them were very large but already they have started to rot internally and had reached a dangerous stage.  Even our local expert tree man had difficulty getting them to fall right.

Edd had pumped all the water from the new tank by the dairy but there was a thick sludge of algae left in the tank that had to be cleaned out.  I used ladders to get into the base of the tank and brushed and scooped the mess into buckets.  This was a very messy job and I ended up soaked and splashed with so much black gloop that I had to strip off all my clothing and have a shower! Fortunately Ben and his brother helped Edd on the following day and made a bucket chain that effectively moved the mess into the nearest paddock. We now have to clean and repair the tank before the new roof goes on.  Edd has brought the corrugated iron to make the roof so that bit is ready.

The new freezer is now on and full of goats meat.  We had a young buck who developed a bad hernia so he went to the butcher before he got into any pain. I have harvested lots of beans and the garlic but now the tomatoes need to be possessed ready for freezing. We are eating lots of fresh tomatoes and they are really tasty this year. The cucumber crop has failed. These last few weeks of heat and no rain came at exactly the wrong time for them.  I have been watering the vegetables twice a day but everything has still been struggling.

Luckily it rained today so the plants are looking a lot happier. The two olive trees that we got from the back of Bo’s restaurant are hovering between life and death.  I water them every day and count the green leaves. The first tree only has seven but this number has stayed stable.  I am not sure if this is good or bad but whilst there is life there is hope.  My olives still have fruit on them and the chestnut trees are covered with small green prickly balls, but I am not sure if they are getting enough water to develop them into nuts.