Are you kidding

28.8.2019

Goats never consider our convenience about when they give birth. In fact, sometimes it seems as if they deliberately choose the most difficult time possible.  I got up early on Saturday morning so that I could have the milking done by the time the permaculture group arrived, but Rani had twin girls. She would probably have managed fine, but Erin had got involved and kidnapped them. This meant that I had to milk Rani and bottle feed the kids to make sure that they actually got some colostrum in the first few hours of their life. Edd had to go and meet the students in Yarra Glen and then we had to show them around and feed them a morning tea with cheese tasting so it was not until they all went off to see tender break farm after lunch that we had time to build a pen and reunite the babies with their own mother.

Today Edd is teaching at the High school all day and the next two goats have gone into labour. Eden gave birth fairly easily to two huge buck kids, but Dorcas is doing it harder this afternoon. I have come down for a cup of tea because she is not far enough along for me to help her yet and it is agony to watch her struggling. I suppose we are lucky that they did not kid at the weekend when we had 24 r so guests staying.

Actually, the weekend was fun.  I cooked up a feast for everyone on Saturday night. People were very polite, and it was only after I said it was OK that various bottles were extracted from cars and the party got going.  Graeme came over from Healesville because this is his class and Indi, Ben and baby A joined us too. Ben’s family have a small bakery where they cook delicious sour dough bread and we ordered several loaves that they delivered for us. Everyone seemed very happy with the food we provided, and we found places for everyone to sleep the night. 

 Luckily it was sunny in the morning, so the house was warm and welcoming. We made a cooked breakfast and then everyone had to leave to go to Graeme’s place for the day. If it wasn’t for the goats kidding, I would now be very relaxed.

18..8.19

The air felt and smelt of spring for the first time this year. Yesterday the rain finally ceased, and we had a warm sunny day. This morning it was even warmer, but the chill is back tonight. The dry weather was most helpful because we were able to clear everything out of the old site office donga and clean it inside and out. Everyone has been dumping excess gear there for years now.  We had to remove bins and bins of old clothes, a spare car wheel, coils of barbed wire and endless pots, jars and IT goods.  Some things we just couldn’t identify.

It is a great relief to have everything dealt with and the extra room it gives us.  We are expecting 26 or so people to stay next weekend on a field trip for their permaculture design course, so every spare space we can get is important.  Next I have to organise food for everyone, but it all seems possible now we have the donga sorted. We still have loads of pumpkins and heaps of meat in the freezer. The wind has brought down oranges and mandarins that I have collected up for breakfast fruit too.  At this stage I have no idea if they are vegan, vegetarian or what, but I usually make an array of dishes to cater for all comer.

Bo is having terrible car problems. Her mechanic had totally failed to get the car going right so last week Edd took it to our man.  He found odd foam through the engine and sensors not working. After a week he got it back to normal but a day later it was playing up again.  I have been very blessed with my little old Toyota corolla, I hope it will last out until electric  cars become the norm.

The sad situation season

Al.s youngest

10..8.19

This is the third time I have wiped this page and started to rewrite it.  Basically, winter has now arrived with the side effects of mud, flu and misery.   My friend Merrie is in the process of selling up and moving north to Queensland. At this time of year, the climate above Brisbane seems very tempting.  Indi has just got home from visiting a friend in Darwin and I think she went a bit too North.  Her baby got sick with the humidity and they had a very sleepless time.

A quick look at the news here today depicts most of Australia as one big disaster area. The football in Canberra was won by the snow, in SA two truck drivers collided and died in a dust storm, NSW has floods, drought and wind taking rooves off and a poor lady was killed locally when a gum tree fell on her car.  We are relatively well off. The house is warm, the mud is outside, and we have not caught the flu off Bo’s kids yet!

There are now 14 lambs. The bottle reared pair are doing well in the shed and the rest are growing despite the conditions. We are lucky that we still get the spent grain from the brewery. It compensates the sheep for the poorness of the grazing. It is still a few weeks until the goats start to kid and then the real work begins. At least there is enough rain so make watering the garden unnecessary, but I am having another go at the asparagus.  My plants mostly died when I tried to move them a couple of years ago. The problem is that the beds get more and more weedy and cannot be dug over and replenished properly with out disturbing the roots. This time I have planted my corns in very large pots.

Edd is now teaching building at the high school every Wednesday.  They could not find anyone else to do this term with the right teaching qualification who new anything about building.  A lot of the course is done on computers but hands on work with tools us also required. Edd comes home exhausted having had to stretch his skills in every direction.  My job is to take over all the farm work, so I do not get a let out either.

Edd did the farm work yesterday because I baby sat Al’s youngest while he visited a client.  The weather was wet and cold so I (and a lot of others) holed up in the library at Eltham for the morning. It was an excellent place to be. It was clean, warm, had toilets with baby changing tables, and an endless supply of books, we were even treated to a preschool style entertainment, so the time passed with no stress for anyone.  I do think that good public spaces are what is needed now to help the population cope in a distressed climate. Shopping malls provide a refuge from the heat in the hot times and if they have libraries, coffee shops and play spaces for kids lots of people can use them rather than try to keep individual homes at a liveable temperature. 

It would also be cost effective to set them up as disaster refuges. For times of fire and flood.