wet weather and war on rabbits

26.5.2020

Edd and Stevo have raised the sides of the vegetable beds by adding planks of timber above the corrugated iron.  This became essential because rabbits worked out how to get into the raised beds and then eat all our seedlings. Since this work was done the replacement seedlings that we put in are doing better, though the cabbage white butterflies are still causing problems with their hungry caterpillars.

We are having the wettest year we have had for years. The mud is horrible and torturous to walk on. I have spent a lot of time spinning and knitting indoors out of the damp. I have lots of grandkids who need winter woollies, especial the ones that do lots of windy beach walks. I should really be working on the accounts but that is not half as much fun.

Like me the goats prefer to be indoors when it rains. We still have plenty of hay so they can feed without walking anywhere if they choose.  The sheep are not so lucky and are having a pretty rough time.  We are feeding them barley, but we will have to do more. Normally we would have sent them off to market by now, but all the sheep markets are closed due to virus worries.  We need to get them salt licks with extra selenium. They need extra selenium in wet years, or the lambs get white muscle disease which kills them.

First frosts of winter

17.5.2020

This weekend we have had glorious clear skies and warm sunshine.  With no aeroplanes flying and reduced traffic the air quality is the best it has been for years. For the last three nights there has been frost so our window of growing for summer crops has ended. We are still eating the last of the tomatoes, but the plants have died.  I dug up the capsicum and brought it into the sunroom.  It did not enjoy being dug up and I thought it would die but it has got over the shock now and accepted indoor living with the chilli plants.

Milk production is gradually slowing but I still get enough to make cheese several times each week.  Today I am making a hard cheese and last Thursday we made feta.  Edd’s young pullets have started to lay. He is guarding them because we have a fox that sits up by the fence on the road looking as if it has evil plans.

We harvested the pumpkins but only the Queensland blues had a good crop. Even some of them have woody patches. Our friends in Healesville have the same problems and none of us know why.  The olives got picked too but I stored them in the fridge as I picked them so that I had a big batch to process and this did not work at all. Obviously not a good idea but at least my new press worked well. I like the idea of producing as many of our needs as possible on the property and we would need a fat or oil source for cooking and soap.  The trees are still small, so this is a very long-term project.

Our house has stayed really warm and is full of winter sun light and rainbows.  We have not had to put up with much in the way of difficulties during this virus lock down period.  I always keep my cellar well stocked and we have not run out of anything we really need.  We have a lady from town staying here in the dong because she was so stressed by being shut in her house with the same people day after day.

6.5.2020

It is so wet! Last week it rained and rained and rained. The slippery mud is horrible, and the goats have stuck firmly to shed living.   It is lucky that Edd was able to get out and bring home extra straw for their bedding.  We sold Gwen so that we could put all last year’s kids with the herd and put the two oldest goats in a separate croft for winter.  The young goats are now all grained to jump onto the bale at feeding time and their elders are teaching them manners.

The chook panic buying made it difficult for us to get our usual supply of point of lay birds, but this problem faded, and we now have sixteen new birds that should lay soon.