cattle droving

28.7.2010
Last weekend was wintery but we all met at the Bohdi Tree in Healesville to celebrate Bo and Al’s birthdays. I missed Josh who is still at Uni in Perth, and Simon, who was working, but everyone else was present. Wayne says he may soon relocate back to Queensland where he thinks there is more work. I am sad that he has split up with Delisa. I liked her a lot and would have loved to have her as a family member. I will also miss Wayne a lot if he moves inter state. He has been such a competent and solid bloke for me to lean on since the fires.

We had another family gathering the previous Sunday for the big cattle droving endeavour. Edd had arranged to sell the heifers and the steer to Kenny who lives up Steels Creek road towards Yarra Glen. We have still not replaced our yards so taking cattle anywhere was a problem. Once we found somewhere to sell them that they could walk the logistics became possible.

Lots of family members and various neighbours joined us and we managed to steer the cattle all the way without too much drama. The hard bit where were fences were still not replaced and they had a chance to escape into big paddocks. Edd had alerted everyone who he could find, so we had help from the people in the homes we passed who defended their own borders. Wayne did a lot of the running and Kenny loaded kids into the back of his ute and ferried them to up to new positions once the cattle had passed them. It was probably all fairly illegal but it was also fun and the only solution we could think of.

There was a slight glitch when Ollie manage to tip over a four-wheel motorbike himself and the adult in supervision into a ditch. Luckily no one was hurt and Ollie probably had his first lesson in the dangers involved with driving as well as droving.

17.7.2010
I was the one with a burst of energy this week. On Monday I got a 4 cubic metre skip delivered and over the next two days I loaded it up with the rubbish left by the builders when the sheds were put up. The skip was well and truly full so Edd brought down the large trailer and I loaded all the wood scraps into that and then balanced the old corrugated iron on the top. The huge pile of rubbish was really irritating me so I am thrilled now it has gone. The skip has been taken right off the property but we will have to unload and burn the wood bits at a later date.

This activity was partly spurred by the thought that Rob and Moira were coming to film us again on Wednesday. It is to document the effects of the fires but we have got very fond of them over the months and I wanted to make it look as if we had achieved something since their last visit. We have, of course done a lot but at this time of year it does not look like it!

On Thursday the first lambs of the year were born. The moorit ewe, Peloton, had twins. The male is now called Cadell, as he was born during Le tour de France like his mother. Another sign of winters end can be seen all over Steels Creek. The wattle and the daffodils are in bloom again and the yellow season has arrived. Lots of wattle trees were killed in the fire so it is good to see that some have recovered and new ones have been planted. Yellow was not such a feature last year.

Edd needed to buy drills so this morning we drove over the hills to St Andrews Market. It was heaving with humanity all rugged up in multi coloured warm wear and looking suitably hippy for the occasion. Edd got his tools and we brought mugs to replace the ones we keep breaking and then we wandered across the road to the hotel. Nothing changes there. The bikies with magnificent gleaming chrome on arm stretching handlebars roared up to parking spots by the outdoor tables and the rest of us crammed ourselves inside for drinks and food around the musicians and large fireplace.

It was cold even indoors so the woollies remained on. The men with the guitars were good and a toddler began to dance. The toddler was joined by a slender girl who shed boots, and then socks, as she got into her stride. Some how she used her hands and body to manipulate the space around her so it seemed as structured as water and began to flow in patterns. We have been coming here for over thirty years now and the continuity is reassuring.

chooks and winds

10.7.2010
More people have been robbed. For the last twenty years we never bothered to lock a door but things have changed dramatically since the fires. Properties in our area are raided every week, probably because there are fewer people around. Even big things like tractors and trailers are pinched and the B@B half way down steels creek lost all their cottage contents. We are all afraid to go off and leave the place unguarded.

Edd began the break from teaching with a burst of energy. He quickly rounded up the straying cattle and isolated them behind a new electric fence. He may even have found someone locally who wants to buy the heifers. Then he borrowed a neighbour’s posthole rammer and began work on the fencing system around the sheds.

Having given up on gardening I focussed on chickens. 10 commercial laying pullets were collected from Wagners, our closest egg factory, and we drove further afield to buy rare breed layers from specialist breeders. I brought new feeding bowls and a bamboo ladder the exact width of the chook shed so Edd could fix it up for perches. The new pullets are now living with the gentle faverolle rooster in the new chook shed and the older chooks are with the aracaner cross rooster in the upper shed.

Things began to look brighter. The sun shone, it was warm and we visited a new type of building that Barry (who works with Al) told us about. It is a system where walls are erected of interlocking recycled, plastic, web, panels. Steel reinforcing rods are put into grooves at intervals and then all the plumbing and wiring can be put in. When all is in place a mixture of fine concrete is piped into the walls and towelled off where it seeps out to form smooth wall surfaces.

This is pretty much instant house and in theory would really suit our semi underground structure perfectly because the rear walls at the back the back have no windows and only two doors. I got really excited and felt that it might be possible to get a house to live in before the summer heat. Doug, our engineer friend and Edd watched one pour and decided that there are a lot of issues such as the strength of the mix that need to be looked at and I began to feel all that ray of hope slipping away. Al is still on holiday so we are all waiting for him before things can move anywhere.

The veil of misery descended further as the frost and high winds returned. We did not get much sleep on Friday night when the donga was moving around in the wind like a small ship lost during a storm in the ocean. Stuff banged outside like a whole troop of robbers and the cold seeped through every crack. We woke to a heavy frost but the next night was worse. The winds returned, only worse and the power cut out just before dark. I had some candles but there was no running water, hot or cold, no heating and the candle flames blew in the wind too much to be effective. We are totally sick of living like this.

raiders

24.6.2010
It is heart breaking. The garden that I have spent a year trying to revive is under heavy attack. Last week our cows got loose and raided everything and then the neighbours bulls made their way over. Worse though are the night raiders. Everyday a new plant has been sabotaged. Yesterday my beautiful new orange trees were decimated and today my coloured grasses are all eaten down. I have put new high tree guards round the surviving trees but it is not possible to protect the smaller plants.

In some ways we are lucky. Human type raiders have been at work in Dixon’s Creek and stolen all sorts of machinery and other goods from fire-affected properties. These can be daylight raids too. Several times I have seen vehicles parked outside our property looking in that drive off extremely fast when I emerge from the donga to see if I can help them!
We had better experiences at the weekend when old friends from the NT came to visit us. We are very lucky to have such amazing friends. Sunday was particularly cold and miserable, Bo came to visit with her three young kids and then Eva and Craig dropped in with new baby Kiki. This just about packed us wall to wall but we managed to keep the kids entertained and have some conversations. Not much else to do on that sort of a day.

In contrast today it is sunny and warm. I have planted a chestnut tree. I have more trees to plant but it takes a long time to rig up their guards afterwards. It is also a good thing that deciduous trees do not look very edible at this time of year. I believe wombats, rabbits and deer are my main enemies but with the sort of damage done maybe we have feral giraffes!

The wicking bed is proving useful as its height deters some low life. We have started to eat the lettuces and I am replacing them with baby spinach. I need to build more wicking beds but with all the distress my garden is causing me I have decided to change tack and concentrate on restoring our egg production system. Over the next week I will buy point of lay chooks and I have already brought heavy earthenware pots for their food and water plus another roll away egg box. The latter are essential to stop the wild birds grabbing all the eggs.

Josh has started his new semester’s work and says he has been told he needs to learn the international phonetic spelling system. We googled it last night and goggled at it. I have tried to send Josh a message using it but to make it work one needs perfect pronunciation. It is based on English but there are a million ways of pronouncing that. Helpfully it goes through mouth shapes, may be if we new it we could learn lip-reading as well. As Josh is still floundering with the present spelling system why not confuse the situation a bit more. He has nothing to loose.

More to the point, tomorrow is Edd’s last day teaching for a while. How I wish we had the plans done and could start building our house. Al is off over the school holidays with his family to build bark huts or something in an Aboriginal community so I have little hope of any help from that direction. Edd is getting very cranky about things.

winter woes

9.6.2010

This is the school class that moved the sheep for us last week

I think what I really want to do is hibernate. It would suit me to get into a comfy warm bed and sleep until winter is over. The thing that really mystifies me is how on earth I survived last winter. We are so much better off this year. We have the goats in a better place where we can milk them without slopping around in mud, we have a toilet close by, even if it is still bucket flushed and we have the shed roof over the cars so that one can drive out of here without sinking ankle deep in mud trying to get into the car.

Perhaps the relative lack daily survival struggles are responsible for the hibernation desire. Last month Josh was struggling to complete his assignments and worked long hours in the donga. It was all very cramped with three of us living and working in such a small space. Luckily, Josh is now back in Perth because this week Edd has had to dominate the space to get his reports finished for school. It would be awful if they had both had to compete for working space.

Actually, I am really worried about Josh. He is doing exams this week and I do not think he is getting any allowance for being dyslexic, which can be a recipe for failure. If he gets through enough to go on with his course it will be a miracle. I just hope he will be OK. He has worked so hard and is actually pretty good at understanding the concepts. Seems so crazy to me. Australia is short of audiologists and instead of setting up a really good training system and supporting people to get qualified they seem to be making it into some sort of academic competition. Of course, the same thing is happening with doctors. They train lots of brilliant academics but end up with no country doctors at all!

There is not much I can do about this, or anything else at present. I have organised everything I can for the new house but we have to wait for engineering comps and then get it through planning. We have been stuck at this stage for ages but Al says that this week some work has been started. The next problem is that with the weather this bad it is not an ideal time to start building. However, the shortest day is only a couple of weeks away and then things will work there way round to better times.

The leaves are finally starting to fall off the deciduous trees. A mangy wombat is systematically destroying my vegetable garden and the goats are finally drying up as their pregnancies move on. The chooks continue to trickle enough eggs in for us to have all we need and the wonderful high school kids moved the sheep into the new area we fenced off ready for lambing. I take them a bucket of feed each morning so I can check them. I thought I might have to retrain them to come up for food but on their first morning in the new paddock they were all up at the gate waiting for me. Bright sheep, with good memories?

David H is still helping me recover the garden. As well as working like a Trojan he keeps me sane. We had a good day yesterday digging out weeds and humping mulch in the area by the cellar. I have replaced the lost macadamia nut tree and plan to add two orange trees on the lower slopes. The wicking bed has grown reasonable sized lettuces and is above wombat height. I have added more seedlings to use the space as we consume the lettuces.

frustrations and positives

17.5.2010
Janner is better. Today the vet removed his stitches and his hateful head bucket. He celebrated by removing the ducks from the dam bank where they have made a dreadful mess whilst he has been out of action. The next problem is the heifers. Today they managed to get into the house site. Luckily Josh was home and together we were able to chase them into the green road that the goats use to get to the old vineyard. This has electric fences on two sides so I am hoping they will stay there until Edd thinks of something better.

This week end Edd and Josh began putting up a fence so that we can move the sheep to the hay paddock for lambing. The sheep in Yarra Glen have already lambed and ours usually follow a few weeks after so there is not much time left to organise this. With Edd working full time and the early dark evenings it looks as if we need help with things. It is so frustrating because I before the business burnt down I used my income to pay people to do the work we did not have time for which saved us both from stress.

I would like to set about earning an income again but I know that as soon as we start to build I will be needed full time on that job. Even though I rarely build I do the pays, food and fetching and I have to be available for consultation at all times. If only I had some accommodation I could get wwoofers again and organise them to do the work. As I said I am finding it most frustrating.

Last week my wonderful dentist fixed my teeth. The false one at the front had fallen out and although I could sort of balance it in I was worried about swallowing or loosing it. Then another enormous filling fell out but the dentist fixed all and I am back feeling human again. The good thing was that as I had to drive afield to get to the dentist I could combine it with the months shopping trip and get that over too. I hate shopping.

This weekend I went to a lecture up in the Kinglake temporary village given by David Holmgren the permaculturalist and Peter Andrews who wrote “back from the brink” his theory of reclaiming land destroyed by our past agricultural systems. David gave his views about future scenarios; I think his best guess is a gradual decline in reliance on oil-based technology. Peter stressed the need to understand that the land here does not behave like land in Europe and treat it accordingly. Lastly a man called Gwen spoke about soils and had lists of weeds that occur at different stages of land health. That was pretty interesting as well.
The lectures continued on Sunday but unfortunately this clashed with family activity, as it was Morgen’s eighth birthday. We had lunch with Bo’s boys and Simon’s parents at her restaurant and then went to her house. India and a friend (looking more like Barbie dolls than ever) came by bus and spent some time at the farm. Luckily Wayne waited and drove them both home to Warburton, which saved me a job. We all agree they look too enticing to be left on public transport after dark.

dog drama

1.5.2010
Janner , Edd’s dog is injured. He must have run over something sharp in the dark and sliced through the skin on his belly. This has meant a trip to the vet and he is now looking very miserable with drains in and a bucket over his head so that he can’t rip it all open again. We are instructed to keep him clean, still and dry, quite a tall order with a young active dog. I really missed him the day he was away being treated. I am used to him helping me handle the animals, a task at which he is very helpful. When we lost our dogs in the fire I felt odd about replacing them but there is a part of our lives called dog and we are happier when that space is filled. Now Janner has fitted in the dogs we lost sit comfortably with all the other wonderful dogs I have loved in the past

Josh is working on the next assignment but we have not got to panic stage yet. Maybe the new romance helps. The big gain of the week for me was that I spent a morning at Al’s office and have now got enthusiastic about the new house plans. Al had some suggestions that have opened up more possibilities and he has taken on board my idea of some large internal arches. It would be a lovely touch to use the bricks from our old house to build these if we can find enough strong ones.

Edd has survived three weeks back at full time teaching and he looks surprisingly unstressed. We have not even got the engineering plans done so he is not needed for building here for some time yet. He has gone to town to try and get tools for the new system of plastic plumbing so that he can connect up the toilet properly. This is really bizarre, but this week I have been flushing the toilet each morning with the excess milk! Normally we would use the milk for feeding calves but with out pens and enough fences it is a task we have decided to forego. The goats have milked for two to three years and I expected them to dry up but , offcourse , they are all producing as if they wanted to win a record.

26.4.2010
It is cooler now and today it is dry again. Bo’s boys “helped “ me build the rest of the wicking bed and in the afternoon I put in the pipes and some gravel. Then weed mat and more gravel, a barrow load of rotted goat bedding and then Josh put in two barrow loads of top soil. We added soil conditioners and trace elements and then Josh filled the base up with water whilst I planted lettuces of various types. Now we will have to wait and see how things go.

Bo and Edd dug in drains so that the water from the donga is finally connected to the sewage system. It has all tipped out into a soakage pit and then onto the soil for the last year so this is a big step forward. We have put a tiny basin in place in the veranda toilet too. It will give us a place to wash dirty hands that is separate from the kitchen sink. Edd is connecting this into the drainage system at the same time.

The water proofing we did on Josh’s roof worked. This was a good thing as his friend, Talia, came to stay and it did rain. We all had a meal out at Bo’s restaurant which was fun. Talia is a very interesting and cheerful young lady, very good looking too in a natural rather than a painted on way. The sad thing for Josh is that she went off travelling again next day and hails from America. Despite this they are getting serious.

Yesterday, Al came over with his boys. The original idea was to have a working day rendering but it poured with rain so everyone squashed into the donga and socialised.

toilet on the way, I hope

23.4.2010
It is still nearly 30 degrees but there is a stiff wind blowing and forecasts of rain on the way. I am trying to get Josh out of bed to put something on his donga roof to stop the rain pouring in. I have mowed all the grass and I may even have time to build a bit more of the wicking vegetable bed I started yesterday.

I have not made a wicking bed before so this is a small version as an experiment. I still have hundreds of old damaged bricks left over from the house demolition. Most of them are too damaged by the fire to be used for any better purpose. I just wish all the work was not so heavy. I had to pull the tree stumps and poles that Mike dug up when he dug the drains out of the way before I could mow and the cement is heavy when I build walls for the bed.

One good thing is that David H is back helping once a week. Now that Edd is not around during the week it is a blessing to have some male help. In the past I got Wwoofers or paid Tony but now I have lost my income and accommodation neither of these options is possible.

19.4.2010
Edd survived his first week back at full time teaching remarkably well. Josh got his assignment in on time too but this proved rather more stressful. The problem is that with all having to live in one room if one person uses the computer until 2 am the rest are involved. As well as writing an essay and making a power point presentation Josh also had to record himself giving a 10 minute lecture, pretending he was doing it to his class mates. This was quite a tall order anyway, but with bulldozers digging drains around our donga and the council mulching up the dead undergrowth and chain sawing dead trees right next to us too things were far from ideal.

My job was to fill in all the documents for the class action against the power company who it is now accepted neglected line maintenance. This involved listing all our lost possessions including things like fences and trees. I found this a distressing as well as a time gobbling task. When Friday evening arrived we were all exhausted but most of the drains from the donga now go into the septic tank, at least they will when we connect up this end. Even the new dairy drains link in. Up until now all our wastewater just goes onto the ground after the soak away pit is full. I think the lack of a system has contributed to our mosquito problem.

Over the weekend Edd started work installing the toilet but we did not get far because we had promised Andrew down the road a days help on his property. Andrew lost the house but he has another home in town that has helped. The problem is that his fences are still not replaced and the weeds and trees have grown back where they should be. Edd took the tractor and slasher and I helped other friends and family pull out tangles of wire and cut down dead trees.

There is still a dreadful mess everywhere along the roads but at least the council have now sent up teams to clean up. So far they are still working along our front boundary and they are now into week two. Even the men working are shocked that our area has been neglected for so long. The time lag makes their job so much harder.

The other thing achieved last week was a toilet. Three visits to the store after the orders kept getting stuffed up (good thing I checked). In the end there was only a choice of two if I wanted ivory colour, I chose the wall-backed model with the shrunken seat. It should be much easier to clean and if the seat really drives me crazy I guess we could make a better wooden one. I have also brought most of the taps and have finally found an old style dishwasher with out a computer that is on order. I am afraid of complicated technology not working with our intermittent gravity fed water, a problem I have had before.

I am getting worried that we have still not started on the house. The weather is still warm and dry but it could change dramatically soon and we really need to have poured a slab first. Al’s office staff tell me that the engineering maybe done next week but it is all taking much too long and we are worried.