Rain at last and school camp

March 25 2017

This week we have had a school camp here with 22 teenagers working on the farm and practicing their farm and camping skills.  The students take over all the routine jobs for the week and then tackle set projects, know as major tasks.  This time we cleaned up the paddock between our eastern neighbours and us by removing the burnt fence that bisected this area and collecting up all the old vineyard posts that Ben and his gang had pulled out with the digger.

The second group of students worked on the old drive where they removed dead and dying trees and dug out blackberries.  They also took down the temporary fence by the gulley because this is to be replaced by our local fencer.  The plan for the old drive is to use it as another chook run.   It already has netting on two sides and established trees for shade and shelter.  Both major tasks were completed so we are now ready to go on to the next stage.

If this sounds like really hard work, then that is pretty accurate, but these kids are very good workers and enjoyed the tractor rides that were part of the proceedings.  Edd had also worked really hard fixing the filter on the pool and getting it all working so that everyone could cool off if they got too hot. The students cooked their own food in the ruins were they have an open-air kitchen. I noticed that they cooked really healthy food with loads of fresh vegetables.

We had one problem when half an hour before lunch it was discovered that the chicken was still in a big frozen ball when it should have been all ready for a meal of butter chicken. With a bit of encouragement it was decided that a vegetable curry and rice was the only alternative and everyone ended up well fed at the right time.  This year people are starting to use the herbs and vegetables from the garden, but we made no impression on the glut of tomatoes.

We started the week hard with a thunderstorm, heavy rain, and suffocating humidity.   Amazingly everyone coped really well and it mostly rained when the main farm work was over.  The subject for afternoon study was maths, which does not sound too exciting. We set tasks of measuring how much water was stored in the tanks and the pool, trying to work out how big a net was needed to cover the new fruit orchard and working out the economics of goat keeping.

I was most surprised how enthusiastically these problems were tackled. One group measured the pool from the outside and one from the inside. It has two rounded ends and various methods of calculation were tried. The average of the results was pretty accurate and we could even work out how much it would cost to fill if we brought tanker loads of water.

Gradually, over the week the weather got dryer and cooler and on the final night we were able to have the usual bonfire to get rid of the old tree branches and other waste that had been collected up into a burning pile. The pizza oven was also fired up and heated to very high temperatures so that this year lots of really wonderful pizzas were made very quickly.  From our point of view the camp was a good one, no one was injured, work got done and mostly everyone looked happy. I hope the people from the school felt the same way.

catastophe

 Newly shorn sheep in the evening sun

My new black look in the dairy.

March 8 2017

It has not rained at all since we got the big tank cleaned and a roof put on it!  Yesterday we paid for a tanker load of water to keep us going.  In many ways the cool nights and sunny mornings are bliss.  It is like waking up at a beautiful holiday site every day but life on the farm has being going through a difficult spell.

The horses quickly found the place cleared for the new fence and got into our neighbours property.  They have just bashed through the temporary fencing we put up and got out again so they are confined to a small croft by the dairy until better fencing is up.  We got up at 6 am this morning because a local man sent up his posthole rammer to put us in posts before it was sent off on another job.   We are not able to concentrate on fencing yet because we have had a rather large catastrophe in the dairy milk room.

Edd accidently left 7 litres of milk to heat on the stove and by the time he found out it had boiled to charcoal and covered everything including the walls, ceiling, and all the cheese making equipment with sticky black soot!  Even the insides of the cupboards and fridges were filthy!   At first the mess was really hard to tackle because there was nowhere clean to put anything down. The dishwasher did not remove the soot either.  We filled a sink in the laundry with hot water and dairy caustic and that worked better, except it meant hand washing absolutely everything.

Four days later and we are beginning to get some order. We have relocated one fridge into the dairy and placed the big cupboard in the laundry. I brought large plastic boxes and we have stored cleaned stuff in them. This morning I was able to clean off the large stainless steel worktop and sink and the window behind it but we will have to repaint the whole room before we put things back. I am surprised that I am not more upset and I don’t even feel angry with Edd who has been very contrite.   My attitude is that we will put it all back better than it was before and know that absolutely everything has been sorted and cleaned.

I have still had to find time to process more apples and tomatoes. I have been giving boxes of tomatoes away but they keep coming!  It is hard to keep enough water up to the vegetables with all this sun and heat. The new grape vine has yielded its first fruit and we are still getting strawberries.  Mildew is just starting on the zucchinis, which heralds the end of their season.  All being well we will get a big pumpkin crop too.

The best thing last week was that the new shearer came and was amazing.  He caught the sheep in the yard and did their feet and worming as well as shearing them.  He also did the alpaca by holding him just like a sheep and made it look easy! He charged half the amount of the last bloke too!  I hope this guy stays in business a long time because he gives exactly the service we need now we are getting older.

12-tons of help

 The 12-ton at work clearing the fence line

Gravel pit dam is more or less empty

  Indi's bee seem very active by the vineyard dam

March 2 2017

Summer is officially over but the hot dry weather continues.  Today we are waiting for the shearer who hopefully will de-fleece the 6 longhaired sheep.  The two, dorper ewes and their three lambs have helpfully shed their own fleeces.  The lambs have grown well and fast so I think we have found a breed that will suit us and save us from the problems of crutching and fly strike.  Shearing costs have gone up so much that the wool is worth less than it costs to get it.   I have many bags of coloured and white wool saved for hand spinning but too little time to do it.

Ben, his brother, and his friend are now helping us clear a path so that we can put back a fence to keep the stock from out wilderness area.  This area was wrecked by the fires in 2009, and sadly, the big fern trees in the bottom of the gully died. New trees have grown but they are not big enough yet to provide a shady rain forest environment.   What is amazing is how much debris has accumulated on the ground.  It has taken the 12-ton digger to move it aside so that we can get a new fence in!

I was a bit worried about how the boys would go driving such a large machine but they seem to be managing wonderfully and taking great care to do the job safely.  I am totally impressed and I rather think that the guys are enjoying themselves too.   Edd and I have loved having all the young people around but we are running out of water fast.  The gravel pit dam is almost totally empty and the digger has had a go at cleaning out the sludge that has built up at the bottom. How lucky we are to have a neighbour who lets us use his heavy machinery with such freedom. 

Edd keeps up an amazing level of work.  This week he has been out fixing fences during the heat of the day.  The house site is now safe from stock on the hill.  I am quite glad that the freezer gives me an excuse to move into the cool of the house after the mornings work and process food to be stored.  This week a neighbour swapped goat manure compost for a box of apples and I stewed them up with blackberries for winter breakfast fruit.    We are getting more and more tomatoes too.   The school mob planted them very close together but this actually has worked rather well as they are providing their own shade for their roots and the ripe fruit is hidden from birds.

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.