rats both friends and foes

April 24 2017

The days are really short now. It is really dark by 6pm. We are getting some rain but also sunny quite hot days.  The pumpkins are only just starting to get mildew and are still enlarging young fruit so I have left them in place.  The same thing goes for the tomatoes; this year’s crop is going on forever.  The first round of wintergreens is in the ground but we need more space before we plant any more.

We are slowly getting the goats mated as they come into season and we have sold two of the young buck kids.  We have put the seven girls in a pen together and will wean them any day now. I am working on the milking herd to dry off as many off as possible. It is working and we will soon be able to switch to hand milking.  All this is part of the usual autumn program.

Now that Stevo has done the shed wall Edd no longer has to be chippies mate and he has been able to get back to fencing. The professional fencers have done a great job, but we still have some left to do. The next objective is to complete the hill boundaries and then the goats and horses can use the high ground during the wet season. There is not a lot to do but it is complicated work and takes time

I have just returned from Queensland where I went to spend a few days with our youngest son.  It was his birthday and his partner was away visiting her family so I thought it would be nice to keep him company. He has to stay at home because he has a geriatric rat that needs medicating twice a day.   There is not room in their town house for much in the way of a garden or pets but Josh has an amazing under water garden in his fish tank and Bobby has a luxury apartment for her very well cared for rats.

Indi has also had dealings with rats.  She is busy trying to sort out her stuff in the donga and has discovered that she shares her home with rats that have used anything available to build nests.  Last week we moved the units that she and her friends have been building so she is getting closer to having her own place for her stuff.  This involved a crane truck and was fairly scary, but with a combined effort we moved everything without any drama. 

lovely new fences

April 12 2017

Our beautiful warm sunny autumn has been interrupted by storms last weekend. On Sunday it absolutely poured and ground water accumulated behind the goat sheds making gumboots essential.  It is only today that the whole area becomes navigatable again.  This is important because now all the goats are coming into season and we need to cross this area to get them to the buck.

I feel sorry for the goats.  Unlike us they cannot just put on winter clothes when the weather changes this suddenly.  I have put down lots of fresh straw for them to bed down in and made sure they have stomachs full of roughage to create internal warmth but there is not much else I can do.  They are not complaining and the sun is out again today which helps.

With better weather the fencers have returned and are now working on the new fence below the big dam.  We hope they will also have time to put in the posts for the fence at the bottom of the gravel pit paddock. Whilst we are fenceless we have had the horses shut in one of the small crofts, which they have churned up into mud.  We are desperate to get them onto the hill where they will have more space and shelter.

Stevo was due this week to put up the end wall of the goat shed but he has flu. At least this means we can concentrate on the fences first. Yesterday it was too wet for any workers, even us, so we drove down to Warragul to pick up a new motor for the milking machine. Our old one is on it’s last legs and we are afraid it will collapse and leave us hand milking all over Easter.

Sunny autumn days

April 5 2017

Rosie the large black goat went off to her new home today.  She left in a trailer covered with a tarp this time, which I felt happy about.  Wilma and Feta are going to the same home once they are mated so she will be joined by her friends soon.   We are selling several of the older goats this year because we have too much milk now that the kids are almost weaned.  Usually we buy a calf but this year they are very pricy so we are just trying to slow milk production down instead.

We are still having warm dry sunny days but the valley has been a bit smoky from controlled burns in the forest.   So far they have stayed well under control too, which is good.  In the garden the tomatoes are dying back but the pumpkins are showing no sign of mildew yet. We are still harvesting a few zucchini and amazingly we still have Tuscan black Kale to eat from three of last year’s winter plants. We have lots of beans stored in the freezer and with them a huge amount of tomatoes so we have plenty to eat.

Indi’s bees have not done well at all and she tells me that other beekeepers are having the same problems.  It has just been a really bad year for honey with plants in flower and the weather not working together well.  It is also a strange year for goats.  I have not noticed any of them coming into season yet, and it is well after the usual date when they start to cycle. 

We are now on winter timing and with the hour change it is dark at 7pm instead of 8.  We now do the evening chores at 4pm and have a much shorter working day. Today we have Chris and Edd moving the dangerous trees opposite the ruins before we replace the fence down the gully.  The fencers start at 6am tomorrow, so they are pretty serious about doing the job.   Steve might come soon to do the shed end.  We have been waiting weeks for the people we needed to do this work and now they have all come at once,…typical.

Cleaning the goat shed

March 28 2017

I was hoping for a bit of relaxation at the weekend but I was out of luck.  John turned up with a truck and a digger and we spent all Sunday scooping the deep litter out of the goat shed and trucking it down to the hay paddock.   We now have a mountainous pile of compost that will have to last over the next few years until the shed is full again.   We had to take down the pen fencing to do this, and then we had to put it all back again before the goats came in at night.  It meant a long day of work but we managed.

On Saturday we cleaned up and did the washing, which sounds OK but we also had people here to buy goats.   Mellissa, Qantas and Hatti have now gone to their new home.  The couple that brought them were very nice but I was worried about how well the goats would travel as they were in an open trailer.  I hate selling goats but we need to make room in the herd for the new ones we have bred.  It is much nicer when several goats go together because at least they have friends to share the experience.

The remaining goats look very happy and smaller now that the shed is back to ground level with only one layer of golden straw.  Edd fixed the fence round the closest paddock so that they could go further to graze, and that pleased them too.  We had to leave the fence down until we picked up all the posts from the old vineyard but the students did that last week which was great.

The next thing to do is to repair the fences so that we can let the horses loose into a larger area.  Edd has started working on this today but I am back at the house trying to restore some order.  We have UK friends coming to stay at the weekend and I want them to feel comfortable. 

The hour changes next week so our long summer workdays are coming to an end.  It has rained well enough to get us some water in our newly roofed tank and the grass is going green again. Luckily there are still very warm days so the grass is also growing and we look to be getting a good autumn break.  

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.