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.

The big water tank appears

26.3.2010
I am in hiding again. We have got to another scary bit. This time I can hear everything through the donga walls so I can’t pretend it isn’t happening. Ben is operating Craig’s huge digger and trying to extract the tank moulds from inside the tank with out breaking it or killing Josh and Edd who are helping. Judging from what I can hear the process is not going well! Worrying bangs and shouts are regular and so far there is no sign anything is rising out above the outside level!

31.3.2010
They did it! Actually, Craig, (the neighbour from heaven,) turned up at just the right time and drove his over sized Tonka toy himself with his usual mega skill. With Edd, Josh and Ben helping all the moulds were separated from the tank and loaded on the truck with minimal drama. Now we have a very new looking concrete water tank just needing fittings and a roof. This is a really big step forward for us all. It is a first for everyone so a big sigh of relief is expressed. It should hold about 13 thousand gallons of water which is will push up our water reserves and enable us to last longer in the next drought.
I have now completed the milk room painting and am laying out its fittings. A second hand commercial sink has been added to my demolition finds, which gives me a fantastic bench top area with two separate sinks. Now I just need someone to help me put it all up.

In the house I have done my post summer clean in preparation for the hour change next week and the return of the darker months. My second hand pine dresser is in place and loaded with pottery. It is big enough to help enormously with the storage space problem. It even looks good. I am beginning to feel very much at home in this donga. I am beginning to wonder if I will be sad if I do move eventually into a new home. Not much chance yet though. Building is nowhere near starting.

The goats are putting on weight now they are gazing in the old vineyard. It is mating season and Monty the brown buck, was put with his first doe today! Babies in 5 months time! I plan to mate six of the does this year and six the next. I have started milking again now that the splint is off my broken finger. The chooks are looking a lot happier but have not regrown missing feathers yet. They are going off lay, which is what I would expect. Usually the young pullets start laying at this time to compensate but this year we have had no opportunity to raise any.

Bo was brilliant on Monday. She and Josh went on a raid on Melbourne university libraries and managed to get a card and borrowed books for Josh to take out and use for his Audiology assignments. She dropped her 3 kids and I off at the museum where I had an easy time baby-sitting. All three kids including Sylvie who is one and a half were kept entertained. It was even free for seniors and kids! We were all home by lunchtime with the mission a total success. Now all we need is for Josh to get his work in on time.

21.3.2010
Josh managed the long drive back from Perth arriving on Tuesday evening. We did not see much of him as he soon dashed out again to see long missed friends and then got up at 6.30am next day to work at Beni’s loading grapes for the pickers. How great it must be to be young with all that energy! It seems past even our imagination now!

Not that we have been idle all week. David H came on Monday and Tuesday and he and Edd achieved miracles. They made the temporary fence up to the old vineyard so that the goats can get plenty of fresh grazing and they put up the little tool shed the Lions club gave us so we can use it as a chook shed. This worked out really well because when the school kids came on Wednesday we enlisted their help to catch all the chooks, treat them for lice and sort them into two groups with a rooster in each group. There were twenty-one kids, which was about a chook each. Quite a few chook holders found their charges a bit much and dropped them. This was OK because we had lots of zealous chook casers bent on retrieving lost birds.

I was catching the chooks in the shed and handing them out but I left the last two roosters until we had dealt with the rest of the birds. Much to my surprise three girls volunteered and extracted the last roosters squawking and protesting from the shed. It is odd how it is the girls that tackle the difficult or big animals. I think the boys work by sizing up the aggressiveness of their opponent and backing off if they are not sure about winning. The girls just think that it is a job that has to be done and if an old lady like me can do it they should not find it too hard.

All this chook activity was very much enjoyed by the kids and it is an enormous relief to me to now have two small chook families suitably housed in separate pens. We caught all the chooks that survived the fire and put up the remains of an old shed in the top orchard for them. They have stayed there for the year but with four roosters and cramped housing they were looking a bit embarrassing.

Thursday was the only day we had no big commitments so Edd and I went off to buy things we needed. There has been a most pleasing development at Chirnside where Pete has set up a demolition yard and clearing centre. We found metal trusses for the roof of the new chook palace we are planning, a stainless steel corner bench, and shelf for the new dairy plus various tools and electric bits. Demolition yards are essential for cheap building projects and recycling and this one is an absolute beauty.
With all this new stuff I have been encouraged to keep painting in the dairy and I now only have the last topcoat to do before I can move in the gear and set up my washing machine! Edd has started to loosen the mould on the water tank so we get closer to being set up every day. I hate painting rooms but it just has to be done and everyone else is better at other jobs.

It was autumn fest at the organic market this Saturday and we were asked to take some goats along for a display. We pick two with very laidback attitudes but they had never been tethered before or taken off the property so I was not at all sure I could rely on their good behaviour. I was unnecessarily concerned. Both goats behaved as if they did this sort of thing all the time and were happy to be stroked and petted by piles of human kids. It just feels so good to be doing things for other people again instead of receiving all the help. The school kids loved their day here and it is very reassuring to be back working with them.