stormy weather

November26

Amazing weather. Hot, overcast and lots of thunderstorms.  One poor young woman was killed by lightening near here this week!  On Friday we had the last student workshop for the year.  Luckily the rain held off and everything went OK.  We even got the last of the wood piles moved before everyone cooked pizzas for lunch.  This month has been pretty full on and we are now trying to remember what we were doing before all the school camps started.

November 22 2017

A week ago we had a school camp and it rained half the time.  It rained so much that one day we all retreated into the house, made bread and marmalade, saved seeds and did craft work.   As soon as the camp left the weather cleared up and this week we have been above 30 C most days.  Tonight the valley is full of smoke fumes from fires in Gembrook, but the CFA has planes, dozers and every imaginable vehicle dealing with them and they are not worried at this stage.  Even so, it is an early and ominous start to the bush fire season.

Despite the weather the students got a lot done. A mountain of firewood was collected and processed. Star pickets were put around the stone pines and replacement trees put in where the deer had killed the old ones.  Several were fenced with high wire and are hopefully now protected from further attack.  We would have fenced the lot if the weather had not been so bad.  The first two days of camp were too hot and it was lucky that Edd was able to work a miracle on the pool and get the water blue and inviting. Another group of students worked on the new orchard and took out the weeds along the fence lines.  I started to clean out under the trees and altogether it looks a lot more cared for now.

One of last year’s kids, Anna, had managed to break a leg and has been isolated in a pen to heal. She had only had the splint on for four weeks before she managed to get it off but I have not replaced it because she seemed to be managing.  We are up to week five now and she is using the leg but it is still slightly week.  I normally allow six weeks but I may have to keep her penned for longer this time. The goats are all going right up the hill to graze and coming back through the gravel pit paddock. This is a long days walking and probably Anna needs to be fitter to cope.

Blue tongues are back

 The vegetables are really firing , and our friendly blue tongues are back around the ruins.

November 11 2017

We have had a warm sunny week with cool nights and the vegetables have thrived. The snow peas are delicious, and lettuce of all sorts abound. We have broccoli kale, rocket, spinach, and the first squash are starting to form.  Better still; berries are back on our breakfast menu, strawberries and mulberries at present, and maybe a few raspberries later. We dug out all the old raspberry canes because they got an infection and we have planted new ones in a different location, so sadly we will not get many this season.  The old bed is now growing garlic and broad beans that show no signs of ill health.

The goats are moulting but summer shiny coats are starting to emerge.  With the better weather they are now going right up bone hill to graze. I am enjoying the feta cheese as it goes really well with spelt pasta and wild rocket.  My basil is off to a slow start and being chewed by everything.  I will start a second crop in a pot by the house to make sure we do get a crop. The taste of basil is one of my summer favourites.

The grass is growing too and the signs point to an early hay season.  We had such a good lot last year and still have bales left but we will need new hay when it is cut. Hay making is always stressful and you end up with a shed full of hay just when we are at the peak of fire danger, rather a snag.   This year we have no cattle so our needs will be less, which is one thing in our favour.

I have started to clean up the donga. When I am done we will have a spare room for guests and a classroom for wet weather activities.  We are going to hire a cleaner to recover the carpets but I have also ordered a rug in riotous colours to jazz the place up a bit.   I can use the donga as an art studio too. There is room there to set up a Navajo loom for rug making and that sort of thing.

The next area we need to deal with is the tractor shed. It has been invaded by swallows and other birds that are making the most terrible mess.  Steve and Edd fixed the tool shed by putting in a ceiling but the rest of the shed is now worse.  I don’t think we will ever run out of work here!  I must finish the dairy floor before starting anything else but we have another camp here next week so it won’t be done then. At least the forecast is better for this camp and Edd has done miracles with the pool that he has converted from a dark mess of algae to blue and clear.

Edd is also collecting the things he needs to grow fungal food crops. He is also helping me assemble all the parts I got to try and make an olive oil extractor so we have plenty of new ventures to work on. 

school camp on a wet week

November 7 2017

Today we have a bank holiday for Melbourne cup.   We have not been invited to share this occasion with anyone, but we are rather glad of the time to be quiet.   Last week we had a school camp and keeping up with a farm full of teenagers is exhausting even though the students were absolutely wonderful. 

It was very cold and rained all week but all the set tasks were completed willingly and the students even managed to stay cheerful and enjoy themselves.   Sometimes we had to do wet weather activities instead of the morning work, but this meant that I got all the lemons harvested and the juice frozen.  Another group used the wood splitter in the shed to tackle all the logs that were too large to burn and I found some wool workers who learnt how to use the weaving looms.

For main tasks we had the old water tank painted, the cellar cleaned out and the blackberries cut down around the old woodshed and cactus garden.  One lad found an old pigeon medal that will be a good keep sake for Josh from the time we kept pigeons. The goats were thrilled because they love eating blackberry leaves but could not reach them.   The goats actually worked side by side with the students which looked amusing.

The weather was sad because it had been so nice the week before.  Edd had worked hard to get the pool clean and blue too. We had spent the week getting ready for the camp and tiling the dairy floor.  Most of the floor is made of large white tiles but we had buckets of tiles made in the sheltered workshop in Lilydale that had some how survived the fires and we have used them as well.

This week I have started to prepare for the next group of students who arrive for a week’s camp on Monday.  The forecast is for hot weather so we will get a whole new set of problems.  Edd had better get working on that pool again!  I am doing a whole new set of paper work and trying to make sure we have the right equipment and materials at hand.  

Spring rush

 Down by the ruins the scent is devine with Jasmine , wisteria and pawlonia all in flower.
The goatlings look very alike this year.

October 20. 2017

This is a very busy time of year.  Plant life is having a growth spurt and the return of hot sunny days and purple flowers are a balm for the soul.  People are on the move too. Last week we had good friends from NSW staying and had two years of news to catch up with. The goatlings are trained now and come in to the milking shed mixing with the older goats.  Learning to tell them apart was harder this year as they all looked alike. The chooks are laying well and the kids are settled into a routine.   We are hoping that the cow, Josie, will move to her new owners next week end along with Phantom, the goat with horns, who has terrorised her young herd mates.

We have had a new plastic tank for dam water delivered and are now in the process of tiling the dairy floor.  I have already tiled the walls behind the benches and completed the painting.  Edd is working hard on the floor. I tell him it is his penance for causing all the mess in the first place.

October 7. 2017

Stevo and Edd set up the new small water tank to provide water for the sink in the ruins.  We have an underground pipe from the tank over flow to the old concrete tank by the mulberry trees but it is not connected yet, still, we are half way there.  This week Edd and Stevo worked on the donga.  They built a new base for the wood stove and put corrugated iron under the eves to stop the swallows nesting above the windows and making them all shitty.  Luckily we had corrugated iron left over from building the shed in a suitable light colour that gives a good clean look.

Whilst the men worked on the donga I finished the painting work on the dairy walls and ceiling.  It was not work I enjoy but it was work I could do.  The next job in there is to lay the tiles on the floor and above the sinks and then we can move the furniture and fridges back in.

 I have also been working in the vegetable garden.  Everything has started to grow fast so there were weeds to dig up and new seedlings to plant. We are enjoying the last of the turnips and beetroot and starting to work our way through a glut of cauliflowers. Lettuce, rocket and spring onions are doing well and so far the cabbages look fine.  The snow peas have started to crop and today I put in climbing beans.  I am keeping a wary eye on the cockatoos who pulled up lots of my parsley and are waiting to do more damage. 

The goat kids are almost ready to go down to twice a day feeds.  Even the small black one is sucking well now. I have plenty of milk spare and have made the first two hard cheeses but I need to get the dairy back in action so more production can go ahead.  I have still not decided which vacuum sealer to buy. Josh found a good one but it comes from America and would be difficult to take back if it went wrong.

Today the goats and the cow went through fences and got where they were not meant to be. We have put such an effort in repairing and replacing fences that this is very frustrating. The cow made big foot marks on the good bit of grass that I have just mowed.

sustainable house open day

Sept 18 2017

Yesterday was mega.  Al had organised us to have an open day as part of sustainable house day. I had spent the last week making sure the house was as presentable as possible and Edd fixed up the sign he has been working on for the front gate.  He also fixed up the last unit in the mudroom and the kitchen bench back plate.  These small jobs have been hanging around for ages with out coming to the top of the priority list so it was a real bonus to get them done.

The weather has been awful. Freezing, cold nights and sheeting rain in the day. Yesterday something completely amazing happened. The sun came out, the skies were clear blue, the wind dropped and even the mud on the roads dried out. All this made the fact that there were 170 visitors that turned up for a look possible.  Al arrived early in the morning and helped putting the signs up before he found some paint and painted the plastic down pipes.  (Another job that never made priority status).  He felt that the outside look was compromised and it obviously offended him.

Before 10am, when things were due to start, cars began arriving and just kept coming all day.  Indi greeted the guests and got them signed in and then I collected them into tour groups and Al and Barry (an architect who works with Al took groups round the house.  The guests who came were really focussed on getting information and asked lots of questions. By the end of the day Al had no voice left!  Edd took the outside tour over the roof and through the farm buildings showing everyone how the water power and light systems worked from outside. 

Indi, Barry and I also did the outside tours as Edd faded.  This went on all day and we were forced to take turns eating lunch, on display like zoo animals. On the positive side when the cars stopped arriving and at 4.30 everyone had left the house still looked squeaky-clean and lots of people had taken Al’s business cards. The weather had been perfect for showing the house at it’s best. There had been a frost over night but we had not lit the fires because I had cleaned them and wanted them pristine in the morning.  The house was 22 C when we woke and with the sun pouring in it warmed a further and staid warm even with the doors open for most of the day.  This was a very convincing demonstration of thermal mass in action. Edd and I still had the goats to milk and other animal work before we could relax, so we feel pretty exhausted today.

Three goats have kidded so we have bottle-feeding four times a day and extra milking. The machine was not working and it is only in the last two hours that Edd has got it running again.  I was threatening to go off and buy a new machine I was so worn out. We just managed to get last years goatlings trained to come into the milk room and jump up on the bale before kidding started.

This group of goatlings had attitude.  They trained to jump up all right but then they refused to leave the milk room. They could see no reason to go out into the rain and mud when they were quite happy with food in a nice clean dry room. Usually young goats shoot out and are easily hurried along by banging the brush against the bale or squirting water at them but this time Edd had to get really fierce before they learnt that rules were rules.

spring. sort of!

Sept 5 2017

It is freezing. A cold wind makes life a lot harder than it needs to be and we are suffering occasional hail fall.  In sunny intervals the lambs use the rocks by our front door as a playground whilst their mothers deal with the grass on our roof.

The trees are ignoring the weather and continuing on with spring.  There is blossom everywhere and even the buds on the oak tree are bursting.  The goats are nearly ready to kid. Phantom, the white goat with horns is causing all sorts of trouble in the goat shed. She uses her horns to bully all the other goats and keep them away fro the hayracks.  We plan to deal with this tomorrow by moving her to the yards on her own and advertising her for sale.  

We have just joined the sustainable house group, which means hosting visitors in just over a week.  Looking around there is rather a lot to sort out if things are to look there best.  I have been enjoying a quiet spell and concentrating on weaving and other wool work, and am reluctant to change mode.  Once the goats kid all hopes of relaxation will be over so I will have to get used to the idea.

mid winter

August 5 2017

We had some good rain last night and Edd is busy today pumping water between tanks so that we can store as much as possible.  With the roof on the new tank we now should have enough storage to get us through the summer months despite the fact that it has been such a dry winter.  The power bill for the last quarter has come in and even with the large freezer we have still made a profit from our solar panels.  I am pleased about this because with Indi and Ben here we are supplying two households with power.

The goats are starting to look pregnant.  Nola and Petra are very wide and Olga has started to bag up.  I was worried about her because she failed to get pregnant last year. Very occasionally we get an infertile goat so you never know.  I am only milking a few goats but we have enough to make cream cheese at least twice a week.  I could have fed a calf but with Edd being away for a month we decided to give that a miss this year.  The last calf we reared, Josie, is over a year old now and ready to sell.

It is very cold at night but the wattle is in full bloom, the daffodils are forming yellow banks and the native wisteria and rosemary are toning things down with shades of purple.  The vegetables have been very slow but this week the parsley has shot up and the frilly gold lettuce seedlings have germinated. We have rocket, celery, and silver beet, mixed lettuce, Kale and mizuna ready for eating so we can wait a bit for the rest.

Luckily the sun is shining today, because Bo is busy setting up in Yarra Glen for the festival of light that she organises each year.  I have instructions to bring in the market gazebos and two fold up tables.  Last night Bo rang up wanting me to do a site map of Yarra Glen showing where the lantern parade starts and finishes plus where to find entertainment, toilets and parking.   My efforts were not exactly a masterpiece but Bo has already put them up in shop windows around the town!