Action in the west

Today we had 22 permaculture design course students for a site visit.  This event spurred me to do a very thorough house cleaning and cooking session on Friday.  I was very glad I did the cooking bit.  I made a large cinnamon and pear cake and a big cheese cake and prepared several cream cheeses and other nibbles for morning tea.  Edd met the students who were dispensed across ten cars and did a talk about the ecology of the valley before escorting them up here for morning tea and a house and farm tour.

I had been warned that there were vegans, vegetarians, glucose intolerant people and every other dietary problem in this group but the food disappeared with such speed that no one would have noticed!   It had been a cold wet night but just before everyone arrived the sun came out and the house was flooded with sunlight and winter warmth so (much to my relief it looked great.  Eventually everyone had finished eating and we took them on a tour of the house and surrounding out buildings.

After everyone left the sky darkened and we had a heavy rain shower.  It is so good when the weather is on our side.  Actually, we have been lucky for most of the week. Andrew and his mates have had mostly fine weather and the new west wall is up. It curves round and down so the house now has a tail end which is a big improvement.  The blokes are now using pavers left over from the house build to landscape the enclosed area.  They are really doing a very good job.

Whilst this work has been going on outside I have started working inside on the splash back in our kitchen.  Over the last few months I have been collecting tiles of the various colours I need and Edd has fixed the stainless-steel edging above the granite for me to tile up to. Starting this work was a bit daunting, but I am now underway and enjoying myself.  So far, Edd likes what I have done which is a good start.

We have also got the tire treads back on skiddy.  I tried to help Edd and ended up cutting my knuckle on a chisel that was in use to try and lift the heavy rubber tread over its wheels. Luckily Andrew was able to help Edd complete the job and there were no further injuries. Edd was planning to use skiddy to move a heavy blackwood tree trunk that he wanted to use for timber. Sadly, some friends of Ben came up last weekend and took the tree in question along with the timber for fire wood.  We did not even know they were on our property so Edd is not happy.

We have let friends get the fallen timber for their fires, but they usually come to us first to ask what to take.  We need the timber moved and have enough fire wood for ourselves, so we are OK about this bit, but we wanted to keep the black wood as it was too good to burn.

New ventures

Making cheese from frozen milk  worked out well.  My next venture is to try soap recipes and work out one that suits what we have.  I am actually rather challenged by the idea of starting a new project.  It took me years to work out a good method for hard cheese, I just hope soap is easier. I have the goats milk, and Indi has a good supply of olive oil, so we have the main ingredients to mix with the caustic soda.

Spring is here, and the wattle and daffodils are in bloom and everything is very yellow. The Lucerne trees are starting to shine with their white flowers and the native wisteria has purple beginning to show.  We have eaten the first planting of broccoli and are working our way through the cauliflowers and swedes.   The snow peas have finally begun to produce edible pods too, but kale and spinach and rocket are still our most used greens. We have lettuce, but it is not quite lettuce weather yet, though we did have a very warm day last week.

Edd spent one day fetching concrete blocks and second-hand bricks to make the west end wall and is now trying to fix the metal at the base of the kitchen splash back.  He refuses to let me start with the tiling until this is done. I would have just left it loose but Edd likes things to be right.  I am now waiting for other people to do their bit before I can continue with my projects which is a bit frustrating.

I was lucky enough to find a tall glass fronted cabinet in the recycle yard and on Monday Lyn helped me clean up the relics from the fire and arrange them for view. The school students dug up all these relics and they have been stored in an alcove opposite the camp toilet, which is not ideal.    They are an interesting collection because they demonstrate that when glass melted, and heavy brass pans collapsed, cheap ceramic balls survived unscathed.

two lives gone!

Experimenting with tiles for the splash back

The cat has been in trouble again.  Edd came rushing in saying that something terrible had happened. He had started his ute and then saw cat fur stream out of the engine.  We lifted the bonnet with trepidation and yes, there was a lot of fur and the fan belt was off its mountings.  No cat bits were obvious despite a thorough search, and thankfully no blood or blood trails were in evidence. Much to our relief the cat turned up at the end of the day with a patch of missing fur, but no other damage.  That is the second of its nine lives it has used up since it has been here!

The goats that are not pregnant are still coming into season, but we have moved the bucks back into their pens because we have enough pregnant girls for this year.   Our big alpine doe, Quetta, has been sold.  This time she is went to join other goats we had sold earlier, so she was met by friends when she arrived at her new home.  It would be impossible to keep every goat, but we do try to send them to places they will be happy. They often go to smaller herds and get more attention than we give them here, which is nice.

I am trying to dry off the remaining pregnant goats, but we are still getting enough milk to make cheese twice a week.  The hard cheeses turned out so well last year that I am encouraged to make more. The vac packaging system worked fantastically.  I have now used all the olive oil I made, but luckily Ben and Indi are keeping us well supplied from their trees. Indi and I are planning to use some of their oil to make soap, so I am searching for recipes.  I ordered a book that I thought might help but it was so useless I returned it with a killer revue. I hope I might save someone else the bad experience.

The seeds I ordered for dyeing plants have arrived, but I have not yet sorted out the area where I plan to grow them.  They will be sown in pots in the spring, so this is not a problem yet.  It will make a good task when the school camps start. The book I brought on plant dyes was excellent, much to my relief.  This week Edd and I drove down to the Mornington Peninsular with a car full of wool that I am getting spun.  The plan is to have yarn available from our own sheep to dye with our own plants. That should make a good learning experience.

The last of the summer crops have to go

Drying bay leaves in the sun room

4.6.2018

We have been waking to heavy mist but by lunch time this has cleared, and the sun fills the house with warmth and light.  Edd is off on the tractor clearing up in the top paddock.  There are still dead trees there that were cut down after the fires and not tackled because they were mixed up with wire from the old fence line.  Edd is organising everything into piles that can be burnt. We hope it will then be easier to extract the wire.

I have spent the morning pulling out old tomato plants and pumpkins that were killed by last week’s frost. It is a very odd year, usually mildew kills all the pumpkin leaves long before the frost gets them.  There are still tomatoes ripening but the taste has gone out of them and they are often too damaged to be worth collecting.  We have a good choice of winter vegetables, so I thought it was best to ditch the summer ones and gain more planting space.

I also pruned the pear trees on the fence as they had already lost their leaves.  LYN made a good job of rescuing the young fruit trees from kikuyu grass that was trying to strangle them.  Last week I harvested what was left of the olives and made my first oil.  We had only one jam jar full from 3 kilos but it tasted fantastic.  I think I need a different system of pressing.  The cheese press was not ideal.

The goats are gradually all coming into season, about 2 months later than usual.  Lorna was mated yesterday but Imogen, Rita, Angie and Cassie are not showing any interest in the buck yet.  We have let the young buck into the croft next to the does so that they can smell each other directly through the fence, but still mating is going very slowly. 

slack time on the farm allows unexpected travel

18.5.2018

My mother died just over a week ago age 97, and, much to my surprise I am off to her funeral in the UK tomorrow!    I never dreamed I would be able to go but much to my amazement my kids presented me with a workable plan on Mother’s Day.  Al and Bo are coming with me, so we have three businesses and three families to sort out before we set off.

 Luckily, we have entered our slack period on the farm.  The goats are drying off as they get pregnant and only need once a day milking by hand. The chickens have been amalgamated into two groups, and the rains have cut out the need for watering.  Most of the fruit and summer vegetables have been harvested and preserved and the winter crops are mostly planted.

Today I have been making the cheese, writing stuff Edd needs to look after the permaculture students, paying bills, sending out invoices and I am about to start cleaning the house.  Al has spent the week trying to deal with a computer problem that has stopped him printing out plans and is sorting out who can care for his dog.  He is bringing Pip up to her parents tonight so that they can look after her and help her with baby P.  Indi is driving Bo and I to the airport tomorrow where hopefully we will join up with Al.  Indi and Edd are going to share looking after Bo’s kids and doing school transport.

This is all pretty major, so I had better stop writing now and get back to work.

clever cat

He looks innocent , but this cat can open that latch.

hot and dry

Sunday 12 March

It is a lot cooler today but we have had the hottest driest weather for days and everything is suffering.  I have been watering the vegetables and trees twice a day but the olives look wrinkled and the vegetables are not producing so much fruit.  The fig tree is the exception and I get a bucket full of figs everyday.  Bo’s restaurant staff are complaining about the amount they have to deal with! Bo has given me a fig and nut cake she made that was too crumbly for restaurant use.  It is delicious.

One good thing about this weather is that the sun starts to heat up the sunroom at this time of year. I have been able to dry various leaves for herbs and teas just by spreading them out on the table in there.  Perhaps I should try to dry some tomatoes.  The freezer is full and the restaurant over supplied.

Edd is working to fix the fences in the gravel pit paddock.  He has nearly made the fence on the gully side and will then need to work his way up past Indi’s area.  The horses have eaten everything they can off the hill, but we cannot move them to the gravel pit paddock until at least the bottom fence is done.  This fence will enclose all the zone 5 land where the fern trees used to grow. In Permaculture zone 5 is left for nature to do as it pleases.

The new cat has settled in but shows little interest in catching mice.  He has one odd skill in that he has learnt how to open the latched door from the mudroom into the rest of the house.  He kept escaping from the mudroom and I could not work out how but I actually heard the latch open last night as he got out for the second time.  He does patrol the big dam and the wood ducks have gone but I am not sure if these two facts are related.  I am very happy the wood ducks have gone, they are really geese and make a terrible mess whilst eating all the grass.