Progress with the car port, at last.

 27.5.2021

 

We have been lucky. The weather managed to stay dry and warm enough to allow work on the car port.  Josh dug the mud out of the trenches and he and Edd laid down the drainage pipes and covered them with chippings. They then fixed Drain cell to the walls and put in the down pipes that will take water from the future guttering.    Then it was a matter of getting Skiddy, our geriatric skid steer loader and carefully tipping scoria behind the walls.    Edd worked the loader and Josh got behind the walls and raked it into the correct places. My job was sweeping up spilt stuff and painting water proofer onto the front of the wing walls.

 

The result pf all this effort is that we are no longer worried about mud being washed down into the cavity between the walls and the earth cut out. Actually, we now need mud there and hopefully a bigger, younger piece of equipment will arrive next week and move the huge pile of dug out mud into its final location.  We can now park our cars in this space, but we cannot put the roof on until the steel beams arrive.  Edd borrowed Josh’s car and drove up to Shepparton last week to put in the order for the steel, so that is on the way too. 

 

We just got our work done before a storm hit us. Lots of rain turned the drive into a muddy mess and the power was off for most of the evening.  We have candles and Josh has all sorts of torches so with the gas cooker we could do all the usual evening stuff.  The water can run by gravity, even without pressure pumps and the fires use the dead wood we have collected. Josh has set up a way we can have music on our speaker from our mobile phones, so we had a very relaxing evening.

 

Edd is still feeling very sore after running into the glass door at the post office last week.  

(This is dead true; I swear I did not hit him).  He got two black eyes, a massive scab on his nose and a sore hip and wrist from when he fell backwards.  The people around him wanted to call an ambulance but he just came home and has been going a bit slowly.  He found that working on skiddy made his head woozy and his hip painful.  He has stayed at home until he has begun to look a bit more presentable.

 

This meant that it was only Josh, Bo and I who went to the opening of a friend’s exhibition in town.  The traffic was awful, and it took ages to get there but we had a good time to talk and enjoyed the exhibition when we finally arrived. The art was all these pastels still life works that vibrated with colour.  Josh liked one of sunflowers the most. Sadly, our friend’s husband was not there due to worsening dementia, that was just starting when we were last together about two years ago.

 

The big news is that Bo’s family is considering buying a Tesla car. Simon is test driving one this week. We get together with Bo’s family most Sunday evenings for a family meal around the huge table in her new house.  The whole family is much happier in the new place.  The boys are both in trade apprenticeships and only Silky is still at school. 

 

 

Edible fungi.

 We have field mushrooms and pine mushrooms growing this year.

Easter celebrations

4.10.2021

 

Time passes so fast. The figs are almost over now, and it is the quinces turn to ripen.  I need to get them netted but last week I had a bad cold and really did not get much done at all.  Luckily, I was well enough on Easter Sunday to go to the feast party Bo had in her new house.  It was both Easter and my birthday, so I sort of had to be there.  Bo put in a tremendous effort and the food was fantastic.  Roast turkey and lamb with lots and lots of different salads and vegetable dishes.  All the family members of our age were there and most of the kids and grandkids, Wayne’s two girls loved swimming in the pool with him and sitting in the spa.  Indi’s daughter also had her first go in the spa and very much approved.  We all had a wonderful afternoon with family and friends.

 

The week before something happened that we have never experienced before in 50 years of goat keeping. Almost all the does came into season on the same day and stood in front of the buck’s pen screaming out to him.  We did our best to take goats in turn to be serviced but we tried hard not to overload the young buck, Ronan.  He was just learning his purpose in life and had only just worked out which end of the doe to mate.  This will probably mean we have several goats kidding on the same day if they take, which could be interesting.

 The hardest bit when this happens is making sure that we know whose kids are whose.  Last year we collared and labelled them all, but they sucked the writing off the tags which made everything harder.

 

I am still working on processing tomatoes and finally we have egg plants to eat as egg plant parma.  I think there are now some parsley seedlings sprouting and the pumpkins are about ready.  This year the Queensland blues did nothing at all but the balloon shaped bright orange ones I grew from saved seeds have been most prolific. I will have to buy replacement QB seeds and see if we do better next year.

 

Last night our TV viewing was interrupted by a news team announce the death of Prince Phillip.  Whilst I was listening and watching the news readers Edd looked at the news headlines scrolled at the bottom of the screen.  One read that the zookeepers in Sydney were horror struck at the sudden death of their chimpanzee.  Edd did not think this was a good look so he phoned the ABC.  At first, they thought he was one of the hundred who had rung up complaining about the interruption to the show they were viewing but when Edd finally got them to listen the reaction was “Oh shit, I’ll ring then”!   A while later the headline was replaced.

 

As someone pointed out for most people listening the queen and her husband have been a constant all their lives.  It makes you wonder how long the queen can keep going and how things will change. With our present politicians I don’t think a republic of Australia would be an improvement.

 

 

Permaculture students

 3.21.2021

 

It was the equinox this weekend, but Autumn has already started. The Virginia creeper has covered the ruins with trailing banners of scarlet leaves and the zucchinis have begun to get mildew.  For the first time we have had a good crop of apples from the trees in the new orchard and the pears and nashi pears in the ruins garden also cropped heavily.  Now it is the turn of the fig tree and we are giving them away by the bucket load to friends. 

 

For the last two Saturdays we have had Permaculture students for site visits.  Yesterday it was a group from Ceres in Melbourne.  They were all interesting and very varied people from a large age range and asked lots of questions. Edd and I were exhausted after they left. We have to get up early to have all the animals fed and milked and morning tea and cheese tasting prepared for when they arrive at 9.30, and it is full on after that. It is so good to have new people coming again after last year’s shut down.

 

Whilst we were showing the group of students around Morg arrived with his friends to continue work on his boat. He has moved his cars off our property but has replaced them with a boat that he is fixing up.  Ollie was also here but is very tired after getting up early in his new role as a roof plumbing apprentice.  It seems a big step to go from being a child at school to a working an adult job. I think that a few years in tertiary education makes the transition more fun.

 

Today Stevo is back fixing the unfinished edges in the back passage.  Edd has been working on the car port and has filled in all the rough edges on the outside of the walls ready for water proofing. We have tried to find someone with a machine that can dig a drain round the back but have had no luck so far. This is a problem because with every heavy session of rain more earth falls down where we need to dig, and the job gets harder.  The East coast has had terrific storms and around Sydney many have had to evacuate due to extreme flooding, but the storms have not reached us, yet!

 

My work has been to do with food.  I have been harvesting the summer crops and when I can plant out new vegetables for winter.  My first silver beat are doing well but so far, no parsley seedlings have come up.  Beetroots are the next things to go in when I get a space.

Today I have blanched and frozen sweet corn and tomatoes. It is a good thing we have a mega sized freezer as it is rapidly filling up!

 

The goats have started to cycle, and we mated Rita to Barrack last week.  She has not been kidded for several years because her milk production just kept coming but I think it is wrong to leave them too long.  We have no ram so we will not have to worry about lambs this year. That will be a big relief and give us time to work on the paddocks and fences.  There is a lot that needs doing, but then there always is.

 

 

getting ready for winter

the second trailer of sheep gets loaded

 3.8.2021

 

We got a lot done in February.  We finally got the sheep shorn and then last week Edd and the shearer drove them to the nearest market which was hours of driving away.  This was such a relief. We were over stocked all winter due to virus shutdowns and the sheep were getting through fences and causing all sorts of problems. The paddocks are in a terrible mess and the fences all need replacing. We sold 31 sheep and kept four here, two because they were too old to sell and two younger ones to keep them company.  Rather to our surprise we got a good price at the sale and have actually made a profit!

 

Another good surprise was our friend, John, turning up sooner than we expected with his digger and truck to clean out the goat shed.   He does this every second year, and we all get loads of goat manure mixed with straw that helps the soil grow vegetables.   The deep litter was almost a metre deep in places so now the pen walls are again high enough to stop the goats jumping out.   Edd has collected another ton of oats and we have a good stock of hay and straw, so we are all set for winter. 

 

We are sad because Edd’s dog, Janner died last week.  He has always had a fault that made him hop rather than run with his back legs but over the last month he got much worse. He was about 12 years old but really, he has done well to last that long.  Our other dog, Flynn, is very sad. We are not sure how to help him at this stage.  We try and keep him with us a s much as possible.

 

In the garden the tomatoes are turning red, at last, and we have the best crop of juicy capsicums we have ever grown.  We grew far too many cucumbers. I was hoping to sell them but everyone else brought lots to market and ours were not early enough this year to beat the rush.  I have discovered that goats will eat the zucchinis, so we avoid wastage there. I have not tried them on cucumber yet.  The sweet corn is almost ready, and the beans have given a huge crop. I have stocked up the freezer with runner beans, round beans pears, apples and the first of the tomatoes.  

 

My storeroom is looking more organised. Bo moved her furniture out and into her new house and stevo build me some shelves where I can store glasses and tother things.  I scrubbed the floor and redid the floor surface and also painted the areas of floor and ceiling that had been hidden behind the furniture.  It feels good to get things cleaned and organised. I have brought a small dish washer to go in the kitchen. It will fit in one of the cupboard spaces.  We need it for days when the solar does not heat the water and it is too warm to light the wood stove which also supplies hot water. There is an electric booster on the tank, but we have never put it on because the water is almost always hot enough to shower.

 

The steeling of a cupboard for the dish washer made me clean out and re-organise the other cupboards so that everything we needed still fitted in.  All in all, I feel very happy to be so well sorted.

 

A new year begins

 3.1 2021

stuff in Edd's shed needs sorting

The car port needs a roof

The new storage shed is great
 

The new year has begun, and the virus is once again a serious concern for everyone. The border with NSW is now closed and the authorities are desperately trying to contact trace the new cases here in Victoria.  On the farm things are OK. It has been an exceptionally wet year and the grass is still green.  A lot of hay has been made and we loaded our shed up with small square bales before Xmas. 

 

The grass is so thick that we are strip grazing the second goat croft.  The goats have a large area of grazing up in the old vineyard paddock, but they eat the crofts on their way in and out. We have 23 goats in this herd. Two very old goats are in a retirement croft and 6 female kids in the croft by the front gate. I make feta cheese and cream cheese every week and most of the remaining milk is used to feed the goat kids

 

 This year we will need to get the deep litter cleaned out because it is about ¾ of a metre deep in some places.  The litter will be used to enrich the soil in the paddocks and vegetable garden. The vegetables are doing well at the moment. We have lettuce, kale, Warragul greens, runner beans, round beans, squash, basil, zucchinis, and cauliflowers to eat, but the tomatoes are still green, and we have eaten all the mizuna and silver beat.  The pumpkins are forming and the sweet corn, egg plants and capsicums are still quite small.

 

During the long winter lock down Stevo came and helped us put up a big storage shed.  We are in the process of moving the shelving into this shed and sorting out stuff from Edd’s shed into it. This time things are sorted, Paint on one shelf, fencing gear on another etc.  Edd wants more space in his shed so that he can get the vehicles in it to do repairs.  I can also reclaim space in our house.  Already I have paid Ollie to move all the tiles I use for mosaics in under the paint shelf and I plan to move out the big boxes of accounts that we are supposed to store for 7 years.

 

We also started work on a car port next to the house.  It is a very complicated car port as it is earth covered on three sides. At present we have the floor and the walls but no roof, so it is not much use yet.  We had to dig it back into the hill so that it did not shade the house and reduce the effect of the sun that keeps us warm in winter.  Our house has settled at around 22 C all year.  This suits us well and we have never felt too hot or too cold indoors.  I love underground living and would hate to leave this place.

 

This means tackling problems whilst we still have the energy.  Our biggest problem is that we are overstocked with sheep.  The markets we could use closed down because of the virus and have not yet reopened.  The shearer promised he would come before Xmas and then didn’t, so we have an ever-growing problem.  We have the sheep in the old hay paddock for now so they have lots of feed but it won’ last for ever.

 

 

26.5.2020

 

Edd and Stevo have raised the sides of the vegetable beds by adding planks of timber above the corrugated iron.  This became essential because rabbits worked out how to get into the raised beds and then eat all our seedlings. Since this work was done the replacement seedlings that we put in are doing better, though the cabbage white butterflies are still causing problems with their hungry caterpillars.

 

We are having the wettest year we have had for years. The mud is horrible and torturous to walk on. I have spent a lot of time spinning and knitting indoors out of the damp. I have lots of grandkids who need winter woollies, especial the ones that do lots of windy beach walks. I should really be working on the accounts but that is not half as much fun.

 

Like me the goats prefer to be indoors when it rains. We still have plenty of hay so they can feed without walking anywhere if they choose.  The sheep are not so lucky and are having a pretty rough time.  We are feeding them barley, but we will have to do more. Normally we would have sent them off to market by now, but all the sheep markets are closed due to virus worries.  We need to get them salt licks with extra selenium. They need extra selenium in wet years, or the lambs get white muscle disease which kills the

 

 

 

Lock down in Spring

  

Last week was amazing.  Warm sunny weather got us working outside all day and we got a lot done.  Edd worked with john and his sons to pour the concrete base for the car port and I Painted the wood in the vegetable garden and worked on clearing up the old kitchen patio in the ruins.  This job is traditionally one of the first spring jobs and I have been doing it at this time for years and years.  CB whipper snipped the grass around the vegetable beds’, and I planted out the first pumpkin seedlings that germinated.  

 

I now have zucchini seedings coming up and I have planted Queensland blue pumpkin seeds.  Often, I cheat and buy seedlings from Bunnings but with everything closed down for covid19 this is not an option.  I did check, just in case they would deliver seedlings to me but there was no luck there, so it was back to saved seeds from last year.  The snow peas and broad beans are producing their first pods and the cabbages are nearly ready.  Just in time too.  The freezer that was full to the brim with last year’s produce is nearly empty and ready for a spring cleaning.

 

The grass is growing fast and the sheep are cleaning up on the roof and in our house site/ fire reserve. It has been very hard keeping them going over winter because we were unable to sell the lambs when the market closed.  In this strict lock down we can’t even have people coming to the farm to buy stock, so we have been forced into a situation where we are over stocked.  Luckily, I had sold the spare goats earlier but now we have kids and all the males are ready for new homes.   

 

They are all looking cute and come rushing up for their milk.  All except Tom who Hangs back and is still very shy.  I have no idea why he has this attitude; we have never had another kid like this. Edd says he is sensitive! I think he is just being difficult.  He drinks well but has to be persuaded every time, making the job of feeding much harder than it needs to be.  I do hope someone else really wants a sensitive goat!

 

The kids now drink all the available milk, so I am having a break from cheese making. We have a fridge full of cheese, so this is fine with me.  I get extra time to work in the garden and learn about regenerative agriculture.  I am afraid I have given up in the sourdough bread.  Our friends make much nicer bread than I can make so we are buying bread from them.  Indi can make the great bread and the honey she got from her bees is the best I have ever tasted. It is really nice to eat honey from our own land and watch the bees feeding as they work in the garden.