Warm Winter

We finished the plumbing last weekend, and as you can see, blue skies and lovely sunny weather prevailed. No matter, it means the joins have had plenty of time to cure and harden as much as they could before the beautiful sound of rain hit the roof this weekend. We were both very happy that it worked so well, considering the SafeRain is from the previous system, and is at least 4 years old now. It was full of silt (not surprising, since that's our soil type locally), and after a good clean up, it's back up and being used on a "wet system" this time. Did I mention it worked? I'm still surprised! There is water in the olive barrel again. We have a drainage line set up that empties the underground water onto the hugelbed area, so we can empty the system if it's been a while since the last rain, or (oh boy, I hope not!) need to repair anything. We have a couple of silt traps with easy access, so the water should stay clean in the tank.

I'm hoping this Winter still has some opportunity for a bit of rain, since it's been quite dry this year. No gumboots required! There's a petition going around for drought assistance for farmers. Our neighbours have been feeding their sheep since Summer. It's yet another reason why we don't feel confident enough to bring any livestock onto our farm yet.

The mono-garlic is growing well. It's an extremely tough plant. I dug these up and transplanted them from a spot in the garden that has had them growing forever - well, long before we came. It was planted in a row near the peach trees, grows and flowers every year, then dies down again. We weren't sure what it was at first, only that it smelled so good to walk past in Winter / Spring. Scared that we might die if we tried eating it, since it doesn't have cloves, looks more like an onion, but has no rings and smells like garlic.. we thought maybe it was ornamental, but the flowers look like garlic too. Researching garlic varieties, it looks just like mono-garlic, and tastes nice too. We're still alive, and didn't experience any adverse reactions afterwards, so I'm declaring it. :) So this year, I planted it in a long row in a newly made garden bed. The soil is quite terrible. No humus, just compacted silt and a very light covering of subclover, salvation jane and some onion weed. Aside from soil compaction and a couple of quartz rocks, it wasn't too difficult to use the broadfork. I didn't turn the soil, just lifted it a little to give it some air. The dolomite lime and mulch from under the peppercorn trees mostly sit on top, and leaves from the poplar trees has kept the beds moist. The white-winged choughs have made a mess of the neat rows, as did the apostle birds (although they're not as messy), and the grey-crowned babblers are enjoying themselves out there today. It's ok, gives me a reason to get the rake out afterwards, and it's probably a good sign that insects and soil life has moved in.

One good thing about having a dry warm winter is not needing to have the fire going all day. It's been so warm that we've been able to continue to brew tea outside in the sun. This is for Jun, a green tea version of Kombucha. Jun doesn't mind the cooler weather, either, so it's happily brewing in the cold kitchen. The Kombucha has been moved into the loungeroom with us to keep it going over winter. It's funny that they're so different, since I used the Kombucha scoby to make the Jun scoby. It took a little time for the scoby to become accustomed to the green tea and honey, but now it's a whole new colony and flavour which we're really enjoying. My tip for brewing tea outside is; don't add honey or sugar to the tea until after you've brought it back inside again, unless trying to coax ants out of your kitchen.

I'm off to start some microgreens growing again. Marty misses taking salads to work, and they're so good for you, it's almost a crime to not grow them!

Green n frosty

It's that time of year again, the frost that takes out the tomatoes comes around and I have to run around with a camera taking shots of the ice covering everything. The photo below is of the stump I use to peen (sharpen) the scythe on, and the strawbales behind it.

I'm not sure the mandarin tree enjoys the frost, but it doesn't complain.

Alpine strawberries. I really hadn't considered their name until just now. I guess it makes sense that they're absolutely fine with frost! It's still flowering and looking well.

Nothing escaped the first big frost this year, not even in the shadehouse, although the effect was less in there, the plants that are not cold tolerant just keeled over. It's almost a relief when it comes to tomatoes, since I don't have the heart to pull out green plants, even if their fruit hasn't been ripening, but now that they're black, I have a good excuse. Perennials that died are just going to have to be a lesson in what I can't have here. That included a lovely little pawpaw tree, a couple of ornamental plants, and succulents. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll live again in Spring.

Water and wood

Since we got back from our little holiday, we have been working on the plumbing for the rain water tank. The soil was so dry and hard when we started, we hired a jackhammer to get the trench down to the required level for the electricity to run from the solar command centre to the chemical locker that we're using as a pump station. Of course, it rained after we installed the electricity. Good thing that it was finished, but a shame because some rain would have really helped with the digging. Can't have everything!

We are also taking this opportunity to re-do the plumbing from the roof guttering to the tank. It's been going strong for 3 years now, un-glued, only held up by poles in the ground, but it's time to finish it properly. Not long to go now.

We got a little distracted by this awesome pile of wood that Marty arranged to be delivered. Oh my, this wood is extreme! The knots, twists and tenacity, it was very challenging. We learned that you have to chop with the growth rings, and not against them (ie: you can't split this stuff!). Marty and I were happily breaking it down by axe, maul and wedge / sledge hammer combination, one wheelbarrow at a time, but we were offered help by a friend from in town, and we didn't say no! It was raining a little as the wood splitting machine made .. uh, not quite what you'd call "light work" of it, but certainly made life a lot easier for us! The whole pile was done in a few hours and they took off to start splitting a pile for another in need. We're very grateful for the help, but also a tiny bit sad that we'll miss out on any more wood splitting fun we had together. There's nothing quite like the feeling of using all your strength and power, axe in hand, the satisfaction of getting a chunk of wood to come off.

I think this wood pile will last at least 2 years, since it filled both the wood shed and a big old wood rack we got an a clearing sale years ago now.. so it'll be a little while before we get to do it again. Considering the wood only cost about $600, I think it was money well spent.

One thing lead to another

Thank goodness I uploaded the photos before the camera app on my phone broke some of them! I think I've fixed the phone, but I completely forgot to post an update here. I hope you'll forgive this late post!!

It all started when we purchased a pressure pump to get water from our tank into the house. With Winter well on it's way, Marty was mindful of the effect running even this small pump would have on our even smaller solar system. We looked into options locally, and yes, we could upgrade our panels from about 500W to nearly 1000W given our limiting factor - roof space. However, we could get 4 commercial 400W panels to fit, and it'd give us a whopping 1600W of power instead. The only thing is we had to get them from Newcastle. It was either arrange delivery or take a little holiday there ourselves. We opted for the latter!

Of course it rained and rained, but it was beautiful! Driving for over 6 hours from the very dry inland, it wasn't disappointing to us at all. As you can see, we enjoyed the water, all the green, the moisture in the air, everything!

  

We brought the panels back home with the use of a borrowed trailer, and a couple of weeks later, our friendly solar installer did the hard work of getting them on the roof, complete with a proper racking system. The original racks were Z purlins and bits of old signage screwed down to hold the panels in place. We might have considered it dodgy, but they did hold up to the weather for over 5 years!

The system has been much happier since the arrival of the panels. The batteries get to float much more often now, even in poor weather. It's amazing to see them perform the same on overcast drizzly days as our old panels would on sunny clear ones! There's so much power, the batteries have all they want with more to spare, giving us power to to use other electrical appliances more often too.

So, we had a little mini-holiday to Newcastle, experienced staying in an AirBnb host's home, had sourdough pizza and spent hours with our feet dangling in the water.. and brought back enough power to make our new water pump run. Excellent!