Dam report 2023

 Greetings from the waterside this summer.

The dam is continuing to improve, after filling to capacity and beyond during Spring, we wanted to hold as much of the water as possible. Marty talked to a previous owner of our property who had the dam built. He explained that the dam had never successfully held water above the natural soil line despite it being re-lined with clay shortly after it was made. We decided to try adding bentonite clay, just one bag, around the edges where the leak might be. We waited a week, and as the water level dropped, we checked the back of the dam wall for moisture and targeted the opposite side of the wall for another bag of bentonite. Repeating this over the span of a couple of months, we have narrowed down the problem area to just the south east corner, and concentrated spreading the clay to that area. We're happy to say that the water level has never been this high at this time of year before!

See-through water, can you see fish?

I have read that the sealing of a dam is mostly attributed to an anaerobic layer of muck at the bottom, and the trick is to encourage that condition. It is said that fish poo and organic matter helps in this regard, so here's hoping the abundance of little fish are helping. The clarity of the water is helping the plants grow, as is the addition of a few buckets of shell grit (usually for chickens!) for calcium and pH buffering. The first bucket of shell grit went into the floating island, and the plants responded by growing like crazy!

This year a pair of diver ducks hatched 6 little ducklings, we've seen turtles, lots of little fish (of course) and dragonflies galore. The dragonflies have to be my favourite critters for their work eating the mozzies that were in crazy numbers after the wet spring. It was certainly a sight at dusk to see the dragonflies en mass, especially over the sheep!

We have lots more projects on the go, I'll be sure to update when I can.

Until next time!

January 2023

 The summer is finally warming up, and although we don't love the heat, there are many plants that do. The summer growing grasses in the pasture are now happier, and the rain that overwhelmed the ground earlier has left some areas quite hard. Still, we can see an improvement since we started grazing only a year and a couple of months ago now. I have read that things become much better by year 3, though.

The photo above was taken earlier in the season while the spring grasses were dominant. The sheep love to rub all over their shelters and rest under them. They're light weight enough that we carry them to each new grazing area that doesn't have a good sized tree, which is most areas still!

We named Sharon's lamb Vicky Winters, she's on the left in the picture above and growing up very fast. Her Daddy, Chilli is right next to her, with Star and her (and our) first born ram in the background. He's almost 5 months old now.

The flock heading over to chow down on some fresh prickly lettuce. There are 13 here now, and we're still expecting a new ewe.. her arrival date has been pushed back to the 18th of January. She's coming all the way from South Australia, and there have been some logistical issues and flooded roads causing the delay. No worries!

This is the new mineral feeder, made from an old pallet, replacing the old greek yoghurt containers. We keep the rubber flap off when there's no chance of rain. It gives everyone a good opportunity to casually choose what they'd like to eat. The most popular supplement is still the kelp meal, but the copper was essential during the wet spring. I credit the copper for keeping the flock free of worms, we haven't needed to "drench" and everyone is alive and healthy.

The second ram lamb born, we nick name the ram lambs Rammy the First and Rammy the Second. This little guy is just over 3 months old and already looks like a mini version of his dad, with wrinkles on his nose and a love of scratchies!

Vicky is 4 days older than Rammy the Second, and she's looking great and is very healthy. Her Mum is eating prickly lettuce in the picture above, right beside her.

Chillie is great, we got lucky to have such a lovely mannered ram. He just loves scratches and would just about stand around all day getting them. It makes life so much easier having very tame sheep. If there's a seed (or 100) bothering them, we can get them out. If they need some foot care, we can get close enough to tip them upside down. When it was very wet, there was a couple of sheep who's hooves needed a trim, and we did it right there in the paddock without having to stress them out. No need for sheep handling facilities or races, and it's funny, but they forgive us pretty quickly, especially when they feel much better after having it done.

Moving the sheep to a new area is as easy as reeling up the fence a bit, calling "Sheep Sheep Sheep!" and they bound over and race in to see what new food they can find. We could manage pats and scratchies when there were only 4 or so that enjoyed it, but now nearly everyone enjoys some attention. Each sheep has their preferences, some like neck scratches and others prefer the other end. They're all intelligent and individual, but thankfully they do tend to follow Dark Wether when he leads. There have been quite a few times the fence has been knocked over by kangaroos, and the sheep aren't where we last had them. It's no stress at all to call for them when Dark Wether comes to us with the rest of the flock in tow.

It's exciting to see our land is still pretty green when our neighbours properties look as dead as ours use to be at this time of year. Sure, much of the green is "weeds" but the sheep don't seem to mind. Right now we're giving them large areas and moving them daily to keep the impact fairly light, just a bite off the top of the plant and move on, where-as in Spring we had them in smaller areas moving many times a day, to create more of an impact and putting much of the grass on the ground. It works out well for us too, moving once a day, about an hour before the sun goes down and things are cooler.

So, our lives right now consist of lazy summer days and enjoyable sheep moves in the evenings. Mornings are when I get some gardening done, watering before it gets hot, planting, repotting etc. I feel like we're getting away with something..! ;)

October 2022 - we're rich!

Winter is most definitely behind us now. Sadly we said goodbye to Sarah, the greatest little pup, she will always be here in spirit. We will miss her always.

This spring has been a very wet one, the annual grasses have burst into action and are flowering already. It's completely impossible to keep up with it, but I am hoping the summer growing perennial grasses will take over afterwards, and we can try to keep those in their growth phase much longer.

Our sheep family has grown by two recently, bringing our flock to 10, and we have at least one more lamb on the way any day now. I sure hope you enjoy pictures of baby lambs.. :)

Star's lamb is a boy, and he looks just like his daddy, Chillie. He's 7 weeks old now, and Star is slowly weaning him off milk.

Sharon's lamb is a girl, and she looks exactly like one of the wethers.. coincidence maybe or perhaps he wasn't banded properly by the breeder? She was born just two days ago, and has a big appetite. Here's another photo, they're just lovely!

Marty and I enjoy giving the sheep attention and scratches, and moving them to fresh pasture daily is great fun. There is something about listening to the sound of sheep eating fresh grass that is very gratifying.

We have another couple of ewe lambs arriving tomorrow from the same breeder we purchased the first 5 from. They're mostly black and white, one with a little "blue" colouring. We also look forward to adding another ewe lamb from South Australia later in the month, she's brown and white. With all this rain and grass, we can use all the mouths we can get! The flock will number around 14 by the end of the month, and I'll be more than happy with that number for over the summer.

Otherwise, life here on our little farm is humming along, we're just doing what needs to be done as each need arises. Sometimes the world outside seems far away, and knowing what day of the week it is feels unimportant. We did go to the Henty Machinery Field Days though! It'd been two whole years since the last one, and it was quite a good day out. We brought home a few small Murray Cod fish for the dam, hopefully to balance out the tiny fish population a little. The tiny fish have done very well in the dam, and we've had success growing water plants and edge plants finally, giving the fish plenty of hiding and breeding places. It feels like an ecosystem now, rather than the big muddy hole in the ground we started with. We love spending time down there now, just watching all the life.

Until next time.

June 2022

 The weather has cooled down, and we find ourselves in winter suddenly. Some of the deciduous trees haven't caught up to the idea yet, and are stubbornly holding onto their leaves, while the tagasaste trees begin to flower early in their eagerness.

In the first couple of rotations around the farm with the sheep, we mostly thought about how the fencing worked. The most efficient way to move sheep from one spot to another was tricky at times, the reels and fence posts were puzzle pieces. Now that we feel confident about moving 8 sheep anywhere on our property, we look around and find the pasture has it's own needs. In order to give some areas more rest, we skipped whole areas on the farm and moved the sheep onto areas that some grasses were back to flowering stage again. We're experimenting moving fast through the south of the property, but if we go too fast, the north of the property won't have recovered. Because the days are getting shorter and colder, growth is slower, so we may have to slow them down again now. Given that the ewes may be pregnant, we're prioritising their health and full bellies. With all these considerations, we're both glad we started small!

Marty, Sarah and I are keeping warm and trying to get things done. Well, Sarah is concentrating on the keeping warm and comfy part.

Until next time.

Mostly Dry March, Happy Sheep and Happy Humans

It's been more of the same here on the farm, and that's been a good thing to be sure. The grass is holding up, despite this last month being pretty dry. We've only had a few millimeters of rain in total over March, but the forecast suggests we might get a good drop over the next day or two. I learned long ago to not get my hopes up when it comes to rainfall forecasts, and when something looks thirsty, I'll water it regardless of the predictions, because I've lost plants waiting for rain that never comes. For the most part, the ground is still fairly moist and the grass is still green in areas, and you won't get any complaints out of me!

The mineral feeder we made for the sheep is still holding up, there's a rubber flap protecting the greek yoghurt buckets from any moisture, and each one has a different thing in it. Seaweed is one of the most popular items, followed by salt. The charcoal and lime is occasionally eaten, and the magnesium and boron isn't needed as often. It gets bashed around a bit, and I was thinking of making a second one for the other side.

They're in an area that is a bit drier than others right now, as we're heading up the hill on our second rotation around the property. There's a plant called cat's ear that they love eating the yellow flowers off. The section we opened up today was full of cat's ear, and we watched as they ran from plant to plant eating all the flowers off! We might move them through this part of the property fairly quickly, depending on how the sheep go. I love the flexibility of this rotation system, the sections can be smaller, larger, around obstacles or through the trees. So much easier than poultry netting!!

Marty was happy yesterday, since a second wether has trusted him with giving him scratches. I told Marty that he might end up having to spend all day out there scratching each member of the flock! Haha, we love it though. It's been a terrific experience so far. Winter is just around the corner, and the sheep are starting to grow an extra thick wool coat in preparation. We're starting to put on jumpers / jackets occasionally too. It won't be long before we're splitting wood for the first fire again.

Until next time.

Spellbound summer

This summer on the farm has been the best one yet, with a massive amount of rain at the end of January. We had about 99mm (3.9 inches) in total, and although there hasn't been any rain in February yet, the grasses in some areas are looking very green and lush still. We decided that just 5 sheep weren't nearly enough, so found a few more mini meat sheep to join our little flock.

The trailer needed a few days worth of repairs before use, but it was a wrong turn down a very bad dirt road that really put it to the test! Luckily we found out on the way to pick up the sheep that the trailer's door wasn't secure, and we made sure it wasn't going to fly open on the way home, that's for sure! The trailer worked out just fine though, and we made it home with the youngsters in one piece!

It took only two days for the three youngest members of the flock to figure out how the system works. We set up the fence with two lines of polywire to begin with. I just realised that even though it feels like they've been with us for months, it's actually been less than 3 weeks! The whole flock are staying where we need them with just the one polywire now, and they're all very happy.

When Marty and I moved them to a new spot recently, we watched as they galloped around the area, springing into the air as they ran. The next day we stood watching as they were frolicking around their shelters, jumping and playing. I guess they're still young, and as I said, the grass is exceptional this year. There is one special sheep that enjoys getting scratches from Marty and I. He's very smart, knowing he's very unlikely to end up as dinner! ha!

Aside from sheep, Marty and I have practically changed our diets once again to take advantage of the plentiful fruit available right now. My fig jelly experiment didn't work out, and I ended up with a slightly caramelised fig syrup instead. There are a few green grapes ready now, the dark ones are on their way. A few pears made it into the kitchen this year, but did not want to ripen, so I poached them in syrup. The sheep knocked off some apples in their excitement to get to the lower leaves of the apple tree. We've never had more than an apple or two from the tree before, and this year there were many kilos of them! We preserved them in some Fowlers jars for later. The peaches are ripe right now and there is a big pile of them on the kitchen table ready to be preserved. Yikes! We've had a few passionfruit, little "cherry plums", and lemons of course. Much more food than we can eat, but the birds and bugs are helping to eat the abundance too.

The dam is full of tiny fish, insects galore and a little diving duck and her chicks growing fast. The dragonflies are helping keep some of the mosquito population under control, as the wetter weather has made conditions prefect for more than just the nice critters to have around! There have been plenty of frogs, mice and rats, and the snakes to eat them. There are plenty of spiders, and lots of wasps that feed spiders to their young in mud nests (which they love to make in the bathroom, I might add). It's been a beautiful summer. Although I do wonder a little, if Marty and I are maybe under a spell, and any other person looking at our home and how we live might think it's absolutely awful! :)

Until next time.

Dreaming of a green Christmas..

 It's late December, and for the first time in a long time, the pastures are still green this late in the year. We have had some very decent rain, and the dam rose considerably. We have also been mowing some areas much more frequently. We can't really get to it all, but the areas mowed are all still green, while the majority of the land turns brown as the very tall spring annual grasses die off. We've also finished the sheep watering / solar energiser / fence supplies cart.

 

With the cart finished, we didn't have many more excuses to not get sheep. A breeder not far from us had some Harlequin mini meat sheep available, and we went to talk to her and see the sheep. After a couple of weeks deliberation, we decided to take the leap and give them a try. We've had the flock of five for a month now, and we have been learning how to fence a little better every day. They have learned all about electric fencing now, and so have we!

Marty and I welded the panels together after our awesome neighbour showed Marty what his look like and sold us the metal for us to weld some too. They worked to keep the sheep contained while learning about electric fencing. These young sheep were smart and learned all their lessons by day 2, so on day 3 we opened up a small area just outside the pen using 3 strands of electric fencing on the outside and 2 lines for the inner fences. When it was clear the smart sheep wouldn't attempt to cross 2 wires, we used 2 on the outside fence. Now we've moved down to the back fence, we're trialing a single line with the physical fence on the other side, and 2 wires everywhere else. So far, no sheep seems interested in escaping, they seem quite happy moving into a new area every day or more often than that if the spot is lacking in green feed.

The watering cart has been working out just fine, although it is possible to make the whole thing live and get a mighty zap. Like I said, we're learning all about electric fencing too. The sheep are getting quite comfortable with the grazing system and with us as well. We bring them edible weeds, poplar and grape leaves, wormwood branches and things from the garden. They run to us and rummage through the offerings. We also open up new areas, so in their eyes, us humans are good news. They've grown in just a month, their bellies are full and they've got energy to run and jump. They're about 6 months old.

Recently it became much more of an encumbrance to, well.. shop. We have been pairing down what we need to get from the outside world, aside from food. I am lucky to have come across the JADAM method of making liquid fertilisers. It's easily comparable to commercial fertilisers, only not as concentrated. I use it more generously too, because it costs so little to start and nothing to make, and the plants are noticeably happier as a result.

The Sebago potatoes we planted in the shadehouse back in August are mostly harvested now, and I packed the biggest potatoes in straw in a couple of milk crates. We don't have a cellar, but our kitchen does stay fairly cool thanks to the thick mudbrick walls and high ceiling. If they sprout, we'll have to re-plant them, because they do taste nice, and they are dense and firm. We have plenty of garlic and herbs, so my next plant challenge is carrots. We started eating raw carrots and drinking orange juice after listening to and reading the great Dr Ray Peat talk about their benefits. Otherwise we've been ordering our lamb directly from the butcher, saving by buying a whole carcass, and getting quite practiced in cutting up a whole lamb ourselves. We save even more by having beef or lamb heart in our stew and boiled beef kidney occasionally as well.

So we continue in our quest, at a snails pace it feels like, but even small steps are still progress, and we won't fail if we don't give up.

Real life

It has been far too long since I updated you here at the blog, real life has been all consuming! I rarely have a moment spare that I'm not reading or watching something educational or doing something that either needs or wants to be done in the real world. I don't really have an online presence apart from here, nor do I have the stomach for it these days. I'd much rather be out in the garden. As you might imagine, some progress is being made here on the farm.

The best news is the dam has finally cleared up. We did a few more sample tests using gypsum in the water, and figured out exactly how much we needed to add to the estimated volume of the dam. It turned out to be half a ton of gypsum, so we found a supplier and got one ton and brought it home in the ute. We then measured a bucket's weight of gypsum and worked out that we needed 50 buckets worth. We mixed the gypsum into a barrel and mixed it as well as we could with the dam water, and released it into the dam using the pressure of the header tank to push it through. It worked exceptionally well, and through the magic of chemistry, our dam cleared up beautifully!

We added some habitat logs and branches, and we can see through the water for the first time since we've been here. It tastes a lot nicer, and we feel a lot more confident using it for the chooks and garden now too. The plants no longer have stains of silt on their leaves, and it smells perfect. For the first time, we had a Little Pied Cormorant spend some time diving in the water this winter, hopefully a positive sign of the water quality improvement!

We've spent quite a bit of time and effort covering the sides of the dam with old straw. It's a long process, and takes many large round bales to do just one side. There is cover on just about all the walls now, and the erosion ruts are just about all filled in with soil or straw or plants. We have also added some plants, like poplar tree cuttings along the north of the dam. If they take root and grow, they'll help provide summer shade, autumn leaf litter, fodder for sheep, wind protection from those hot northerly winds, bird habitat and gosh, probably another 50 things I can't imagine! Here's hoping they take root and thrive!

We dug an old bath into the ground in the shade-house and filled it with water plants, hoping to increase their numbers before trying them out in the dam. A Peron's tree frog found it too and spent the warm days of summer hanging out there. We were thrilled!

The shade-house was a massive success last summer, we have more pumpkins than we know what to do with. Nothing wilted, nothing scorched in the sun. Watering was more effective and didn't just evaporate away. We had increased the size of the shade-house and the annex just made everything easier. All the gardening tools, all the pots, all in one place and easy to use and put away afterwards. The beds are ready for planting potatoes now, no risk of frost in there it seems, nasturtiums and garlic are growing well at the moment.

Marty and I pulled down the wood around the kitchen door, which wasn't doing anything useful anyway. The back area is much cuter now and we can install a screen door at last! It should make for a more comfortable kitchen this coming summer. We found an old screen door in our pile of useful junk, and will use what we can of it and replace the rotten wood. That is, after some other jobs are finished, but hopefully before the weather warms up.

Speaking of kitchen, Marty and I were about to give up on the old IXL no.4 and pull it out to replace it with a big Baker's Oven, similar to the one we put in at the Old Miner's Cottage in Stawell. Before we did, I decided to search on YouTube for some information about cooking in antique wood stoves. The tidbits I gleaned from the videos were that I need to use "kitchen wood" in the stove. A term that meant the smaller sticks and rounds that aren't suitable for a wood heater. Another thing was that once it was going well, it needed to be topped up about once every 15 minutes. Ah-ha! We decided to give that a try. We checked the flu, cleaned out the stove and fired her up. Wow, what a difference! We made bacon and eggs, boiled a kettle for a cup of coffee, and the oven got hot enough to roast pumpkin! So, that settles it! We're keeping the IXL no. 4 for good. :)

Sarah spent the summer helping to control the mouse "plague". She had an absolutely wonderful time digging and chasing mice. She's spending this winter resting up, sleeping on the bed in front of the fireplace. We're hoping she'll be with us for another summer, but only time will tell. We're both so glad she's spending her retirement with us on our little farm.

We've been feeling more energetic and motivated since adding some fruit and potatoes to our otherwise meat-based diet. Our mandarin tree had a productive season and is overloaded with fruit. First, one possum found it, then a friend joined him or her. Looks like we will have to install the possum nest box somewhere nearby for them.

There are lots of other projects in various stages of completion, we're waiting on online orders of electric fencing supplies and seeds. There's still plenty to do, and we've no time to waste! The goal is to be able to provide for ourselves, all the meat and fruit and vegetables we eat, the water we drink and the electricity we use. We have half of that list complete, and a solid plan for the other half. We need to be self reliant, or our choices in how we live in the near future will be very limited indeed.

Until next time!

A very fine February

 

We've been very lucky and grateful for the weather this summer. Only a few days of over 40°C, but we had three downpours of over 20mm each over a week or so which made the grass green and all the plants bounce back beautifully. With Mum and Mike staying in their campervan they couldn't have gotten any luckier!

The garden is doing great, and there is abundant peaches, pumpkins, spiders and insects, and the crested pidgons are nesting again this season with two more chicks on the way. Although not all the abundance is welcome. We have had many more mice and rats this year too, which is keeping Sarah (Mum and Mike's dog) very busy. She has been digging out the nests and doing her terrier duty quite well. We'll miss her when she moves to Victoria in a couple of weeks.

She's been aging backwards since eating carnivore like us. Her fur went from wirey, dirty and constantly shedding to the complete opposite! Soft as silk, doesn't fall out every pat, and dirt just falls off her for the most part. Now you actually want to pat her, which is great since that's her favourite thing in the world next to catching mice. She doesn't yelp when being picked up anymore and she has loads more energy. We can't be sure but we think her cancerous lumps might be getting smaller too. Either way, for an old doggie who everyone thought was on her last legs, she has certainly perked up!

We have finished the irrigation, filled in the whole trench by hand and have shown off some local landmarks to Mum and Mike. We hope to get some more projects started and finished again real soon.

Manda.

More dam projects, open borders, hot windy weather

Another month flies by, and we've been working on the dam water quality. I have been reading about the venturi effect and decided to make a venturi and set it up down at the dam in order to oxygenate the water. The idea is that the oxygen will help settle the excess iron from the water and clear it up a bit. Marty can swim well, so he put the pipe down in the middle of the dam!

The venturi works, although it drains the 22,500L header tank very quickly, like over night! We decided to go ahead and get two solar panels for the pump so we can run the venturi more often. That meant a trip down to Victoria to pick them up and thankfully the border closures had stopped the day before, and we decided to go quickly before they closed them down again. Thankfully we avoided the whole mask stuff, and the business we went to were not pandering to the fear either.

We've spent the last few days putting up a stand for the panels, Marty digging in the hot sun, yesterday we made about 10 or 11 (little) loads of concrete to hold the posts up, and today we're going to attach the panels, all going well. The wind has been terrible lately, and we were held up by some awfully hot weather. It has been over 40°C, and up to 43°C the other day. (109.4°F) We're all coping pretty well so far.

Mum, Mike and Sarah came to visit down from Queensland finally, when their border opened up. We looked after Sarah for a few days while they went down to Nana's place for a visit. Sarah seemed to enjoy being a carnivore! She ate the same foods Marty and I did, with farm fresh eggs. Her fur became softer, and it was shedding a lot less by the time they came home again! Sadly, none of them are carnivore now, but I bet Sarah won't forget her time here with us.

Anyway, like I said, we have panels to put up today. Hope you all have a lovely day!

Milestone Day for Irrigation

Today was the day that we first pumped water from the dam into the header tank on the hill. I can hardly believe it!

We've probably walked the 250m distance between the dam and the tank about a hundred times by now, and we're not quite finished walking yet. I tried to capture some of the essence of the project in photos to share with you.

Marty, the International A414 and the big white tank on the hill.

We used the single tyne ripper quite a few times along the run.

We've had fun and learned a lot!

In the photo above, it turns out Marty was taking this little video:

We're super grateful for the advice we've received from our local farmer friend, he saved us oh so much money! The irrigation and farm stores would have had us installing either 2.5" high pressure poly pipe, costing a fortune and being much more difficult to work with.. another was asking if we were SURE we needed 2" and thought that was overkill. Still others would have us spending big bucks for a centrifugal pump that might block up due to the particulate matter in the water. So thank you Richard for giving us spot-on advice and answering even the most newbie questions we had, you likely saved us at least $6,000 on this project.

We put pencil to paper and drew a rough plan of the irrigation, a few times actually, refining it each time. It really helped us both visualise the layout, count the parts needed, and we actually ordered exactly what we needed! It was awesome to have everything on hand, without rushing off to the shops for forgotten fittings. Oh, except plumbers white-tape. We needed an awful lot of that!

I found a website that sold the parts we needed very cheaply, and almost finalised the order when Marty thought perhaps we should give the list of what we need and the online prices to our local "Ag n Vet" rural supplies store, just to give them a chance to match it. Not only did they match it, they beat it! They also had the cheapest price on rural green-line poly pipe in the whole area, so we ended up getting just about everything very locally.

They were able to let us know about a local man who had a pipe laying attachment for the tractor as well, which was great as we already knew Pat! We are happily returning it to him tomorrow after finishing using it yesterday.

So, after lots of walking, assembling the compression fittings, using about 5 roles of white-tape (and we had avoided as many screw-on connections as we could in the planning stages), re-applying yet more white-tape as we found some of the connections leaking due to too little used, and re-tightening the compression fittings, we were happy to see the water slowly flowing into the tank. I guess I didn't mention the pump float we made with stormwater pipe, but I'll have to show that off in another post.

The water finally flowed into the tank for a few hours before the sun headed off to the West and a gum tree shaded the panel. We'll need at least a couple of good days to fill the tank completely, so we're thinking of purchasing a matching second solar panel to give the pump a little more juice.

Speaking of juice, Marty and I have been feeling much better now after falling into the sugar trap over winter. We started eating some, and we just couldn't stop! Sure, we gained a little weight, but that was nothing in comparison to the health effects. Our energy levels started to fall down again, Marty's asthma and eczema became worse than ever, and we weren't sleeping well either. After only a few days of being perfect carnivores, we started enjoying the benefits of good health once again. Sleeping soundly, needing less sleep, waking feeling good, (no back pain for me in the morning! hooray!) having enough energy to do this crazy irrigation stuff, and Marty's asthma and incessant itchiness finally settling down.

Yeah, it can be a little boring at times, but it's worth it. Just one hour of eating sugar equals many more hours of feeling less than optimal. That certainly isn't worth it.

Dr Ken Berry on YouTube is a great source of information and encouragement for us, I thought I'd share him explaining just some of the bigger issues with eating the addictive stuff:

So, we're off the sugar again, and feeling a million times better for it.

I wish everyone good health and success in your day. It certainly feels good to make progress!

Making progress on the irrigation

 The weather has been typical of spring, we had a cold snap and needed to start lighting the fire again..

Now that the weather is warm again, we even got a little sun burned today while ripping a trench with the tractor. No pictures of that, I'm afraid! We were both concentrating on the task and didn't spare a thought for picture taking. We made a single rip through the soil, ready to accept poly pipe, from the brand new big white tank on the top of the hill, all the way down to the back of the property.

The local wildlife enjoyed the exposed ground, Choughs filled their bellies with worms! We've been lucky enough to see a lizard sunning itself in a patch of capeweed.

We recently got the test results back from our a water sample we had taken from the dam. The results were overall pretty positive, only an alarmingly high aluminium (Al) number confused us (and everybody else we asked). Thankfully the pH value is neutral, and the most likely explanation that I can find is that the aluminium is natural gibbsite bound to organic matter in the water. Our soils are also naturally high in aluminium. We're both comforted by the fact that turtles, frogs, yabbies and other little critters live in the water and are seemingly healthy.

Marty and I donned our white lab coats to set up an experiment. 4 jars of dam water; one control, one with 2 tablespoons of fine agricultural lime, another with 2 tablespoons of hardware store gypsum and the last with 2 tablespoons of shell grit from our chook supplies. We wanted to see what effect any might have on the water. Nothing much happened over a few days, only a slight change in pH and hardness, most noticeable with the shell grit. The tiny black critters swimming around the jars didn't seem to mind either way. Adding a small dose of Charlie Carp (which is a fish-based fertiliser) to the shell grit test after the experiment was over made a sludge layer form at the bottom and seems to have killed the tiny critters! Something we certainly don't want to replicate on a larger scale!

Since pH is an important factor in making sure our water stays healthy, I decided to bust out the old soil test kits. I think they're both far too old to be of any help anymore though! One ancient test kit (yep, we got it in a "lot" at a clearing sale) was showing our soils to be 4.5, the slightly newer (but at least 6 year old) kit was showing a pH of 6 on the exact same soil. I think it's time to get a new kit, or perhaps upgrade to a digital pH meter.

So, we are moving forward with the dam water project. The next step is buying poly pipe and fittings, and setting up the solar water pump. As simple as that sounds, I know it's a bit more involved than that. We have been getting lots of practical advice from a very helpful and patient local farmer, and also watching lots of Greg Judy videos on YouTube about rotationally grazing sheep.

Stay tuned!

Getting dam prepared

 Marty and I have been pottering around, planning and purchasing! We did hours upon hours of research about submersible pumps, measured the distances required, decided which one to buy, and even ordered a 10,000L water tank to put up on the wall of the dam. Then we went for a visit with a local farmer, Richard, who suggested a different way of doing things again!

 We came home and immediately got to work measuring up the new distances and researching again. Richard had suggested putting a big tank on the top of our hill instead of a small one on the dam wall. We would run a larger pipe to the bigger tank and have gravity pressure water available farm-wide!

 So, Marty called Bushmans tanks to change our order to a bigger 22,500L tank. Richard told us his pumps were from Commodore Australia, which are cheaper and seem to be a better fit for our situation than the more expensive pump we were originally considering. So we ordered one and now we're just preparing for everything to arrive.

 We've also been working on tidying up the annex area, getting ready for installing a little water tank to collect the water from that roof. I have a huge collection of plant pots that I won in at least a couple of different clearing sales, and they were stacked up high behind the shade house. We spent a good couple of days cleaning some and organising the rest of them for storage. We couldn't use them all if we tried!

 I've enjoyed using the potting bench in the annex for potting up a few saltbush and lavender cuttings, and sunflower seeds are popping up now.

 We are extremely grateful for another local farmer, Grant, who has huge round bales of old hay that he's happy for us to take for free. We recently got 4 of them, and used one to cover the ground of where the chooks were at last. They'd been on the hill and the ground is terrible up there. We added the straw once we moved the chooks away in hopes of improving the ground. Another bale went on the dam walls to try and protect the bare sides from erosion. It appears to be helping quite a bit, with more plant growth and many more frogs croaking in the night! We've used old peppercorn logs given to us by a Permie friend, Jim, and even a dead wattle tree that gave up the ghost. Dotting them around the walls of the dam is giving the plants a chance to grow without kangaroos, wallabies and harsh rainfall preventing them from establishing.

 We also have some water plants almost ready to go into the dam this spring, originally from a local(ish) waterway. We're trying to get the water to clear up a bit, as it's quite silty and brown. Plants are the only way that's going to happen, as the silt just doesn't settle on it's own. This is all heading towards getting sheep, and with the rain and lovely spring we've had, there's certainly enough grass for the time being.

 Just another 2 round bales of hay to put down and we're close to covering the entire dam wall.

Annex progress & pastured chicks

Well gosh, time sure does fly by! Marty and I have been working on the annex to the shade house and the shade house itself is now covered in shade cloth and is keeping seedlings out of the frost and cold winds. We have native seedlings for planting around the farm, wattles mostly. There are tagasaste sprouting and cuttings from forage plants taking root. I intend on planting plenty of sunflowers for the poultry this season, too!

Last piece of tin for the roof!

Inspecting after a rain.

The potting bench was made last weekend from scrap and reclaimed ply-board. I painted it in a "subtle nightsky" colour, leftover from renovating the Old Miner's Cottage in Stawell. I honestly can't remember where we used that colour though!

We welded up a stand for an old laundry tub we got from a clearing sale years ago now, and it's ready for plumbing in. There's a trench cut beside the path ready for the water line, which hopefully I'll get done this week. Eventually the outside tin and roof will be painted, we tinted the paint "fairy wings" quarter, so it'll be a light pink colour!

There's still three doors to be made, a bit more shadecloth for the east side of the hoop house, and shelves to put up inside the annex, but it's all coming along. The chicken food is now stored all in one location in lockers to the south of the annex, so feeding and moving chickens is so much easier now.

The old aviary has been excellent for raising chicks. They have a little nest box where they sleep with the broody at night, and a new area to scratch up every day. I put dolomite lime down on the previous day's ground to help keep the flies away from the manure, which is also remineralising the ground as well as helping break down the old grasses.

We kept the chicks like this for just over 18 weeks, now that they're "point of lay" we popped the pullets in with the adult hens and the cockerel will soon become the best quality roast money just can't buy. :)

I really enjoyed raising the chicks like this, and will definitely do it again when one of the adult hens wants to become a mother again. The last broody happily stayed with the chicks for over 10 weeks, which is a testament to the system. Usually our hens will get sick of the chicks and smaller pen size in around 4 or 5 weeks.

So there's plenty to do, and we're working on the logistics of getting sheep so we can rotate them around the pasture as well. That won't be for a little while yet, but it's higher on the priority list now. We've measured the height of the dam wall, sized a couple of pump options and got a rough idea on what we need to get before we take the great leap forward into purchasing our first 4 legged livestock.