October 2016

As the rain clouds head south, so we start making a little more progress.

The tables for the shadehouse are complete and full of plants now. Marty and I are getting a little better at welding - less burning holes through the metal! We got to try our cheap metal saw (chop saw) with this project. I got it for about $25 at a clearing sale, probably because it was covered in bird poo and needed a new blade. Thankfully blades were cheaper than the saw, and it cleaned up almost like new, so we got quite lucky with that.

With the dam full, Marty set sail.. well, set paddle.. to find out just how deep our dam goes. We blew up the little boat and tied something heavy to some builders twine. Dropping it down to the bottom, we got 5 metres deep (16.4 foot). Oh well, we're just happy that it doesn't seem to dry up completely over summer.

It's been beautiful weather, and the hayfever is pretty powerful. The bugs are loving the long grass and flowers everywhere (the flies are back with a vengeance), and the birds are making little birds anywhere they can. We've been fixing up the Kubota, changing oils and filters, etc, ready to try her out for the first time making a flat spot for the water tank next to "the structure". We're hoping that it's an easy project for tractor and for beginner operators like ourselves. There are lots of projects after that, but we'll see how she goes. Someone seems to have removed the part that makes the Kubota a 4WD, so we'll soon find out..

Wet day timetable

Every time I think about sharing pictures and words about the dam being full, it rains again and the dam is higher! It really feels like we have the last dam in the southern states to fill up all the way to the brim, and perhaps, over. All around us, dams have been full for a month, overflowing onto roads, and it's only now that we can say yes, our dam is full too. It is a conversation topic here. :)

So, we have water views from the kitchen window.

The earth is completely saturated, any depression is a puddle, the cottage is moving and the walls are cracking. We watch and wait for dry weather before we can fix anything.

The raised garden beds are fantastic, though, and the silverbeet is delicious. I'm quietly thrilled, because I had a goal to grow at least some of our greens this year, and it's happening! We have our own spring onion and eggs too, which together, makes a great omelette.

Marty had the idea to increase the size of the shadehouse, and reconfigure the inside in preparation for summer. During a sunny break in the weather, we extended it out and began working on tables for the seedlings. I was using the wool table, but it wasn't economical with space, so we got some offcuts of 25mm RHS and tried the metal cut off saw, before welding it together to create the tables. Well, nearly, because of, you guessed it, more rain. :)

So, perhaps we'll get some tractor maintenance done, if we can. The little Kubota will be getting a workout once it dries up enough. I'm very much looking forward to it. I've never used a front end loader or a backhoe before!

We have big plans, and more motivation than ever before. We've seriously considered moving, working in town, all kinds of options, but what we want can't simply be moved to. We have to create it. We want to create it.

Fowlers Jars

While I'd love to show a photo of preserved food all in colourful rows, I have yet to try canning, although I intend to! What I do have is too-many-to-count Fowlers jars, and because most of them are from clearing sales, they aren't all suitable for food use. Many have cracks and chips in them.. and I had been wondering what I was going to do with them all.

Some have been very useful for things like..

Keeping Kang Kong over winter. They're tropical, and HATE frost or cold weather of any description, and even though our kitchen isn't tropical by any means, it's usually hovers around 15°C (59°F) all winter. I think the Kang Kong tolerate it, but only just.

There are avocado seeds in the other jars on the kitchen shelf.
Also a sweet potato that sprouted too late in the season last year, also happier in tropical climates.

The shoots of sweet potato have been hanging in there all winter, and I put four of them outside in a new garden bed. Fowlers jars to the rescue again, they're covering the shoots in hopes of keeping the cold off them until next month or so. It's an experiment to see how early I can get these babies into the ground this season. The longer the better, as it might give them a chance to establish a bit before the 30°- 40° plus (86° - 104° plus) temperatures arrive (it happens fast in my experience).

Perhaps this season is the one when I'll use Fowlers jars (and Ball Mason jars) for preserving food. You can bet there'll be photos if I do!

Winter Solstice 2016

The cooler weather has been nice, but it's the wet weather that is keeping us from doing too much exciting around here lately. The shed progress has halted, with tarp covering one of the frames, we'll wait for drier times to continue.

We went to the last Permie Day at Richard's place, and came home with an orphaned lemon tree. Poor little thing! There's one great thing about wet weather though - it's very easy to dig holes for trees. The tree is all tucked-in for the winter, and hopefully it recovers. There is a lot of compost in that soil, as well as a generous amount of worm juice and poultry manure (in pellet form from the bag, since we can't really collect our own chook manure the way they're set up now).

There's been a lot of sitting by the fire, keeping warm.

We keep any wood with holes in them for the garden, somewhere for the bugs, spiders and skinks to call home. Some make good garden edging, and others are huge and I'll garden around them. Gardening is a very slow process in Winter, which is a little frustrating, but I can't complain too much. Most everything is still alive, just hanging out for the warmer days. I've kept 3 jars of Kang Kong in the kitchen - with roots this year - just waiting for Spring, there's a sweet potato that sprouted too late last season, but might not live to see the Spring, and avocado seeds with toothpicks too.

We had trouble with the Red Legged Earth Mite again this year, and while I don't like chemicals, I did try a home made white oil recipe out - just kitchen oil, water, and a drop or two of dishwashing liquid. That worked well, but I waited too long to spray, and the silverbeet are still in recovery mode (which is taking a long time being Winter), so next time I'll be ready for them. That means no more silverbeet though, and other than a few herbs, there isn't much being harvested from the garden. Thankfully the farmer's market traders are better at this than I am, and we are eating excellent food anyway. :)

The fruit trees received a little love, we pruned the fig trees (just underneath them, taking out the suckers and dead stuff, not very dramatic this year), the almond trees got a very light prune, (just branches that were crossing over others and dead ones) and this year I've added mulch and some chicken manure around the bases. They didn't produce any almonds last year, so we're hoping they go crazy this year. Almonds are $36 per kilo at the moment! I don't imagine we'll get enough for our own needs, let alone selling them.

There are plenty of things on the to-do list, but there's no hurry. Often, the longer things take, the better they turn out. Plans have time to evolve, change and sometimes the things that seemed so important before are off the list entirely after some time. Some days we don't do anything at all, and that's perfectly ok with me. :)

When the rain comes

We've had some glorious rain lately! 54mm (just over 2 inches) over a couple of days, filling the tanks, making even the most overgrazed paddocks around us look green, encouraging frogs galore and of course, FUNGI!

The native area on the top of our hill has "environmental significance" and we're suppose to protect and enhance it. Well, that's not a problem. It's absolutely beautiful, and we love nothing more than wandering around up there leaving only footprints and taking only photographs. :)

We've had to start shutting our main gate lately due to our land being too much of a temptation to other people's sheep. The fences are being tested and found lacking too, which has required quite a few hours repairing them. I do feel sorry for the poor sheep surrounding our property, but no, they can't come over for lunch! Because it's been at least 4 years since this property has seen stock, the local native trees are starting to grow back (especially around the edges) and much of the ground is covered by mulch and beginning to look healthy once again.

We will have stock of our own some day, but in a controlled, and hopefully well managed way with electric fences and rotational grazing. But in the meantime, it's wonderful to see an increase in diversity and health of our little slice of The Hills.

The fly trap

I wanted to give some credit in this post to the humble fly trap.

We had a terrible time with flies this season. It actually got to the point where we purchased some nets for over our hats so we could be outside and use both hands.. You know, carrying stuff, hammering, repairing.. etc. The nets were sold out in town, and we went back a week later and we got the last two in stock! Clearly it wasn't just us.

I did some research about ways to combat the problem, and came across raving reviews of the Gordys Fly Trap from New Zealand. Hmm, does that mean the flies get just as bad over there?

We have been using it all summer, and once we found the perfect location and the most disgusting smell, it's been collecting flies by the bucket load ever since. Infact, I've put a bigger bucket under it now. This bucket once held 15kg (33 pounds) of popcorn butter I think. Now it's more than half full of flies, and more are desperately trying to get in all the time.

There has been a couple of dung beetles hanging around, but their flight is a lot more clumsy, and they haven't figured out how to get in, so thankfully they go find something else to bury.

It's drastically reduced the number of flies landing on us, making it a lot more enjoyable outside again. The trap is far enough away that it doesn't smell in the garden. It's well worth experimenting with the location to get it just right. The Willy Wagtail's love it too, and can be seen hanging around it looking very fat. They raised 3 chicks recently!

Ah yes, and we've used other fly traps here. We started with the little yellow lidded ones (which work ok, but on more a suburban-scale), moved up to Effecto, but it didn't work that much better than the little ones. I'm just so impressed with the Gordys that I thought I'd let others know that it's out there, and it really really really works!

Unexpected progress

What a crazy month it's been! The cooler weather means we've been working a bit harder than usual to get some things done. All that came to a halt when a few mice found their way inside the cottage. Absolutely unacceptable! Haha, we did the same thing in the Old Miners Cottage, ripping apart things because of mice, and here is no exception. We took off the skirting board where the mouse hole was located..

And plastered it all up in lime before re-attaching the board.

It's been so long since we plastered, I had to look up the recipe again (our old blog came in handy)!
Problem solved, and no mice since. Phew.

Another unexpected priority was the wood rack. We knocked one up using old star pickets and a welder. I think we're finally getting the hang of this stuff! It was unexpected because we suddenly found ourselves needing the extra space under "the structure" (the car-port type thing we made) for a chance buy at a clearing sale recently...

I still can't believe I won the little Kubota with a front end loader and backhoe! Swales, earth works and pads for water tanks here we come!! Well.. right after we give her the old grease and oil change, and fix the hydraulic leak in one of the spreader arms. Sounds so simple. Ha. :) Anyway, the wood rack held all the wood that was sitting where the Kubota tractor is now. Given our "beginner" status as welders, I'm really surprised that it's holding up so well.

The new shed/workshop is making progress thanks to our good friend Anthony from the Permie group. This is gunna be great!!

We were given a lesson in mud from another Permie group friend, Dick. The mix needs a bit more sand, but the idea is there! It just goes to show how much clay content our local soil has! It shouldn't be too difficult to do the rest of the house.. it's just a matter of time now.

Yesterday we made a mud mix for the chimney tops, and did our yearly maintenance. The mud up there looked pretty good, but it got a top-up anyway. We've given the caps a lime wash so hopefully they cope with the weather even better than last year. The chimney's are clear and ready for another winter.

There was a bit of mud left over after fixing the chimney caps, so I filled in some holes on the North wall of the cottage, and also made a start on the cob walls of the tool shed. One layer down, many many more to go!

I added more straw and made a cob mix, and it's very strong with no cracks. It's a cute little project, but not a priority.

Next jobs include adding more storage capacity to the wood rack, working on / fixing the Kubota, and continuing the workshop construction. Unless something else unexpected comes up, and that happens a lot around here.

"Autumn" 2016

Past the half way point through March already, and although temperatures are in the lower 30's (86-93-ish in °F) I think Marty and I have a small bug which is making us both feel under the weather as well.

Admitedly, we havn't been eating the best lately, because you guessed it, it's just too darn hot. The other morning, before dawn, we fired up the Webber and started a (beautiful, local, organic, free range and extremely scrumptious) pork roast. We ate it cold for days, which helped a great deal.

Although this looks very simple, I'd like to assure you all that, in-fact, it is.

Worm bath Mk2, Pearl Cottage style is a $10 gumtree bath find sitting on 4 blocks of concrete with pine lining lid. A coat of lime wash is experimental - if it comes off in the rain, I'll just have to paint it instead. I intend to build up some cob around the base to provide a bit of extra stability and temperature control, but for now it's a go, with a few handfuls of worms from our friend's farm, a little coir and a start of kitchen scraps.

And otherwise, we are, once again, both looking forward to some cooler weather and getting some more stuff done.

The looong slooow summer continues

The hot weather continues, the garden is looking stressed, and we haven't had rain for a long while now. It can be a bit depressing, but things will change. Eventually.

The site chosen, roughly leveled and the stirrups are in place for the new shed. Nothing much happens quickly in the summer.

Well, except for the peaches, which were quick to ripen, and be eaten by parrots, but we got a few and they were delicious. :)

But slow is generally the name of the game right now. That goes for food and medicine too. These are some sauerkraut and pickles I made, and behind them are tinctures brewing. It took 6 weeks to make the tinctures and 1 week for the fermented foods. (The sauerkraut and pickles are eaten already though, that was quick!)

It's been warm here lately, and we're expecting more of the same 37°C (98.6°F) for another week at least, the unofficial temperature easily climbs over 40°C (104°F) under our veranda. Getting up before dawn and hiding inside after 9am is about the only way to get anything done. We're thankful for the fan, the insulation in the roof and the thick mudbrick walls. Although the walls have a habit of staying a tad too warm after a few days of heat, things will be much nicer once they're rendered, painted and the trees grow up.

Summer surprises

We've been lucky with the rain, but when the heat comes, it means we're back to hiding inside during the hottest part of the day. So, while I'm inside keeping cool, I thought I'd share with you a few photos of our latest adventures.

Our first clearing sale of the year was a few days ago, and this was the bargain of the day, in our opinion! Would you believe that we got all this for just $5? Thank goodness for the ute!

Friends of ours had recently lost one of their pair of chooks one frightfully hot day, and not wishing to leave this one lonley, they donated her back to our place (they'd been here before as pullets, so it wasn't too big of a shock for her). She's having a great time under the fig trees. She asserted her dominance over the naked neck chooks, but the dorkings were another matter! So she fit perfectly in the middle of the flock right away.

Big surprise! Yesterday we discovered that one of the ancient fruit trees in the orchard is an apple, and it managed a couple of small fruits to prove it. It must have been a surprise to the birds as well, because neither of them were eaten at all. (The birds have plenty of food on the fig and peach trees at the moment.) We saved the seeds, and one day I'll graft some of the branches and make more. It's a very tough, and very old tree.. worth saving I reckon!

The grapes that were pruned last winter by the permie group grew like crazy this year. They're ancient too, mostly only surviving where they've popped-up near the old grape vines' trunks. This one fruited, much to our surprise, and the grapes are lovely. Much like a Menindee seedless, but with seeds - which isn't bad, it just takes a little longer to eat and savour each one - which we certainly did!

Other than that, we've spent time learning some wood working, cleaning the pub of course, and I turned another year older. As usual at this time of year, I'm really looking forward to the weather cooling down, to growing more of our own food, and we've got a million projects on the go (and trying not to feel guilty about not doing any of them right now, ha!).

Until next time.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the slithery surprises that come with summer here. We've seen a few snakes this year, but most surprising was the one that was on the back step as I opened the door to get something outside. I think it took me a single second to see it, work out what it was exactly, drool on the floor and make a "Yip!" sound before closing the door again. I waited inside until it was time to get Marty from his job at the post office, and there was much caution and stomping as I walked. We don't harm the snakes here, but it is another reason to look forward to cooler days!

Another day, another shed

After a long hot December, we find ourselves already well into 2016 and a much cooler January than we're use to. It's almost tropical, with periods of rain, storms, and 30-something degree weather. The garden is confused! Ginger is growing well, and so is the Paulownia trees we've planted recently. Our tomatoes were given to us by a friend of ours, but of the three varieties, the cherry tomatoes are the outstanding winners. The roma tomatoes suffered blossom-end-rot and the bigger tomatoes (not sure of the variety) are suffering from the sun and rats are eating any fruit they do make. So, we're happily feasting on the cherry tomatoes. We managed to get one capsicum, sun damaged, but still quite yummy, but otherwise it's been a fairly lean summer. That's ok, it's far too warm to eat a lot anyway!

I was saying last time that we changed our minds on putting the shed where it was, and we were about to dismantle the whole thing. Marty had ground off one beam across the top and we had to leave it for a bit since it was too hot to risk starting a fire. One day we were lamenting having anywhere to store things out of the weather, especially the tractor, and I came up with a crazy plan. Lets put up the roofing iron we were donated (very generously by members of the Permie group), and use the spare C section to make it all stronger (since we made a mistake by putting the C section on the wrong way last time).. and 2 days later, we have "the structure"! The tractor is protected from the elements, there is now a large pile of straw bales and a place to store the chook food (which gives us more room by the back door of the cottage).

Then, Marty built a little tool shed to help tidy up some of the shovels, rakes and other stuff around the back door. My contribution is making the front wall of the shed out of cob (mud and straw), so it's not quite finished yet because we're waiting on some sand. No matter, the tools are out of the rain now, at least, and it won't be long until we get the sand delivery.

Australia Day was luckily not too warm, and even more luckily, it didn't rain until the next day, because we took our little Aussie made tractor down to the festivities to be part of the Australian Made machinery display. The day went pretty well, and Marty was thrilled to drive Peter's very old tractor back to his place afterwards.

Since then, we've enjoyed some lovely rain. The water tank is full again and we have some green grass even. Marty and I have also begun learning a little woodworking from a friend of ours, and lesson one is putting up yet another shed! This one will be somewhere we can work in, where the work bench and wood working tools will be, somewhere dry, hopefully a little less dusty, where we can make things from. We're very excited about it.

So, we're keeping very busy, and projects are happening.