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.