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. 

Big catch up

We've had a very very long autumn here, the summer heat was gone by February and by March things were downright wet in comparison. Trees, shrubs and grass all began to green up and even flower. Fruit trees threw a few flowers out just to give the bees and bugs a little extra food before winter arrives. The drought had been so depressing, but I ordered a few more plants for the garden that are suppose to be extra tough. Mostly succulents. The rain inspired me to get into the garden again and I'm so glad I did.

Volunteer silverbeet, chard, and sunflowers among the perennials

Succulent and cacti raised garden

How green the kitchen garden looks!

The chickens then surprised me when a broody chook showed off her new chicks. I'm embarrassed to admit that I had no idea anyone was sitting. One of the chicks was hatched out a couple of days later than the others and wasn't ready to be up and about just yet.. so I took him inside and warmed him up with hot water bottles.

Hot water bottles, a Styrofoam box, a little fish tank and a lot of old towels.

Little chick just needed a bit more time and warmth.

Sometimes little chick just needed some love.

That was 4 weeks ago, and as I hoped, you can't tell which one of the little boys that chick is now! He went back outside with broody after 2 days and one (tiring) night of re-filling hot water bottles and monitoring temperatures.

This is their mobile broody pen in the pasture, it gets moved almost daily now, and they've grown up so fast. The two boys will stay in the pen, while the broody and two female chicks will be joining the main flock later on when they're ready.  The pen is actually Squeak's old aviary with round metal poles welded to the bottom of it so it can be dragged around more easily.

Broody pen on pasture.

All the rain also encouraged us to do some chimney maintenance, and we replaced the caps on the chimneys with concrete. The mud worked fine for years, but had begun to crack and let moisture in. It also made a mess of the gutters as sand and clay collected in them. Hopefully it'll be many years before we need to go climbing onto the roof again now.

Ticking more projects off the list, the tractor's breaks have been pretty bad since we got it. We'd purchased new breaks years ago now, but hadn't gotten around to doing anything about it. Originally, it took all my weight and effort to stop the tractor, which improved a little after we adjusted the breaks to as far as they could be adjusted. Recently, however, the breaks have begun working rather too well. I only need lightly press them and they stopped the tractor with a jerk. That's just not right and had me worried something odd was going on.

I had read about a deep ripper being helpful with tree planting and water penetration in compacted soils, and decided to try out our cheap second-hand clearing-sale find of a deep ripper, but noticed that the wheels of the tractor weren't behaving normally. One was spinning just moving the tractor without the implement! We decided now was the time to check out the breaks.

One of the breaks, before we fixed them.

It took some effort to get them off, since the fenders and even the ROPS (rollover protection) had to be disassembled to access them. Turns out they had nothing left on them, and one was even broken. We cleaned everything up, installed the new pads and the rubber boot to stop dirt and seeds getting in the housing again.

Marty under the A414.

Next job will be to adjust the breaks, which involves jacking up the entire rear of the tractor and running it in gear! Hopefully once that's done (this weekend) we will be able to get to the job of deep ripping some of the wood lot on contour and then planting out some more trees for this season. We lost last year's trees, but the previous years trees are all looking healthy and are taller than we are.

Finally, a little renovation inspired by a couple of less than ideal night's sleep, thanks to a tiny little micro bat invading the bedroom in the night. It somehow made it's way into the canopy of the mosquito net (clearly not effective against micro bats!), flapping about and waking me up.. we got up and opened the back door and it flew out the door without us having to do anything else. After it happened again yesterday, Marty prodded me to have a look for any gaps in the bedroom. Oh yeah, there were gaps!

West wall - before.

West wall - after.

North wall - before.

North wall - after.

The skirting board had come away completely behind the biggest cupboard we have in the bedroom, I sure hope the bats came in that way! It wasn't too difficult to re-attach the board, and I plastered the gaps with gypsum-based plaster. The room feels different now, quieter.. I noticed the temperature in the room is noticeably warmer, which is nice because haven't started the wood heater yet this season.

We're otherwise doing ok, mostly unaffected by the crazy world going on outside. The only change has been that the local pub has been forced to close, so with that, we're no longer cleaning it. Marty has been working as usual, and we don't tend to go out much otherwise. We've been shopping for the few essentials at the local IGA's (small independent supermarkets) instead of going in to Wagga Wagga and the big supermarkets there. Our butcher continues to supply us with beautiful hind-quarters of beef about monthly, and we have been enjoying kidney, liver and heart as well. I credit eating as well as we possibly can to getting over the 3 week long, but mild illness we both developed early March.

I'm hopeful we'll get many more projects complete in the near future and that the world will get back to the good old normal very soon too.

The weird and the wonderful

Lace Monitor

Lace Monitor tracks

I don't even know what to say about this. All I could say at the time was "WOW!" I heard it walking around the cottage just as I was eating lunch. Needless to say, it was a cold lunch by the time I got back to it.

It was a beautiful lace monitor. Or goanna if you like. Of course, you can click on the pictures to make them larger. Around here, goannas have a yellow band on the tail, and it seemed to be searching for something good to eat. The Noisy Miners made sure everyone around knew exactly where it was, and our rooster alerted in a hushed tone. It didn't have any problems going under the electric chook fence, but luckily that fence doesn't have anything living in there (and the fence isn't "live" either). It didn't find the main flock with the day's eggs and two broodies with the single little chick they're mothering. Either that, or it wasn't worth the trouble.

The chimney has been pointed a bit, well, the biggest holes have been filled by a lime mortar mix. I think it was only a mud mix used previously, so I guess it's an upgrade. More mud has gone on the walls to help fill some of the holes left over from the concrete plaster falling off. The incidence of blowfly getting into the kitchen has dramatically reduced as a result. Well worth the effort. There's more to do, of course, but there's always more!

Mid October 2017

Fungus on the strawbale

Calendula
with native bee and spider

After a fairly dry winter, there isn't a lot of green growth on the plants, but lots of flowers none the less. A lot of grass pollen, which is causing our hayfever, the purple flowers from the wild Salvation Jane, yellow from the Cats Ear and plenty of white flowers on the radish we grew.

Willy Wagtail egg splat!

Grapevine moth
(Phalaenoides glycinae)

An odd thing happened this morning. Two Willy Wagtail's were singing while sitting on the fairy lights under the veranda, when I heard the splat of a little egg hitting the step. There are no nests or anything above.. Nature is just weird sometimes.

The heat of the Summer

It's difficult to write a post and not mention the hellish weather we have been experiencing the last couple of days. We reached a new record under the varandah area yesterday, hitting a very uncomfortable 46°C (115°F). The house temperature rose to 34°C (93°F) and didn't drop more than 2°C degrees overnight. Grumpiness is only to be expected on these mornings!
Sadly, one of our older Dorking chickens didn't survive the hot weather even the day before.
Our brave broody hen, Toupee the naked-neck, hatched out one baby chick nearly 2 weeks ago (happened to be another 40°+ day with horrible northerly winds), so it's already a tough little chick who is accustomed to hot weather. He or she is keeping cool with no neck feathers (from Mum) and running around on 5 toes (from the Dorking Dad).

Having a bee in our bonnets again about rodents living in our walls (it's a theme continued over from living in the old miner's cottage in Stawell), we pulled down the false walls in the alcove area. The framework needs to remain in place for a little while yet.

Yes, we cleaned up nest sites and all manner of mess. There was a little render left on the walls, and the plinth over the doors are concrete painted white. The walls look in very good condition and we'll protect them with render again real soon.

Marty and I braved a clearing sale or two, brought home this neat meat-safe. It's in need of repair, but we're thinking it'd make a good fruit drying safe. Just need to figure out the best way to put racks in there..

And my favourite part, first thing in the morning, just as the sun is rising, I water the shade house. It's beautiful and green in there, probably THE best spot on the whole property. It attracts plenty of insects, to be sure, but in turn, the Willy Wagtails and more recently, the Grey Shrike Thrush have figured out that the buffet is free. We've seen frogs on the shadecloth and in saucers of water in the evenings, and the strong north winds are effectively blocked by the house and water tank. It's the ideal spot. I took a chance and planted beans directly in the soil on the south side of a row of straw bales and now we're getting a yield! The same beans planted in the kitchen garden have long since gone. Infact, the kitchen garden gets almost as much attention as the shade house does (although, I do raise seedlings in here, so they get attention twice a day), yet the kitchen garden is struggling to survive, let alone produce much food. There are plans for "Shade House Ver. 2" in the near future.. definitely before next summer!

In the meantime, we're keeping the humidity up with a wet towel in front of the fan. It's 34°C inside still, so I can't say we're keeping cool, but it's a lot more comfortable than being outside! It's easy to forget some simple measures to keep cool, so here's a link to an ABC article as a reminder!

Stay alive. :)

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!

November garden in photos

I walked out the back door (our only door to the outside at the moment), and I'm so glad the first thing to be seen is the garden. There's the classic strawberry in a hanging basket, some timeless herbs like calendula, thyme, gotu kola and there's a small comfrey* plant amongst that mess.

The Water garden was started a little late this year, but the plants don't seem to mind. The Kang Kong only just survived the winter being brought inside to take root in a jar in the North facing window. I lost all but 2 plants, and I realise now that I should have taken cuttings much earlier and brought them inside once they had established roots. I think I'll have a bigger plants than this by this time next year.

The Chinese water chestnuts are amazing! I put about 8 in a paper bag, into a plastic container, into the fridge (an esky with variable temps) and left them there all winter. I opened the container a couple of weeks ago, and they looked ready to go, so I planted 4 of them into pots. A few days later, something hungry came along and ate 3 of them! Looking at the ones I'd left behind, looking dry and done, I popped them in anyway and covered the pots to keep (choughs I reckon) hungry beaks at bay, and wouldn't you know they're sprouting now? The original one is doing great, so it's a small set back for the others, but considering how quickly these plants grow, I'm guessing we'll have too many again next year - and only from the two pots like this..

I took a walk around to inspect the trees, which is dangerous around here, and although I could be talking about brown snakes, I'm actually referring to the grass seeds that get stuck in your socks as you walk around. They burrow and get into everything, and it can get to the point when you feel like if you take another step, you'll break skin! I know, I know, that's why I should be wearing sock protectors.. and tracksuit pants are a definite no-no!!

Anyway, we have moved the chicks away from under the apricot tree, and it's really responding to having the extra fertilizer. New growth, green all around. Amazing what chooks can do.

The hugel bed is more green than the surrounding area. We've had a little rain, and it responded right away. Many of the dead asparagus plants are suddenly putting up new shoots, and the green manure is green again. Amazing what a difference a little earth works can make!

We finally got around to the major task of moving the chooks the other day. It normally would take us about 30-45 minutes these days, but we had moved them all the way down to the end of the property. Well and truly zone 5 stuff! The weather warmed up quickly, and we didn't want them to suffer the slow hops back toward the orchard area, since there are NO trees in between. So, we boxed them up at night, secured them in with the chicks, then used the tractor to drag the houses up to where they are now. We came back the next morning to set up the fence and let them out into it.

It's been almost a year since they were last on this ground, and even so, the fruit trees seem to be better off for it. Little pears are getting bigger, the quince is giving me hope (although, it did look hopeful last year as well, but the fruit turned black and died well before ripening). All the plants are looking happier this year. It could be the pruning our Permie friends did, the extra water we've had this year, the extra manure or all of those things combined.

I think we've both decided that the orchard area is where we'll make the chooks permanent run, and move them around within it (or exclude them from certain areas where needed). It makes so much sense them being close to the house (especially the front door when we re-instate it), we can protect them and the fruit at the same time (from foxes, possums and wallabies/kangaroos), and they will keep fertilizing the trees and keep pests like fruit fly at bay, and gain the benefit of the shade in summer.

Now we just need to build it..

Add it to the list!


* Seems hiding the comfrey from the pests is working for now. The new Paterson's Curse Crown Boring Weevil is very effective at reducing comfrey numbers to nothing around here - but there's still a good amount of Paterson's Curse around, since the weevils are only just starting to do their thing, and the weed it's suppose to control has done finished flowering by now..

For the garden!

Marty and I have spent a few days working on an idea I had. Originally, it was suppose to be a simple arch made of weldmesh. Since the area we wanted covering is about 6m (19.5') long, there was nothing simple about getting weldmesh to behave! So, plan B. A custom structure, welded together using our new found welding skills (not so much skill, but perhaps blind faith and more practice).. and we did it!

The poor garden looked like a construction zone for a few days, but it's finally finished, and the grapes are planted, one for each. An early season variety closest to the house called Menindee Seedless, and a late season variety called Crimson Seedless. Since grapes seem to grow without any care here, they should do just fine with a little. The idea is that they help shade the garden just a little more during the summer, and then during winter, drop their leaves and let the light in. Anything that needs more sun than that will be planted in the garden to the north.

The broody Dorking's first time hatching was a success, with 8 cute little chicks being shown off today! Two of them appear to be from Naked Neck mothers, but the rest are full Dorkings. We're both a bit worried about how they'll fare with just the electric fence for protection - birds of prey are still a threat - but even so, considering they were only hatched yesterday they're doing fine so far. It's lovely to see them being able to do what comes naturally!

Just a short clip of extreme cute. :)

The hugle bed is growing great guns but I'm getting too attached to the green manure to chop it down now. :)

And here's a picture of Marty, being awesome and cooking up a storm! The hair and beard are both about to go, since the weather is beautiful right now! I thought you'd like to see it, in all it's glory, before the big chop. :)