Wednesday 8 February 2012

Fabulous sunset a week or two ago. We sat watching TV in the lounge room  and I suddenly noticed
everything had  gone pink outside. When we looked at the sky it took our breath away!

So much has occurred in the last month I hardly know where to begin. To name a few things: we’ve stored 414 bales of hay, brush-cut a track through the bush for the new goat fence, spread 14 tonnes of gravel, hauled an enormous fish-farm net into place into the farrowing pen, mowed (by hand) a big fire-break around the house and been on many adventures and outings.

The boys have gone now having had three weeks with us. Tracy and Katrijna - the WWOOFERs - have also moved on. We now have a lovely German girl staying with us, but for all too short a time. A couple booked for next week had to cancel but we now have another Northern European girl starting early next week. I need to make the most of WWOOFERs at present, since once it turns cold in a month or two’s time, I shan’t feel able to ask someone to work in the cold and rain (even if someone were willing to brave Tasmania in Winter!).

Getting the hay in was a major achievement. It took all of one afternoon and evening, then as I couldn’t sleep for worrying I started again at 5.30am the following morning. Gradually, the boys joined me and we finally got finished late morning. As a reward we went to Hobart, watched a movie (I don’t recommend Happy Feet 2) and joined Bronte at the Hogs Breath Café for dinner. It was a fearsomely hot day with no relief in the restaurant.

Another marathon effort was spreading a truck-load of rough gravel on the other side of our tractor crossing en route to the goat paddocks. It lays wet there and gets terribly rutted and difficult to negotiate over winter. This time it had left great holes and was a real mess. So I got the truck to roughly dump the gravel over the area and then spent a couple of hours getting it level. What a job – I realised then why the women tennis players grunt when hitting the ball as hard as they can, I was grunting at each shovelful with the sheer effort. I’m pleased with it now – there must be 250mm or more thickness over the wettest part so I’m confident it will last a fair while.

Bronte took the boys (and Luke) for a day of mountain biking on Mount Wellington and Tolosa Park (North Hobart). They had a great time and Luke was very brave and determined on his new bike over the bumpy tracks at Tolosa. They also had a day of making their own boomerangs. The boys spent an age sanding and decorating theirs – they were works of art. Luke made a lovely job of his too. Bronte finished Tracy’s for her and we all signed the back of it – hopefully it is a nice souvenir of her stay here. The boys mowed a cricket wicket between the house and creek and tried manfully to roll it flat with a concrete pipe (they were on a hiding to nothing there - even worse Michael broke his first boomerang on it). Sean made some great stumps and bails - although Rosie chewed up the bails before they could be used!

View from Mountain Bike track on Mt Wellington

  

Towards the end of the holiday I went with Luke and the boys for a creek adventure. We headed up Crabtree Rivulet, negotiating slippery moss-covered rocks and many fallen trees, before eventually reaching Willies Falls. The Falls weren’t in full flow but still looked very impressive, set in a great gully with smooth sheer rock sloping up on one side. At one point the whole steep bank above us was a scree slope balanced atop a large, half-rotten fallen tree. Michael tempted providence by sitting under it and Luke scrambled across the face of it while I had my heart in my mouth. The boys and Luke set such a great pace going up the creek, that I was quite knackered when we got there. It was clear that Luke was too but wouldn’t admit it. It was only after a couple of mishaps that I made him slow down & stick with me – much to his chagrin.

On another day I took them all to Hastings Caves and Thermal Springs. I let them go up into the caves – which are incredibly impressive - while I waited at the Springs. They all seemed to greatly enjoy the tour and we all went on the local walks and had a swim in the warm pool afterwards. If only it wasn’t such a long drive, I’m sure we’d be tempted to go there more often. On the way back from the Caves we picked up 'Clive' a 4-month old turkey gobbler, who looks like a mini-Darth and hopefully will prove in time to be more prolific than William (he couldn't be worse). We also went round to the 'brethren' - frankly we are not sure what they are, but they appear to be some sort of religious community who live in Glendevie. We've bought goats and a gobbler from them in the past - this time they had no spare turkeys, but we came home with some luscious plums and blueberries from their roadside stall.

The boys and Tracy came and supported Luke at Little Athletics, both in Huonville and at a multi-centre event at The Domain. Mike was able to compete at a local championship as a guest 'under 15'. It made it altogether more fun for us to watch two competitors. It was made more interesting by Mike having only opponent, a certain 'Wes', who is a darling of the centre - Mike really gave him some keen competition, thrashing him in the 800m and the discus.

There have been a few incidents on the farm front. Little Pea, the younger peahen, hatched out 4 peachicks which all promptly died within a few days. No idea why, but they didn’t seem to figure out what to eat, despite us putting out tempting dishes of crumbles and other goodies. The pigs as usual have proven their worth once again by producing another litter of 8 little cuties. This is Blaize’s (formerly ‘Ginger’ or ‘Stripes’ or ‘Mrs Pig’) first litter and she’s been a great Mum, very attentive. It caught us by surprise and I had to rope in the boys to help mend the fence on the other pig pen that I’d mowed down with the Suzuki and goat-float only the previous week. It was too difficult to move Mum & piglets so instead we shepherded Connor into that pen (now mostly covered with fishnet to discourage digging). He’s a little disgruntled but is coping well. Tracy and I caught the piglets a couple of days later and castrated the boys and notched the ears of the girls. As usual there were more boys than girls – 6 out of 8! However, the castration was over very quick and they were fine once back with Mum.

Peachick

Pig fence repairing

Fishing net spread in pig pen - Connor's new home

One day old piglets

There have been ups and downs with the goats. We sold 4 for a tidy sum early in the year and have only 4 young ones left now, one boy which we plan to eat and 3 does to grow on to enlarge the herd. It was clear that the weaning paddock was unhealthy (the babies kept scouring) so we moved them out of it after 3 weeks and got them into the smallest paddock up the hill and moved the mums too so they were separated by two fences. They all seem to have settled down. There has been a bit of sickness in the main herd too but we seem at last to have got on top of it and they all look in fine fettle now. When we’ve had problems it seems to have struck overnight – one day a goat is healthy and eating, the next it’s either very sick (scouring badly, lagging behind and not eating) or dead. Despite closely re-reading all the goatie health stuff I can find, I still can’t be sure what has been happening. I’m monitoring them very closely and any goat that looks even mildly off-colour is instantly treated for worms and given a large dose of my ‘kill or cure’ goat remedy: a mixture of molasses, olive oil, bicarbonate of soda, rehydration sachets, vitamins and concentrated garlic. It seems to work – providing I get to them quickly enough. The only answer is to get the new paddock finished and to keep them well supplied in the meantime with hay and browse, in addition to their grain and chaff rations. Today we struck lucky, finding that the Council had cut down a load of wattle branches on our road, prior to bringing the grader up. We asked the Council and then collected the lot – 4 huge ute loads. The goats aren’t terribly impressed as wattle isn’t their favourite, but I’ve no doubt it will disappear over the next few days.

The weather hasn’t helped things much recently, being either terribly hot and muggy (great for parasites) or pouring with rain (again great for parasites). Nevertheless it was gradually drying off locally, so we thought it important to completely tidy up around the house and beyond, to minimise our bushfire risk. Bronte has been slashing madly and I’ve been hand-mowing all the awkward bits around the house. Hauling the mower up and down the steep slopes was awfully hard work and just about finished me off. It didn’t help that the grass had got to nearly 2ft in places, having grown so quickly. Plus I was mowing in 30degC and 80% humidity. However, it’s about done now and does look very neat.

I’ve done a heap of brush-cutting too, partly on my new paddock fence-line, which is almost totally cleared now (helped by Bronte & the boys chain-sawing and moving a big fallen tree) and also on and around the veggie patch and some of the slopes which were just too steep for a mower. The veggie patch and its banks were so dreadfully overgrown that brush-cutting was the only option. No doubt the debris will make great mulch to improve the soil for when we finally finish building the veggie cage and plant something!

I’ve finally cracked sausage-making! The goose sausages referred to earlier were pretty awful as expected and were mostly fed to the birds. However, I closely followed a recipe another day from the book which came with the mincer and sausage-filler and – amazingly – the results were absolutely delicious. Just the right texture, moistness and flavour! Can’t wait to try some more now.

Sausage-making with Tracy

Have also tried my hand at making liquid soap, ie handwash, with mixed results. Several of the bars from the last soap batch turned out a bit peculiar, so I decided to have a go at turning them into handwash, having consulted several techniques listed on the internet. We grated ours in the food-processor, then added water at a rate of 4 x the weight of soap, brought it to the boil and simmered for 15 minutes stirring occasionally, then let it cool overnight. It was quite bizarre, like a really thick jelly. I consulted more recipes, added more water, boiled it again, added some salt and loads of rosemary and lavender essence and now it’s sort of usable. Having decanted it into various plunger and squeegie bottles, some seem to be better than others for some reason – for instance some are much too watery. I added more salt to one and shook it vigorously and that seems to have helped. Must do the same with the others. But it does wash ones’ hands quite well and smells lovely! Trouble is it’s a rather gruesome cat-sick colour.

Handwash

 Kristina and Luke helped me clean all the windows in the entire house, inside and out a couple of days ago. I thought it would be a quick job, but it was a nightmare. For one thing we have an awful lot of windows, for another many are a long way off the ground! I removed all the fly-screens first and then brought the ladder indoors in order to clean the inside of the skylight in the dining room. That was quite terrifying in itself. Then I had to climb up onto the roof and clean the outside of the skylight windows. That was actually considerably less frightening! But then came cleaning the outside of the upstairs windows all around the house. The plan was for me to go up the ladder and scrub them with detergent and for Luke to hose them down afterwards. I’d been told by a window cleaner that this does a perfectly good job. The hitch was that the ladder was awkward and didn’t always reach and also that Luke didn’t believe that hosing was an important job and spent most of his time aiming at the dogs, me and Kristina or jetting the water into the ground. I gave up on some of the highest windows and scrubbed them with the mop from the inside – that was hard work in itself and somewhat precarious. We also had to wipe down all the flyscreens which were dusty and cobwebbed and then re-fit them all. I was quite exhausted at the end – but even though they are not perfect, wow, what a difference it has made!

Murphy Cat and Rosie Dog have been having good fun together recently. When it gets cooler in the evening, Murphy goes out and taunts Rosie from the long grass with his ears flat and eyes like saucers. Rosie comes crawling up excitedly and gets repeatedly whacked until she goes nuts and starts running round and round in circles whereupon Murphy leaps upon her each time she passes. It’s a scream to watch. Trouble is Rosie gets just a bit too rough for Murphy sometimes and I have to step in and rescue him.

We had a bit of bad news a while ago. I rang up the agent to find out the latest news on the land we tried to buy alongside us over Christmas. It seems that far from going to an overseas buyer (as we thought) it now belongs to the daughter and son-in-law of my arch nemesis: Peter Pepper, ex? Forestry Tasmania and now sadly, on the Huon Valley Council. It is he who sent out e-mails with lies and exaggerations about me, terming me a political activist and saying I was in league with extremists. There is no other person that I loathe with such a passion (even the Horrible Hogman)! I still feel bitter about it and get a pang each time I drive past the ‘sold’ signs. We are hoping that the daughter might be a different type of person but I daresay she has been fully briefed (with prejudice) about us, by her father.

Monday 24 October 2011

I’m feeling somewhat shamefaced having lain down for a few minutes in order to catch up on sleep lost through coughing – and woke up nearly two hours later! Too late to go up the hill & continue clearing my new fence-line as planned, in fact too late to do anything useful outside. The weather’s turned foul again and it’s high time I caught up with events. 

The last couple of weeks have been characterised by endless computer troubles which have eaten up an enormous amount of time. We bought a new computer a few weeks ago from a Hobart City Council auction. Not having the patience to wait, Bronte bought the first decent one that came up, which happened to have Vista rather than Windows as the operating system. I’d set it up with the old screen and had begun finding my way around it & loading software but had been rather daunted by the prospect of trying to transfer e-mail information and other files. However, I was suddenly forced into action by the old computer beginning to disintegrate. At first, we couldn’t send e-mails (although we could receive them), then we were unable to search the internet and the internet options in Control Panel became locked. We were able to get around the e-mail issue by using a gmail account, but without access to address-book groups such as the WWPG it was most inconvenient. (If bored by computer stuff, skip the next few paras ..)

I had a steep learning curve to climb. Vista was quite different to Windows & took a great deal of getting used to – things were displayed and filed differently and often called by a new name. I took a bit of advice from my neighbour (the weather wiz) and also a friend in the business who lives locally. I was reluctant to transfer the old satellite internet connection & decided to risk moving to mobile broadband with Telstra. That entailed an age on the phone and some days awaiting the USB modem but it was simple to set up & operates OK if not super-quick. I have the modem on a long cable pinned high up on the window flyscreen to get a better signal.

One of the first hurdles was to sort out the issues with Vista and also the HP software that kept annoyingly popping up every time anyone tried to do something. First of all I had to disable User Account Control as it asked for permission each time software was opened, then delete the HP tools and security software containing something called ‘credential manager’. It was driving me potty by asking if I wanted to save login details after every keystroke. It’s easy to write these things, but they caused hours of work – searching for files and looking up how to do things on the internet. Then for some reason MS Office failed to work & it seemed the disk had exceeded the number of allowable activations. I had to bypass the internet & ring the Aussie MS number which eventually granted me an access code. 

I tackled e-mail then – firstly importing everything from Outlook Express into Outlook, such that I could put it into a format that could be transferred to Outlook on the new PC. Unfortunately before this could happen, Outlook Express lost all our e-mail addresses – all 297 of them. This was a blow, but there was nothing to do but persevere. I created a .pst file, put it onto an external hard drive & loaded it onto the new PC along with all our photos and other files. Again, this took an age as the old PC took 20 minutes to transfer each folder. I imported the .pst file into new Outlook and was relieved and amazed to see all our old e-mails appear in the inbox. I then spent an interminable amount of time going through these e-mails to retrieve our e-mail addresses. Luckily there were occasions where I’d done group e-mailing and forgotten to ‘bcc’ the addresses. I eventually populated Contacts with all 297 addresses once again! However, alarmingly, I could not find these when trying to send an e-mail & spent some time trying to work out how to display them in the address book. Then I couldn’t even locate incoming e-mails. Talk about a frustrating time. It seemed that Outlook was using the old .pst file as the default and not displaying our new account.

The next task was to download all the freebie programmes we use such as AVG, Nitro pdf Writer, Free Download Manager (fabulous programme for people with unreliable internet connections), Adobe Reader, Shockwave, Flashplayer and some sort of image/ photo editing and drawing tool. After some research I chose Paint.NET which also necessitated downloading service pack 2 for Vista plus the NET framework. Even now there is more to do – load on Picture Project & AutoCAD, replace all our download ‘favourites’ in Explorer and re-build the WWPG mailing list. I’m looking forward to simply using the computer again!

Despite the computer and the usual farm work, we’ve had some excitements recently. It was my birthday a couple of Sundays ago – the weather being dodgy we opted to visit MONA rather than the Spring Fair at the Botanical Gardens. It certainly lived up to expectations and the more ‘fringe’ items failed to shock us. Apart from one notable exception (a video installation) these did not seem gratuitous and appeared to have artistic merit. There were some weird juxtapositions of exquisite ancient pieces displayed alongside flamboyant modern works. We started at the bottom & worked our way up (all of MONA is underground – much of it hewn from the rock) and by the time we reached the top and third floor, we were museumed out & failed to give it justice. We took Luke through the parental guidance areas and had no need to worry since he was transfixed by the hand-held gismo handed out to patrons in order to look up info on the displays. Afterwards we had a pleasant lunch at the Hogs Breath Café and went home replete. Bront brought me a directional electric fence tester and fault-finder which has already proven very useful!

Three days later it was Luke’s 7th birthday. We made a fuss of him on the day & I made a load of little chocolate cakes and took them to school for his classmates. I made gigantic profiteroles for pudding in the evening which we managed to scoff in two days. We arranged a party for Luke on the Saturday afternoon but for some reason he only invited three friends. As it transpired, that was quite enough and the assembly hovered on the verge of chaos for the three hours everyone was here. It poured with rain, so most of the outdoor activities we’d planned had to be abandoned in favour of indoor archery (arrows with suckers which stuck to the windows – Bronte drew a T-Rex as a target), 'pin the tail on the pterosaur' and 'hide and seek'. Another load of baking was required to produce an orange-flavoured birthday cake (delicious), ginger biscuits (odd) and brownies (yum). One of the lads was still sitting there eating long after the others had moved onto another game. We did get outside in the end & the kids smashed the piñata, cuddled the chicks and goslings and had a few rides in the go-kart (we couldn’t start the one with the engine so had to stick with gravity-assist only). We heaved a great sigh of relief once everyone had gone!

We had a further good family day out at the Hobart Show last week. Strangely, there is a public holiday for the show on Thursday and then people are expected to go back to work on the Friday or take a day off. I’ve always found the show more of an endurance test than fun, so this year we researched a bit and discovered that Wednesday was farm day. Bronte took the afternoon off & we kept Luke home from school and had a great afternoon. The weather topped 29°C – the hottest October day for several years – there were few people there and we saw all the animals and events we’d looked forward to and had several rides in the fairground section. The first event was the Braap and BMX demo which was a favourite for Luke & Bronte. We were also there in time to see the ‘largest bullock team in Australia’, and it truly was large in every sense – tremendous horned animals yoked together to pull a wooden cart. We watched the pig racing display which included two pigs diving into a pool of water and Luke had a go on the climbing wall. Luke and I went on some sort of bungee contraption and I had to get off early as it was so knackering. I took Luke on a few rides including a scary underwater simulator where we were attacked by a mock great white! Poor Luke was terrified. We bumped each other on the dodgems and then Bronte bravely announced he would take Luke on a ride called the Hurricane – he got off looking exceedingly pale and had to sit down in the CWA tent to recover!

As you’ll note the weather has been very changeable. We’ve had a few fine days and some pleasant temperatures but inbetween we’ve continued to get heavy bouts of rain and cold spells. Today I waited until the weather had cleared a bit before venturing outside, at which point it started hailing horizontally.

On the farm front, we’ve had three deaths in as many days. On Saturday it was my turn to take Luke to Little Athletics so I got up really early to rush round the animals. Exasperated by Fifi, the last of our original turkeys who was constantly broody and laid only soft-shelled eggs, I sent her off to the great turkey pen in the sky. Later I cut out two substantial slabs of breast meat, which when tenderised and slow-cooked will be lovely, before roughly plucking the carcase and cooking it up whole for the pigs. If I’d had a spare pen where retirees could live out their natural lives I would have kept her, but we are short of pens and she was upsetting the other girls by bossing them around and kept sitting on other turkey’s eggs making them useless for the incubator (never mind that they are useless anyhow by virtue of being unfertilised).

The following day Bronte & Luke checked for eggs & found Boris bunny with his toes up in one of the hen houses. He’d been hale & hearty the previous day, bouncing around and chasing the hens. There was no sign of injury and he was in good condition, so his demise remains a mystery. Then today I found one of the youngest goslings dead in the goose run. Again there was no sign of injury but a little earlier I’d seen the geese chase off a horrible craven (forest raven). The cravens are getting bolder now they presumably have young. A wedgie (wedge-tailed eagle) soared very low over all the bird pens this afternoon so he must also be looking for food for young. Much as I admire the wedgies I’ve no intention of feeding them with our young birds. 

Also today, one of the remaining female turkeys had disappeared – it’s quite bizarre. They are in pens with 1.4m high fencing so getting out is not all that easy for fat, heavy birds. This was one I’d chucked next door into the weaning pen to try and shock her out of broodiness. Whether she’d just got fed up with me persecuting her and decided to nest in the bush or whether she was taken by a predator (no sign of blood, feathers or tracks), we just can’t fathom. Oddly, the dogs went crazy in the early hours last night – Bruce was barking madly down near the turkey pen and Rosie was yowling outside our bedroom window. Whether that was coincidental or related to the turkey’s disappearance I guess we’ll never know. So now we’re down to just three female turkeys – from five just a couple of days ago! And their wretched eggs are still infertile. We’ve given up and started eating the eggs instead of incubating them.

I’ve suffered a couple of animal attacks and injuries of late. When I approached the geese to retrieve their empty feed bowls Arthur the gander went bananas and leapt at me punching my arm with his beak. I was surprised how powerful he was. I can hardly complain – he’s just being protective - but I do wish they would realise I’m not going to attack them each time I go into their pen. The following day when I tried to catch Handlebars (one of the bucks), to do his feet and drench him for worms, he shook his head violently and his horns bashed into my wrist causing a large bruised swelling which has only just cleared up. Determined not to let him beat me, I pursued him round & round the pen until he finally gave up & shot into his little hut, from which I hauled him out. His flanks were heaving while I did his hooves, poor old boy, but he got his own back by making me and all my clothes stink of billy goat. I caught all the baby goats again in order to give them their booster vaccinations. Also did their hooves, drenched them and treated their feet at the same time.

A week last Sunday was a horrible day, with squally rain and even snow on the mountain flanks. Despite this, some of our hardy neighbours turned up keen to go fishing in the dam. We’ve had no luck recently at catching the trout we put in there as tiny troutlets a couple of years ago. However, our neighbours are clearly much more experienced fishermen as they quickly caught four and were going to throw them back until Bronte, alarmed, shouted not to. They took a couple and we kept a couple and it was a real treat having trout for a couple of evenings. The fish looked in great condition and weighed a little under 2kg each. I’ve been scheming about ways of catching them and plan to put a string on pulleys across the dam with removable lines hanging down from that. I thought we could set it up early morning or twilight and haul it in half an hour later, rather than standing there casting and re-casting for hours on end.

It has definitely felt like spring here recently despite the variable weather. One of the more noticeable signs is the cacophony of bird noise, especially in the mornings. The native hens scream and carry on at the least sign of danger, setting off the currawongs and the geese, the pair of ducks that have set up camp locally, various other unrecognisable creatures in the bush, the turkeys, then finally the peacocks, whose terrific wail tends to silence the rest and bring a temporary end to the commotion. Annoyingly, I’ve noticed that the two youngest peacocks that I’d thought were girls, are in fact boys. We'll have to advertise them because it wouldn’t do to keep more than one male with our two peahens.