Friday 18 January 2013

 

 

There have been a few echidnas around in this dry weather & this
one totally perplexed Rosie and Bruce

 

I’m sitting in the ute outside Hastings Caves enjoying a wonderful few minutes of quiet, calm and rest. It’s still school holidays for Luke, so I’ve brought him and the two new WWOOFs down here for a bit of a treat. We picked up Luke’s little mate from Southport en route. He’s in Luke’s class at Huonville Primary but travels an hour each way from Southport because he didn’t get on well at Dover school (much closer to Southport). He’s a real sweetie and seems to think a lot of Luke – although Luke rather takes his friendship for granted.

Outside Hastings Caves

In thermal pool at Hastings Caves

 

Holidays are over for me and Bronte however. I went back to work Monday last week and Bronte went back last Thursday. He was obliged to take the Mon, Tues & Wed off to look after Luke as childcare didn’t start until this week. Work is still going well for me and thanks to the lady who has been transferring the role to me, I’m feeling fairly confident about most of it. Plus I’ve got to the age where I just don’t worry so much about making mistakes.

We had a great, if busy break. We spent much of it chopping fireweed and thistles on the land we’re buying alongside us. Neighbours have begun to wonder what we are doing on the land, although we’ve continued to keep quiet about it. It’s taking a tediously long time to complete. The solicitors took a long Christmas break and the bank also sat on our paperwork for 2 weeks before actioning anything. Only then did they think to ask for the certificate of title, which I posted ‘Express Platinum’ at vast expense, only for the bank to lose it on receipt. That's still the situation. We feel rather embarrassed (and very frustrated ourselves) as we said to the vendors that we were ready to complete quickly – we just hadn’t taken into account the length of time it would take 3^rd parties to do their thing.

Christmas was fun. On Christmas Eve Bronte and I drew metaphorical straws to see who would take Luke for a bicycle ride and who would mow around the house. I got to go cycling which was infinitely preferable to mowing, apart from the stress of watching Luke and ensuring he didn’t veer in front of traffic or fall into a pothole. Despite my caution, he did steer off the road into a ditch on one occasion, but was luckily unhurt.

All the way down Crabtree Road to the local shop, he kept trying to scratch his head under his helmet. At the shop I made him take his helmet off and examined him – only to find he had nits! Not much we could do about it at that stage, it being 5pm. I said I would have to shave his head but he didn’t want to be bald for Santa Claus or for Christmas Day. So in the interim I spread tea-tree and citronella oil in his hair which effectively deterred the active nits. On Boxing Day morning we had a hair-cutting session on the deck – first Luke, then Bronte. I didn’t cut Bronte’s quite so drastically short. Luke looked like a chemo kid or a refugee from Belsen being so skinny and bony and bald.  A few days’ later Bruce got similar treatment, although not with the same clippers!

Very bald Luke!

 

On Christmas Day I cooked a big dinner of half a piglet stuffed with a young turkey. We’d planned to have goat but I was so tired a couple of days before Christmas, that I baulked at butchering a goat. The turkey was too young to die really, but one of my regular meat customers had pleaded for turkey. As they were still so small I planned to do 3 of them for her – but I’d only just started the third when she arrived to take them away. She seemed happy enough with her two overgrown ‘quail’ and we had the third. It was very tasty if somewhat minute. I sold 2 geese just before Christmas – I’m wondering how the chap got on plucking them. We’ve got 5 young goat wethers that we need to sell or butcher. I put an ad in last Sat’s paper and got one call but so far no sales. So I think I’ll have more luck selling them as meat. If I take them to the abbatoir however, I’ll hardly make anything – as there’s maybe only 10-12kg of meat on each, despite them being well grown. So I might gird my loins soon and try and do the smallest one for us and see how it goes.

 

We’ve also discovered a great new source of meat. The goose and bunny pen was becoming overrun with rabbits, so I stalked around the outside of the pen on one occasion and got 3 of the biggest young rabbits – and a 4^th since then. I had a quick look on the internet and found a great UK blog about living off the land, which included detailed information on how to prepare rabbit. Skinning and gutting them turned out to be the easiest thing out. The skin comes off pretty much like pulling off a sock and gutting is quick and straightforward too. I soaked two in brine one night, then boiled them up in a simple stock the next morning. In the afternoon I picked off all the meat and made a lovely thick rabbit stew. I remember the things that put me off rabbit when I was young were all the bones, the fact that sometimes they’d be old and gamey, plus sometimes you’d crunch on lead shot. As mine were all head shots we didn’t have that issue. Everyone loved the stew so they might be forming a staple part of our diet in the future.

Not all has been rosy on the rabbit front however. The dogs have killed around 3 over the last couple of weeks. I mentioned that they (the bunnies, not the dogs) were chewing through the fish net and squeezing through the holes in the chicken wire. Out in the open they were easy prey for the dogs, which just couldn’t resist. There should be no more escapees now – I bought some aviary wire (much more than I needed in fact) – and the girls cut it in half lengthwise and stapled and fastened it with netting clips all the way around the bottom of the pen.

We had put Bertie, our lovely Rex buck, who had eczema or similar, back in the pen after we’d treated him and his fur had grown back. Then we heard a terrible squeal and it turned out that he was getting beaten up by one of the big white rabbits I’d bought as breeder does. I was immediately suspicious. Cindy & Lewis, who were still WWOOFing at the time, caught the white one and on inspection it turned out that ‘Bronwyn’ bunny was not a doe after all, but a buck. ‘Bronwyn the Bertie-Bunny-Beater’, I called it. So we caught Bertie again and put him in with the turkeys where he'd be safe and put ‘Bronwyn’ back to breed with Alice, the other white bunny. Bertie seemed pretty happy but foolishly ventured out one day and fell foul of the dogs. He was still alive when we rescued him but it was too late – the damage was done. Poor Bertie became pig food.

The peacock that was in the sick bay in the garage also died. I’m sure she’d been attacked by something as there were marks on her head. Despite me lancing her swollen wounds and treating her regularly with betadine, she continued to decline. Without something like a crop syringe I couldn’t get her to feed. She just showed no interest in all the little titbits I prepared for her. In the end, she was looking so miserable that I decided to put her down. Once again, the pigs benefited.

No luck getting peachicks this year. For one thing I think the male is too young, and secondly the crows and possums have been getting by my defences and nicking the eggs. Luke and I found loads of broken shells up in 2 of the goat paddocks where we were on fireweed patrol, plus we discovered holes that had been chewed through the bottom of the wire around their pen in a couple of places. I patched those up and I’ve made nest boxes for them (which a crow would be unlikely to go into), but I'm not sure it’s made a difference. I put a possum trap in there and we caught 4 possums almost on successive nights. The male peacock has now taken to getting out at nights – not sure where or why and he’s always desperate to get back in in the morning.

Returning, belatedly, to Christmas Day: Cindy and Lewis, who had left us for pastures new by then, came back for dinner and two pairs of neighbours came around in the afternoon. It had been planned that one pair would join us for dinner but we had a classic mix-up. We have Christmas dinner at lunchtime, or at least early afternoon, whereas they had thought ‘dinner’ would be in the evening. So we ended up with a huge load of meat, trifle and mince-pies which we had to plough through over the following few days. We all received some really nice prezzies. Luke and I bought Bronte a smartphone (which promptly stopped working and took nearly 2 weeks to get replaced), plus an audio book. They bought me perfume, a new camera (ours broke a few days before Christmas) and a great new leather knapsack-style handbag. Luke had loads of stuff including a 3D puzzle, a huge lego kit and several books (which he read at the rate of one per day).

 

 

For New Year, we decided to do something a bit different. Normally we go down to the Sandy Bay foreshore to spend an hour or two with one of Luke’s playmates of old who has her birthday 31 December. This time I booked us a little trip on a harbour boat, from which we could watch the fireworks close-up. It was really rather fun (if a little cold – Luke borrowed my coat leaving me exposed). The atmosphere on the waterfront was lively, with The Taste in full swing, a large cruise liner docked alongside, people visiting the harbour bars, buskers and various events on the parliament lawns. We even sat up and watched the Sydney fireworks on TV, although it all seemed rather unreal on the small screen, filmed from some distance. Overhead shots of rockets exploding looked more like giant lollipops. I’m sure it would have been spectacular to have been there in person.

It was Bronte’s birthday on 2 January. I was a bit embarrassed as most of the stuff I’d ordered off the internet: audio books, science books and a Tassie devil golf club-head cover, had not arrived. Also, we had a doctor’s appointment for Luke early that morning – to assess his asthma and his nervous fidgeting and night wakening. In the end the golf club cover arrived so we had something to give him, Luke made him a nice card and the two of them went off to the Glen Huon golf course in the afternoon. A little gruelling for Luke, but a chance for Bronte to try out the snazzy new driver that he’d bought online.

Last weekend we treated ourselves to a trip to the ‘Monster Trucks’ event at a small raceway near New Norfolk. It was a slightly bizarre but good fun occasion. We got to the track in plenty of time, but they decided to start half an hour later ‘to give people still on the road time to get there’! We ended up frozen, as the weather had changed and there was a terrifically cold wind. The monster trucks (4 thereof) were certainly quite spectacular and did lots of crunching over old cars and sometimes jumping fairly high. It was obvious however, that the owners were taking it easy – they didn’t want to damage a $4300K vehicle for the sake of entertaining us. But there were still some ‘wow’ moments. One – my favourite – broke down almost immediately. The highlight of the night was a jet van which roared around the track setting light to its jet plume. Once it got dark that was particularly appealing. We also had the Hilux precision driving team, which was pretty impressive. The whole thing went on far too long, but was still good entertainment. At the end there was a great fireworks display – pretty much the equivalent of the family fireworks in Hobart at New Year’s Eve.

 

Back on the farm, apart from weeding, the main activities have been starting to put in a new section of goat electric fence and getting our hay in – finally. The hay man waited until our grass looked quite parched before finally arriving – although the final bales looked better than we expected. This was the first year that Bronte was fully involved in hay-carting. It was a great help to have someone strong helping heave the bales onto the ute (although he muttered regularly about itchy arms). We had 425 bales and got them in over 2 days. I like to get it done on one day, but with just me and Bronte lifting them it was really quite tiring – and dusty and windy. Our new WWOOFer – Helen, a feisty 18-yr old from Austria – managed admirably to drive the ute around the paddocks for us, having never driven before in her life! It was a sterling performance. Afterwards I undressed on our bedroom deck and just left all my hairy clothes there for the following day. I confess I threw my t-shirt and socks out when all the hay was safely in as I just couldn’t face picking all the bits of grass out of them. It’s bad enough picking out all the pesky buzzies from socks and other clothing after every outing nowadays. I wear gumboots most of the time just to try and protect myself from attack.

 

The goat fence has become necessary owing to the solar-powered energiser suddenly deteriorating. I suspect there is nothing wrong with the panel, so I intend to put that on the battery powering the pigs’ little energiser. We’ve still got a smaller solar-powered one, but that is only suitable for small pens. I’ve decided to use an old mains-powered one from a farm-sale but that means running a low-resistance earth and live line from the house to the nearest point of the goat paddocks. I already had some underground cable from a garage sale so I’m going underground where it is too inconvenient to have live wires above ground. It’s partially complete but already the wallabies managed to tangle the wires up such that I could barely part them. Finding time to finish anything these days is a real struggle. I’m just too tired in the evenings after work to do anything much – and I don’t get finished with the cooking and dishes and packing up until 8.30 or later.

The most notable feature of the last month or so has been the unprecedented dry and hot weather. We’ve barely had 5mm of rain in the last four weeks. Also we’ve had many days in the high 20s (deg C) and one very hot day of 39degC (Hobart experienced a record 41.8 on the same day). Tasmania has had many bushfires – some of which have raged uncontrolled for weeks now. Luckily none ever threatened us directly, although one in the Midlands looked worrying for a time. We took the precaution of filling 44 gallon drums on the decks plus a couple of small paddling pools (which Luke and I jumped in after filling them with freezing creek water). For a few days we were totally shrouded in smoke. That and howling winds kept us tossing and turning at nights. The temperature has since cooled considerably and it is already feeling autumnal mornings and evenings. We’ve still had no rain to speak of however. The ground is dry and hard, the grass crispy, but we are still better off even than properties on the other side of the valley – let alone those around Hobart and the east coast. The only advantage of the dry weather is that we haven't had to mow for weeks!

Smoke haze over our land during the worst of the fires
(above and below)

 

 

 

Tens of thousands of acres of bush have been razed to the ground and many people have been left homeless particularly on the Tasman Peninsula, where residents and tourists alike were stranded as the highway was cut. That fire – sometimes termed the Forcett fire – still burns as does that up in the Midlands at Lake Repulse and another, even larger one over on the west coast in the world heritage area. The latter is apparently acting more as a fuel reduction burn, not affecting the canopy in any major way.

We currently have two WWOOFers, Helen, mentioned earlier and Bee a girl in her twenties from Taiwan. Helen is small and energetic, speaks English very well as she attended an International School for a time, laughs easily and gets on well with Luke. Bee, an artist busker, is gradually coming out of her shell but clearly struggles with the language. Her vocabulary appears to be reasonably good but she has trouble understanding what I say – I’m tending to rely on Helen for translation – and I often misunderstand what she says. Prior to these two, we had Natasha for a few days, a young American girl, who had to leave early owing to family problems back in the states. I liked Natasha, but she was quiet and rarely asked questions, which could make her an uneasy companion at times. I couldn’t fault her willingness to work however, despite her arriving on a 39degC day! Owing to having Little Athletics the following day, we went around the afternoon she arrived and fed and watered all the animals so we didn’t have to do them in the morning. That day I had been in Huonville all morning, shopping and visiting the doctors. After the animals I helped Bronte with the fire precautions and frankly by the time I got to sit down I think I was somewhat under the weather from heat exhaustion.

Bee

Helen

We’ve occasionally cooled ourselves down on the hottest days by going on creek runs – this entails walking down the creek fully clothed and jumping into the waterhole under the waterfall. It certainly has the desired effect as the water is icy!
 

Me and Luke part-way through a hideously difficult 2000-piece puzzle

Jigsaw completed - of course once I got to within about 100 pieces of the end
everyone suddenly wanted to get involved, so I didn't even get the satisfaction of putting the last few bits in!

Tuesday 15 May 2012

How people find the time (and energy) to write daily blogs is quite beyond me, although maybe with winter settling in with a vengeance I shall find myself indoors rather more often. After a beautifully mild autumn, we’ve had some awfully cold, wet and windy days. Working outside has been a continuous battle against the elements. Some areas are already getting soggy, such as parts of the pig pens, but elsewhere it’s not too bad as yet.

My gravel track across the tractor crossing leading up to the goat paddocks is holding up well, but the crossing itself is a mess. We’ve had some lovely autumn colours around, particularly in our fancifully named ‘arboretum’ although they are fading fast. I so prefer deciduous trees and rather dread Bronte’s gloomy pine trees coming up everywhere over the coming years. He’s still in tree-planting mode but has slowed down a little in the cold weather.

We are WWOOFer-free now, with the last two girls - Amber and Fiona - leaving mid- and end of April respectively. While they were both here, we had another magical outing to the Hartz Mountains. It was like entering a fairy-tale world as we neared the top in the car; suddenly everywhere was heavy with snow! We did one of the medium-length walks, as well as stopping at the Waratah Lookout and tramping to Arve Falls – which was much inflated from our visit just a few weeks previously. It was snowing hard as we left, by which time we were cold, tired and glad to be on our way home.

Other outings have included Envirofest at the Botanic Gardens – a bit of a disappointment really, except the gardens were clothed in the golds, reds and oranges of autumn. Bronte pinched a few sequoia nuts from just outside the gates – the seeds are tiny. Unfortunately, I don’t think we shall live long enough to see a ‘General Franklin’ on our land.

Anzac Day was great fun. It appears that there is a tradition of an Anzac Day sports day in Huonville and since Luke enjoys his Little Athletics and we thought it might be fun, we went along and entered ourselves in the various events. Rather worryingly, Bronte, Fiona and I found ourselves lumped in the ‘open’ section, which meant we’d be competing against anyone over 14 yrs old! Hence I was beaten into 4^th in the 100 metres by a 15-yr old girl who’s been breaking state records, her very fit friend and a young mum who apparently “runs a lot”. I was fairly proud of myself actually, since I’m pretty sure I was the oldest female competitor. I didn’t do nearly so well in the long jump and discus but at least I didn’t come last. I discovered in the long jump that my muscles and joints just don’t have any bounce in them anymore! Fiona did much better, coming third. Luke did better again, coming first in his age group in the 100m and the long jump, but was beaten into second place in the vortex. Bronte was a big jess and cleared off to Mitre 10 during most of the events, not competing or staying to support his team! He was shamed into competing in the Anzac mile at the end and he and Luke finished a very creditable middle of the field. I gave that one a miss!

I was taken out last Sunday for a Mothers’ Day meal. I was really very spoilt – to my surprise and pleasure. I’d asked for a meal out but hadn’t expected prezzies too. Luke got me a teddy key-ring and bath salts. Bronte bought me a huge cookbook (no reflection on my cooking I hope), a couple of fiendish puzzle books, some woolly socks for the farm and some Ninja gloves. Unfortunately they don’t imbue one with magical Ninja powers, but they are lovely and warm and waterproof for winter. We missed Agfest owing to Luke having flu’, which was where I bought a pair last year. They were my mainstays for the whole of last winter.

I greatly appreciated the meal out, since I’ve been starving myself. I decided to lose a bit of weight really quickly. So I’ve been living on tiny salads, nuts, stir-frys (fries?), thin veggie soups and skimmed milk fruit shakes – no carbo, no fat, no sugar. I’m even drinking my tea with skimmed milk and no sugar – urgh. However, the pain is bringing reward – I’ve lost 5kgs since 1 May. I plan to lose 3kg more then go back to eating normal meals, but much smaller portions – and no desserts, chocolate etc. When the WWOOFers were here I made big hearty meals and rich puddings such as treacle tart, banoffee pie, cheesecake, brownies etc (it’s making me hungry just thinking about them). I was unable to resist when they were in the house and added lashings of cream and ice cream. The ironic thing was that about a week into the diet I received a heavy parcel from Sydney which turned out to be the ‘Flat Belly Diet Book’ and the ‘Flat Belly Diet Cookbook’ – what a laugh. They were prizes from our fad earlier in the year of doing all the puzzles in ‘That’s Life!’ and other puzzle magazines. I was amazed to have won anything – but a wad of cash or a car would have been more useful!

Yesterday I went with Luke and his classmates for a walk along the Pipeline Track, from Fern Tree down to the Waterworks just outside of Hobart. It was a lovely walk along part of the route of the old water supply pipe for Hobart, installation of which was begun in 1861. It’s redundant now but the infrastructure including a stone aquaduct and sluice house, still appears to be in good condition. The girls were as good as gold, whereas the boys took every opportunity to climb things, scramble down banks and ditches and chase one another. Luke largely ignored me! Two other mums who live locally came along and gave me a lift back to the beginning of the walk to pick up my car.

Things have been busy as usual on the farm. In fact I’ve been having a bit of a killing spree. Having been meat-free for about a month, we now have one freezer full of meat and the one in the garage is slowly filling up. 17 roosters have bit the dust, one piglet (3 months old at that stage and about 15kg) plus 3 geese. Jasper the goat is still in my sights and there are a handful of younger chickens whose gender is currently not clear. I’ve kept one colourful red rooster to keep the 6 remaining pullets (we’ve sold all the others) company. They have just starting laying and suddenly we are awash once again with eggs. I also culled all the older hens and Nigel the Australorp rooster, plus poor Handles our old goat buck.

I had a huge day of drenching the goats, trimming their hooves and moving them around to their new paddocks to be with the bucks (or not, in the case of the young ones). I also soaked all their feet to try to prevent any foot rot bacteria getting into the new paddock. Handles was in one of the old paddocks and Seb was in the new one with his girls. A week or so later, I woke to find Seb in Handles’ paddock and Handles standing hangdog to one side. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t performing. I tried to catch Jasper the wether to keep him company and thus delay the inevitable, but having failed I made the hard decision that Handles had to go. Seb had been through at least two electric fences at 7,000v, so his urge must have been pretty strong!

The two remaining piglets appeared to be suffering from PTSD for a couple of days after I’d so rudely torn their brother from their midst – but they seem quite happy again now (clearly not too upset then). I was so concerned that the one to go would remain unstressed and innocent of his fate, I didn’t think about the effect on his siblings! We’ve eaten half of the pork and one of the roosters so far and the meat was delicious. Some free-range hens can be a bit strong-tasting, particularly in the leg, but these are just right.

The geese turned out to be impossible to pluck. I remember that the three I did before Christmas took an age and I ended up using the blow-torch to take off the tiny pin-feathers. This time I literally couldn’t pull the feathers off without tearing the skin. I soaked them in hot water (60-70 degrees C) for several minutes, including using detergent to ensure they were wetted right down to the skin. It made no difference whatsoever. I was trying to do this in the kitchen one evening as well as keep track of our serial. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to get them in the freezer before going with Luke on his excursion the following day. In the end I got up early the next day and skinned them. It was pretty easy and took very little time. Today I rendered the skins so as to extract any fat that floats to the surface and sets. I shall have to wait until tomorrow when it’s cooled down to see if it has worked. The cooked skins have gone into the compost.

All the adult goats are now settling down with Seb in the new paddock. They are reluctant to venture far into the bush and stick mostly to the open grassy area and around the edges near the fence. They are gradually making inroads into the big area of blackberries at the bottom. At present there are no huts for them in there, so when it starting pouring last week and was bitterly cold and windy with it, I cut another gate between the new paddock and the old one alongside and let them through to access their huts. I drove around and filled all the huts (for goats, peacocks, turkeys, pigs, geese and hens) with fresh bedding and fixed up one of the goat huts that was sagging and getting holey. I finished in the dark, frozen and fed up, but at least the animals were all cosy. Actually I don’t know why I bother for the turkeys and geese since they prefer to sit outside in all weathers.

In an attempt to vary our diet further, I strung a continuous line over the big dam on pulleys either side and suspended several hooks from it with various tempting baits: grasshoppers, home-made flies sporting colourful peacock feathers, worms etc. Unfortunately it has been a complete failure. The trout circle around the dam blowing raspberries at me and refuse to take any of the baits. It became a real chore as I had to rig up the hooks and then rush back before it got dark to take them all down before the platypus came out and got snagged. Discouraged, I’ve continued to save worms (I’ve got a little worm farm going in the garage now), but haven’t been able to motivate myself to rig up the hooks again for a couple of weeks.

We did at least have great fun one afternoon making different types of flies, with peacock and rooster feathers, sequins etc. Pity they just don’t seem to interest the trout. I also relearnt to splice ropes. To reach across the dam and back again needed a continuous loop of around 60m. I remembered my grandad teaching me to splice ropes together when I was young, but I couldn’t remember the technique. I found a great set of videos on the net and discovered that using a crochet hook was the best way. My splices are a bit lumpy but seem to have done the job. It’s the same principle as interleafing the pages of two telephone books as demonstrated on Mythbusters – it’s just friction really that holds them together.

Once the goats were all in the new paddock, we took the opportunity to fell an ancient dead wattle that was growing between two of my old fences. Having cut a gap in one of the fences we positioned the ute about a tree’s height away from the base and Bronte tried to throw a hammer on the end of a rope between two big high branches. He did this quite quickly but the hammer pulled straight out and wasn’t heavy enough to pull the rope down where it could be reached. Eventually (about 100 times later) he managed it again and we were able to wrap the rope around the hammer to hold it fast and tie the other end to the back of the ute. As the tree was so rotten Bronte wouldn’t use the chainsaw, so we took turns using the axe to bash away at it on both sides. When the axe went through to the rot within, we pulled with the ute and once the rope had stretched until we thought it must break, the tree finally crashed to the ground. Bronte’s since chainsawed it all up and stowed it away in the dry in the tractor shed. We should be just about OK for firewood now for the winter, but I still need to go foraging for my piggy brews.

Talking of piggy brews, the old brazier I was using had nearly collapsed, so Bronte kindly angle-ground another 44 gallon drum in half for me and cut some air holes in the bottom section. I mounted that between steel stakes driven into the ground and wired lengths of reinforcing iron across the top, for the ‘bowl’ to sit on. To make it more efficient, I’ve created a ‘shroud’ around it at full height from old bits of galvanized iron. This ensures that the hot air comes up the sides of the bowl and heats the contents more quickly. It works amazingly, bringing the whole container up to boiling point in about a quarter of the time it used to take – therefore using heaps less wood and saving me wood-gathering time.

I’ve had a couple of unexpected animal sightings recently. Walking across to the tractor shed I looked down towards the bucks’ pen and saw a wombat wandering along in broad daylight, well away from cover! Luke was off sick, so I tore back indoors as fast as possible, yelled for Luke to come outside, grabbed the camera and rushed outside again – only to find the wombat had disappeared! The pigs grunted and shot off in surprise so it must have taken cover in the sedge alongside the pig pen before disappearing in the bush near the creek. What a great surprise though! Another day I saw a long slinky creature which moved a little like a weasel, race from one patch of bog to another. The end half of its tail was white and looked fairly fluffy. I could only imagine it was a water rat or possibly a ring-tailed possum – however, it just didn’t move like a possum. There has been a great influx of the pretty green rosellas for winter. It’s great to see them back in big numbers – the last two years they’ve been noticeably thin on the ground. Less common suddenly are the black cockatoos.

Luke has taken to soccer like a duck to water. His team has played several games now, winning two, losing one and drawing the first. Luke was sick during the losing match so he can feel that they lost owing to him not being there! Last Saturday Bronte took him to a school in Kingston and Luke’s team won 15:1! I felt so sorry for the poor little souls in the other team – and was quite glad I’d chosen not to go along. Since Luke had never seen a proper game of soccer I recorded the FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Chelsea and we sat and watched it the following day (fast-forwarding over the boring bits). Liverpool was always my team (along with Luton and Bedford) in my youth when I used to go to football matches each Saturday with Grandad Tib. So I was rather disappointed when they lost 2:1.It was quite nail-biting in the second half however, when Liverpool piled on the pressure and looked like they might score an equaliser.

For entertainment on an evening, we’ve turned from film DVDs to TV serials. It’s great being able to watch more than one episode at a time, not have any adverts or interference (our signal is pretty weak here) and not have to wait until the following week to find out what happens. We really enjoyed The Slap, probably the first Aussie drama we’ve really enjoyed – Aussie films are usually so depressing and overly arty (everyone dies, takes drugs and ends up miserable). Now we are onto the second episode of Breaking Bad, which is surprisingly good. We’ve got a list of others we want to watch such as The West Wing and Lost.


I forgot to mention that before the WWOOFers left, we went to a sculpture trail on the coast. Here are some pictures of the artworks:

Kid in hole from which he and Bronte had dug a protruding rock and rolled it down the hill:

Diabolically difficult helicopter model sent by someone (can't remember who unfortunately) for a Christmas present for Luke. Bronte started it and gave up. I finished it, but eventually when its rotor blades starting drooping, I snuck it into the bin!