17th May, 2024

I got up a bit early again and did most of the animal chores before getting ready for an 11am to 4pm shift. Aimee headed off for a week long road trip with her dad and aunt.

Home from work and did the final chores before going to Kendall's with Kelly and Derek for dinner. The food was fine, but we were the second to order and still waited an hour for our meals.

We went from there to Little Rivers for a couple of drinks, catching up with Geoff there after he knocked off at 6pm. We introduced Kelly and Derek to Shane, Mark and Sally.

Jason came through work and we organised to catch up after the weekend to arrange a young bull to cover Beanie and Annie. This time I have to remember to put a hot wire in front of any gates a bull might want to bend.

I sat down and read through the astonishingly complex manual for the new microwave. Thankfully when I drilled down into it the instructions for basic operation are pretty much the same as the old one. Set the power level and the time and hit start. I don't think I am all that likely to use alot of the other functions, but I'll read those instructions when I need them.

16th May, 2024

Tuesday started with another meeting with the accountant to try a different path to rolling out the SMSF. That started out promising and foundered on the rocks of a missing passport once again. We pulled a duck out of the freezer to defrost and picked the last of the apples before turning the house upside down in one last search for the expired passport. I guess I am going to have to apply for a new one.

Wednesday we had lunch with Robyn at the Branxholm pub, a nice large meal. We came home and prepped the duck (Arfur had paid for electrical work with it) by stuffing it with lemon and garlic and basting with a rich sauce as it roasted. It was delicious !

Today Aimee and I did all the animal chores early and headed off to Launceston. It was a big day, we returned a circuit breaker and picked up an 3 gang architrave switch for Geoff at AWM. Then to Officeworks where we bought a cradle to hold Geoff's new phone in his car for hands free and organised to print and laminate the air photo of the 25 acres remaining, for farm planning.

Next stop was JB Hifi where we bought a factory seconds microwave, and window shopped food processors. Then Bunnings for a traffic cone (Geoff wants to work on the driveway) and a 36 pack of cat food cheaper than the supermarket. We then hooked down to Petstock Country and bought a bag of lucerne cubes (Yay !! Been looking for those for years) and then across to KMart for a week's worth of basic black tshirts.

That took us to a late lunch at Malaylicious, malaysian food. Aimee had laksa and I had marinated chicken that was fried and then tossed in a sweet and savoury grainy mix. No idea what that might be called in malaysian, on the menu it was "cereal oatmeal chicken". It was delicious anyway.

We had a little time before Aimee's hair appointment so we went window shopping, ending up with macarons at a dessert shop. Aimee got her hair cut, coloured and styled and I napped, read and daydreamed. We found a lost phone in the toilets at our car park and handed that into a nearby shop, and finally got home around 8pm. 

The new microwave is a couple of generations more advanced than our old one, which was on its last legs. Geoff is deciding whether to make another mail box out of it. I think it might end up in the dairy as a small rodent proof storage safe.

13th May, 2024

It rained on and off all day, so I made a list of all the possible admin jobs and started tackling them between dry spells. Plus I vacuumed and steam mopped.

During the dry spells I clipped the fenceline in the knoll paddock, set up an electric fence around the silage, picked up stock feed and more lick blocks, went to the post office and chemist, and got everyone fed and checked on. We are getting one or two eggs a week at the moment. And Abe had cleaned out Annie's left rear quarter for me so I didn't have to milk.

Aimee came back from her Dad's tonight and will be her until Friday. We have a few more visits to make, and a trip to Launceston, and a duck to cook. 

Sarge went to the vet for booster shots today, he is in good health and the vets are always glad to see he is still doing well.

12th May, 2024

It was pretty cloudy today and there was just enough rain to stop the last load of washing from drying. I've been slowing down the watering rotation as plants settle down for winter and the evaporation drops, so this will add another day to the rotation.

This link leads to a 12 second time lapse photo of the aurora showing how the colours move across the sky. Click : Short video of the aurora from Scottsdale

This one was taken by a friend from our sheep shelter paddock towards Launceston. The building in the photo is our old greenhouse and there is no lighting inside, the glow is from the aurora.

11th May, 2024

Friday was a day spent day doing admin, it was a slog with lots of small details. There's still lots to do to bring it all up to date. Then a long closing shift and to bed relatively early as I had to get up early this morning.

The early rise was for my first office shift ! They brought me in at 7.15 am so I could learn the tasks that need to be done each Saturday. I'll be doing every second Saturday and someone will let me know whether it's a 7.15 start or a 6.45, when the interdepartmental wrangling is sorted out.

I'll be doing cash handling and payroll and ticketing for the time being. With any luck I'll get more regular shifts if I turn out to be efficient or at least accurate.

When I got home at about 11.30 am it was spitting rain again. All up we got a whole 1.5mm. I milked for the house again, it's nice to have creamy fresh milk.

The other big news of the day was the fantastic aurora that arrived at about 7.30pm. I hung the washing out by it's light, it was all the way above my head with beams of light and blushes of colour coming and going.

From my farm on my old phone that could hardly see anything...

More colours

This is using the phone that operates my drone

 

Other people's photos

At the Thumb in Scottsdale

 

Southern Tasmania

Bruny Island

Northeast England

9th May, 2024

Yesterday was another nice autumn day, today had scudding clouds and a short space of spitting rain. Not enough to measure. 5 to 10mm is forecast for tomorrow, we shall see.

After spending more time yesterday trying to get onto the help line for MyGovID, I did some internet searching and found an ATO question forum. I asked about MyGovID and super rollovers and they suggested either trying the process through the "combine super" function of Geoff's MyGov, or contacting Australia Post, who are the hosts of the rollover portal that my accountant uses, to see if they have an alternative ID option. Since I did my ID for the land transfer through the post office, that might be usable as an alternative.

In the meantime, today the accountant and I tried the combine super function and we are now awaiting the formal notification to arrive by email, hopefully with further instructions.

Annie's milk was becoming sweet again so I milked for the house this morning. It will be nice to have lovely creamy milk in my tea and on my porridge again. Yesterday she was full on all the quarters, but Abe was busy chasing Star around, who was on heat, so I can assume he was just distracted. It would be unusual for him to wean himself.

I put three big tyre tubs in the sheep paddock, feeding them their snack by hand was like being surrounded by woolly hippos and mugged... so now I mix it with chaff and divide it between the tubs and me feet remain unstomped. I also put another mineral block in their holder as they had finished the last one.

I haven't been able to do an office shift so far, because I need a 10hr break between shifts by law and I finish work on Friday night 9 1/2 hours before the start time for a Saturday office shift. Every second Friday I do 2pm to 7pm, so if either the office shift or my contract can shift by one week I could do the office shift after my earlier Friday shift. Otherwise it would be off the table, sigh.

I've been chasing lucerne cubes, and had been unable to find a source. These are 2 inch cubes of compressed lucerne that the cows love. They make great training rewards. I went onto facebook and the Hay and Feed for sale page and asked if anyone knew where to get some and was given a number of shops, including one in Scottsdale that I haven't used for feed. 

I went there today and they sold the last bag of their last order three days ago (I have been looking for six months and missed by three days !) but they should be getting more soon and I have put my name down for two bags.

Geoff is liking his new phone, it has a very large screen and he can even watch movies on it with our Netflix or Amazon Prime accounts. That will be handy if he wants to watch one tv program and I want to watch another. He can even put headphones on. He has also added an app that helps him calculate cable sizes for electrical work. 

And it has a "find my phone" feature that I can go on my laptop, log in and it shows where his phone is. Not enough definition for around the house, but it does show to about the nearest 20m. And I can make it ring from the computer to help locate it by sound if it is in the house.

I visited with Siobhan, who has had an operation, and then Geoff and I had dinner with Kelly and Derek at Lords Hotel.

Sandra Henderson "Bush Bounty"

7th May, 2024

On Monday morning we had a leisurely start, I milked Annie's left back quarter again, and we picked up some stock feed and leafy greens and then Aimee headed back to Rosebery where her Dad lives.

We had some overripe bananas from Woolies, and handed them out among the cows. Only Annie seemed interested. Jack was positively aghast.

Today was a nice day weatherwise, but almost a complete loss on other fronts.

I didn't get time to do the calves, sheep, far end cows or chooks. In fact, Annie's feed and milking was the only farm work I had time for.

The reason being that I wasted a whole day chasing red tape to try and roll the money from the SMSF back into Geoff's First State Super account.

It started well enough, with the accountant saying that if we could get the forms and identification stuff done we could maybe even do the payment today. However, in order to get a confirmed ID from the tax office to do the rollover I had to get a MyGovID certificate. I raced home to get my birth certificate and added that to my driver's license and my medicare card. That brought me up from "basic" ID to "standard" ID, but the process we wanted to do needs "strong" ID. OK, what identifications are the options for that ? A passport. And ONLY a passport. Nothing else.

What do people do who don't have passports ? They ring a helpline. I have no idea if ringing that helpline works because we couldn't get past the "we're madly busy and won't be answering the phone" message. No option to email or use a web form. They're probably madly busy with all the people who don't have passports because they put a stupid system into use without considering half the population.

They did give the hint that if your passport expired less than three years ago they'd take that. I do have a passport that expired two years ago. So back home, and I turned the house upside down. Emptied sock drawers, waded through piles of papers, checked every shelf and every hiding place. That passport is nowhere I can find. SO DAMN CLOSE AND YET SO FAR ! The curse of the farm saving continues. Every single thing that could have been reasonably expected to go right continues to go wrong.

After giving up for the day I went back into Scottsdale and picked up Geoff's new tough phone, required because Telstra is turning off 3G. Remind me again how all this technology is making our lives better ? And then went for a cuppa and hot chips with Kelly so we could both vent about our bad days.

While I was searching for my passport I found the saffron bulbs that Robyn gave me. They are sprouting. I need to plant them asap.

5th May, 2024

Another flawless autumn day.

I had a 9am to 2pm shift so I was up early. It was quite busy at work, 42 click & collects alone. My feet are still sore but thankfully I don't work again until Wednesday night. Janice, the office manager at work, asked if I wanted to train for the office. It would be a shift every second Saturday, 6.45am to 10.45am. In my sleep cycle this would be the equivalent of a 3am rise, but it could be the start of a move to a less physically demanding job.

Aimee and I went for lunch at Loud Iron after work, then we fed the cows and sheep. Udesh gave me a big bag of bananas that were a bit far gone so we distributed them among the cows. There was some consternation with only Annie hooking in and eating all that were offered to her. I guess she has become used to eating whatever I drop in her manger.

We noticed Annie had her left rear quarter over full again today, after being the one non empty quarter yesterday. So I milked some out and noted that it was salty, which is a sign that the quarter is not being emptied. 

I have no idea why, because Abe is big enough to take all her milk and she is not showing any sign of pain that would make her kick him off that teat. But either way, I milked out as much as I could while she ate and I will continue to do that until he either started clearing the quarter again or the milk tastes sweet.

I ordered Geoff a new tradie phone, as his old one is 3G and won't work after the end of June. The new one is an Opel Rugged, which is the most affordable tough phone. I might even get one for myself if it turns out to be easy to use.

The three different types of hops in separate bags, finishing the drying process before I sew some into pillows. I will put some in the chook nests too.

4th May, 2024

Aimee and I took advantage of another lovely autumn day to visit with the Amish family in Springfield. She got to know them quite well when she was living with us a few years ago and they were delighted to see her. We have fresh apple pies and tea and then went for a walk around their farm.

We did a couple of loads of washing and put some apples in the dehydrator and then I went to work to do a five hour online shift. This turned out to be a bad idea on top of yesterday walking all day at AgFest and my feet were well and truly sore by the end of the night.

In addition I have a small infection on the big toe of my right foot and the irritation of the two days in shoes hasn't done it any favours. I am applying tea tree spray and wearing slumbies (sort of a loose sock with a sole) that have alot of room around the toes to avoid pressure and irritation.

Star and Joey as nine month olds. They are now at the age that I wean my calves that are on cows, I have been giving them calf pellets to make up for not being on mothers, and I should wean them now by schedule but the grass isn't giving enough protein so they will stay on the pellets for the time being.

3rd May, 2024

I got up early to get on the road by 8.30am for AgFest. Aimee met me at the site gate and we spent a lovely autumn day looking at things and eating and buying odds and ends. I bought a Ridgeline polar fleece tshirt (so warm and comfortable !), a pair of slumbies, several cheeses, truffle salt, nougat, tasmanian tea and some garlic and herb butter.

My favourite exhibits, valais blacknose sheep. A breed from Switzerland, new to Australia. These are a handful of F1 weaners, which are crossbreds.

 This is an older sheep, a purebred.

We were home about 5.30pm and late doing the cows. Annie made sure we knew she was annoyed. Once the critters were done we went to Little Rivers for a couple of drinks and then home for a quiet night.