1st September, 2025

The first day of spring today, quite chilly, sun and cloud. This afternoon I spent some time standing in the orchard listening to the birds sing and the breeze rustle the grass, it was very peaceful.

We had snow on Mt Barrow again this week, quite a decent fall this time. Saturday was glorious though, no wind and some serious sun. The best of Tassie winters. More rain coming this week, but we are still 2 inches below average totals for this time of year.

No word on the hospital job, no movement at May Shaw, nothing special happening at Woolies. Still trying to identify the perfect small business that will let me work from home while doing stuff I love. I guess alot of people have that problem.

The day after the vinyl was done in the old office we found a leaking water line that looks like it could be leaking into the septic, and causing the overflow. This discovery was followed by 53mm of rain so although we fixed the leak it will take some time to see if the area will dry out. So the new toilet is on hold for a couple of weeks to see what the septic will do.

We are getting the odd egg, from four different hens I think. Maybe two or three a week. The flock is quite old, one of the hens is from the first lot we got from Arfur at Ringarooma. We don't need alot of eggs now that we aren't selling them, so I don't mind. 

Mae is down to 4 litres of milk a day and is eating her muesli most days. She now has a little friend, Star calved on Tuesday and has a little angus cross heifer named Rani. Rani is a little wild child, full of confidence and opinion. She and her mum and Mae spent a couple of days in the hayshed (where she was born) out of the wild cold snow weather, but all are now with the herd and she is making the most of the room to run. I have only milked Star once, as Rani is keeping her udder cleaned out, it's only a little heifer udder at this point. I added the couple of litres to Mae's milk that night.

 

 

The washing machine is still behaving perfectly, I should have bought the part months ago ! 

The loafing shed had a blowout, concrete cancer is eating one outside wall. Matt Cassidy came and looked at it and gave us a plan for reinforcing the wall and taking the weight as old age gradually nibbles away at the very thin concrete wall holding the roof up.

 

20 August, 2025

We have had some really cold nights, even tipping below zero once ! Mostly nice days after the frosts, with a bit of rain coming early next week. 

The carpet people (there is a book with that name by Terry Pratchett) are doing the vinyl floor in the old office tomorrow. This is the next step in replacing the septic system with a composting toilet. We are also replacing the carpet on the steps with the leftover bit of the length of vinyl, would love to do the loungeroom and also the back entry area (who does carpet in the entry on a farm ??) but that will have to wait.

While the composting toilet will be a little more complex than flushing, the upside is that the seat will always be warm in winter ! The kit even comes with a bag of peat moss and two bags of wood shaving as starter, sourcing those economically will be my next hunt.

Little Mae is growing well and I will soon start halter training with her. She is now nearly four months old and is still drinking 6 litres of milk replacer a day as she is still  only eating the muesli if I stand with her.

Star is building an udder and should have her first calf soon. I have started training her to milk, she kicks when the machine cups touch her udder, but they are cold this time of year so I can't blame her.

We hung the new small gate at the back of the implement shed and put good catches on another four to replace the make-do ones that I have been battling for ten years. Pruned all the fruit trees in the fruit orchard and were going to do the cider orchard tomorrow before we got word the vinyl was coming. I also need to spray the peach tree for leaf curl as soon as possible.

We did a "Murder Mystery" lunch with Juliet and Shane on Sunday. That was fun and we are going to do another one soon. We solved it relatively easily so I think we will go up a level in difficulty next time.

Work is going steadily. I have not heard back about the job at the hospital yet. The interview went as well as could be expected as I talk too fast and too much when I am nervous. They did say that as it's a government job it could be ages before we get any news.

The washing machine finally had a meltdown and we gave it a layman's service. This is downloading the service manual from the internet (this is not an easy thing to do, they are hard to find but I am good at it) and taking it apart and blowing on things and putting them back. 

We identified that it is the ball pressure sensor that is broken, and ordered one from Doug Smith Spares in Dubbo. The day I ordered that, the machine started working again. So the part is sitting in the laundry ready for the day the machine finally spits the dummy.

Suzie (Shredder) making sure she never misses a meal. She's on a diet because she was heading towards 8kg and is hard to even pick up. This is the bench where the cats are fed, and the bonus is that it was catching the sunshine.

30th July, 2025

Hmmm... since the last entry we have had some serious rain and a few nice days. Actually, spectacularly nice days. Sunny winter days here are always good quality. There have been one or two bolts of lightning, one of which rattled the windows at Woolies, and the other woke Finn up from a sound sleep barking his head off at the invading mountain troll monster. I think he was a bit traumatised at that one.

We have pulled up the carpet in the old office, ready for the installers to scrape off the decayed rubber underlay. We did that ourselves for the kitchen and bathroom vinyl, but neither of our knees have gotten any younger in the years since then. Now waiting on an installation date.

I have an interview for the part time hospital job, next Tuesday. Might be a good time to get different work as the front end at Woolies has lost 65 hours a week. Depending who you talk to it's all the fault of getting self serves, another attempt by the company at screwing every last dollar out of their employees, or the front end supervisor rostering poorly over the last three weeks and letting the algorithm think we don't need the staff.

Mae is now twelve weeks old and resisting being a big girl. She will eat the muesli if I stand with her, but won't visit the calf creep on her own. She's on 6 litres a day in one feed of milk replacer. Yesterday was her first day on the once a day and I walked her into the creep and showed her the muesli. She wasn't impressed and threw a tantrum. She kept running out of the creep and ducking around the corner out of sight then coming back around as if she was just arriving. I guess that's the calf equivalent of turning me off and then on again to see if I will start working properly and dispensing milk  😊

I was sent this photo last week, I think she will be my mascot for the job interview ! 

16th July, 2025

Today the new posts for the automatic gates went in. That's the last thing we need an outside contractor for, we can hang the gates ourselves. At the same time we'll be hanging two small gates in the barnyard, taking one big one down, and putting in new fasteners for three.

The timber has arrived for the bargeboards for the chook house. These are boards that protect the ends of the roof beams from weathering and rot. The old bargeboards have rotted and split and come off (taking the damage instead of the beams) and these new ones will help the 50 year old structure remain sound.

The composting toilet has arrived, and the old office has now been cleared and we can start pulling up the carpet and scraping up the disintegrated black foam underneath. We did this when we put new flooring in the kitchen and bathroom, this is about 1/3 of the area so should be quicker. The flooring guy came and looked at the room and we are now awaiting the quote.

After six months without overflowing, the washing machine has started again. Still no idea why, or why not when it doesn't. What the tradies call an "intermittent fault", the hardest kind to trace. 

I remember one story of a motel room that was considered haunted because when the guest went to have a shower they could hear faint music but the source could never be found and it stopped when they came out of the shower. Turns out that there was a wire that was frayed and was sitting almost touching the copper pipes of the shower and when the hot water turned on the pipe expanded and touched the wire, and the wire powered the radio in a seldom used room next door. 

I have applied for another part time job at the hospital, this one is two hours on weekdays (4pm to 6pm) and two eight hour days (10am to 6pm) every second weekend. Those hours will work well for me now. It's worth about $500 a week. Add May Shaw at $220 a week and I can cut Woolies right back if I get it. There is, however, someone acting in the job at the moment and they will always have the inside running. So I am hoping for the eligibility list. 

Mae is doing really well, almost ready to transition to once a day feeds. She drank 5 litres of milk tonight and I think I hit her maximum. I will give her one more week of 5 litres at night and 2 litres in the morning before just doing 5 litres mid afternoon and pushing the calf muesli twice a day. Once she is eating 1kg of muesli a day she can start weaning off the milk.

The pantry has worked out really well. For some reason we've added a piece of furniture and yet ended up with more usable floor space after the rearrangement. The pantry itself is very useful, now everything is easily reached and easily found. Some of the space that has been made in the old cupboards now holds things that were sitting on benches but can be in the back of the deep cupboards, like the blackout kit and the supply of microwave meals for Geoff's lunch.

We'll be voting on Saturday in the state election. Then as soon as that's done we have to vote in the local government election. Both caused by politicians thinking of themselves first and the public second. Sigh. It seems that most of the people who want to go into politics maybe should be the ones we avoid.

The bale covers are perfect for the job, keeping the rain off the bales and stopping the wind from stripping the hay and blowing it away. This is the yard next to the feed bunk, a corner fenced off with solar electric fence and giving me room to work without having to fight cows. You can see in the foreground how muddy things are where the cows are walking. Each day I rake up the hay you see scattered on the ground from pulling off the bale and that gets fed too. There is almost zero waste with this system. 

7th July, 2025

First day back at work, end of my holidays. I really enjoyed the time off working here. Didn't get all my wish list done. Probably not even a third of it. But what I did get done was good.

I finished the last of the cutout switches. Sprayed for thistles. Made gates for all the new pastures. Bought and connected a new 240V fence charger that does 10 km of fencing to replace the 1.5 km one. Instead of being a tickle at 3kV it now spanks along at 15kV. It will make their whiskers curl if they sniff it.

The new mesh panels arrived for the hay bunk and went on, working beautifully. Ordered two round bale covers, a game camera, some adhesive velcro, some flannelette sheets (showing some weird preference for plaid patterns ?) and a pantry. Despite the pantry being a flat pack with an advertised construction time of two hours, we are on day 4. It's now together and just needs the doors adjusted to be square.

The composting toilet is on its way, and the local flooring shop is coming round to quote on putting vinyl down where it's going to go. Which is the old office. So the bunk beds are now back on top of each other in the second bedroom and all the office furniture needs sorting and storing.

I put fresh straw in the nests for the chickens to start laying now the days have turned to getting longer. Which they promptly raked out to look for missed grains in the straw. Nice one guys. The new gate post positions are marked for the fencing guy to come and put the posts in so the gates can be hung, and then the openers finally back in operation. The shearer is coming to crutch the sheep and do their feet.

Had a Wednesday Legendairy Ladies trip to a dairy on the other side of the Tamar River, followed by lunch at the Blue Tiers Distillery. Then dinner at Lords with Geoff on Friday. Picked up my new reading glasses, very nice bronze frames. Mae is doing well and is just about eating 1kg of muesli a day, which means I can start reducing her milk to once a day.

Rearranged the kitchen to accommodate the new pantry, which put the printer on the butchers block in the loungeroom, the filing cabinet under my desk, and the cat bed on top of the corner unit. The long unit where the cats eat is now under the front window and the table has done a 90 degree turn. I think I am becoming an expert at furniture tetris.

27th June, 2025

I had a lovely sunny day for my birthday, so I did some fencing in the sunshine. It was nice to be outside in the fresh air doing something for myself.

Wednesday was a Paint n Sip put on by RAW (Rural Alive and Well). We were doing a rainbow cow. A long way from how I would like it to be, but I reckon it was the best one there. Not too modest, huh ?

I attended a Climate Seminar on Thursday, really good information and some ideas for planting pastures to cope with reducing autumn rainfall and slightly warmer winters.

Today was more fencing and then a Thermo-mix party at Juliet's. I think Thermo-Mixes are the new tupperware. We made a roasted capsicum and cashew dip, a strawberry and rhubarb icecream, pizza bianca and a chicken pasta dish.

We had some snow on the mountain on Tuesday, and unusually it was still hanging around on Wednesday.

I repaired the sheep shelter, as the cows had been rubbing on it, cracking the palings that it was clad in and ripping them off. I replaced the broken palings (the lighter coloured timbers in the photo) and put two big pieces of timber on the end of each verandah wall to stabilise them and protect the palings.

 

Part of my fencing included setting up cutout switches so I could power only the sections of fence that are needed right then and save some power. This one was quite complex but I can cut off or on three different sections.

21st June, 2025

The first day of my two weeks off and gloomy weather. The clouds were below the Sideling, which I guess must classify as a high fog ? No fog at our level but I could see up the Cuckoo Valley and it was bright sunlight there, maybe 5km away as the crow flies.

I had a very quiet day, had two long naps and I think I needed them. Apart from the animal chores the only other work I did was feeding the washing through (as it's going to be wet later in the week) and filling the dishwasher. 

Geoff and I went to Little Rivers for drinks and dinner (texas bbq food van) with Shane, Juliet, Thomas, Mark, Sally, Mark & Sally's daughter, and Pete. They had mulled wine and hot cider, live music and a wood fire so it was a very cheerful night. I now have a hankering for rice pudding and mulled wine so I might do some of my own for my birthday tomorrow. 

I went up and opened the far end up for the cows as the grazing is all gone close to the house. They galloped up there and were still there when I went out to feed Mae about 9pm, so I put the feeder and milk on the quad, rode up there and fed her and rode back. Finn ran along all the way and is now sound asleep. There are headlights on the quad so that is a real plus. The cattle were a bit bemused but Mae was very glad for her milk.

16th June, 2025

Woooo.... back to cold and wet weather. Snow somewhere and the critters happy to be inside. Had a couple of cracker frosts followed by lovely days, but now the fronts have started.

I put the last of the apples into the dehydrator today. My favourites when dried are the King David, the Cox's Orange Pippin was lovely and so were the Pink Lady. The last to ripen have been the Granny Smiths.

When I do the chores I generally have a posse. Three cats and a maremma. Yesterday I was carrying my farm basket back (with some potatoes from storage in the old chiller) and put it down to go and check the mail. Cats love sitting in things. This is Shadow.

The bunk is working beautifully, virtually no waste at all. I've worked out a routine and have some tweaks I'll make once I start my two weeks off work on the 23rd. Namely a little gateway so I don't have to climb over an electric fence, and good anchors for my lift ropes.

The sheepies are doing fine, they can get at grass the cattle can't, as well as having full range of the whole farm because they can duck under the one strand laneway fencing. Left to right Fang, Jonesy, Toot, Emmaline, Twinkle and Dea.

10th June, 2025

Another cold day. I don't know why I am surprised, we're not far off the winter equinox.

New chapter in "why I love living here"... I called the mechanic at Branxholm who does our cars to ask about a whining noise in my car. He told me to have my keys with me on shift at Woolies tonight. He came in, took the keys, brought them back half an hour later and said "It's the air conditioner drive. Probably not worth repairing, I took the belt off and the noise stopped, the belt is on your front seat". I asked how much I owed him and he shrugged and said "I might need some electrical work one day.".

A rainbow over Scottsdale

9th June, 2025

So cold today, rumour has it that there was a dusting of snow at South Springfield. Some sun later in the day and if you could find a sunny spot out of the wind it was lovely. I sat on the bench by the front door for a while with Finn and just let the sunshine wash over me.

I put muesli and lucerne chaff in the calf creep for Mae today. She likes the taste but might take a bit to figure out she can come and go and help herself. The feed bunk went into operation today too. It looks like it will work nicely, though there was some kerfuffle about finding places in the row.

A round bale stored under a tarp for rain protection. The bunks with gates and mesh laying down and haul ropes for lifting the mesh so hay can be put in the bunk and the mesh laid down on top. Electric fence closing the area off from cows so I can feed out in peace and the hay can't be molested.

A clearer shot of the mesh and gates lifted ready for hay. There are two proper mesh panels on order from Elders that will replace the gates and offcut mesh. The ropes are looped around tent pegs at the base of the concrete so I can get on with feeding.

The first use of the bunks tonight. Eloise and Mato have the hang of it. Their mums have had a tantrum about the newness of it all and gone off looking at the old hay feeding station. Come midwinter storms when they can step out of the shelter (behind the blue tarped bale in the first pic), eat and drink and go back inside, they will appreciate it. Maybe. Or not. You know how animals can be :-)

Juliet and I have applied for polling booth work for the coming state election. Not sure when it might be, but it's likely to be this winter.