10th July, 2023

Today was meant to be a garden day. 

I planned to feed the citrus trees, plant some herbs and flowers, do some bonsai on the dwarf cox's orange pippen apple tree that had adopted a 45 degree growing angle and plant a couple of rows of mixed radishes. 

Instead I wrangled sheep to spray alamycin on their feet because they have foot scald from the relentless wet. The ground is never dry and the humidity is so high that even though I have given them full access to a shed with soft dry bedding and hay on demand, their feet stay damp and bacteria settle into the cracks between their toes. It's painful and can damage their feet, but the spray stings so it's always a combination of bribery and trickery to get the affected feet sprayed three days in a row for a hopeful cure.

And I spread out the cows' current bale of silage, so they could access more of it before it moulded in the damp. And tried to start the little fergie tractor, Bessie, so I could move a round bale of hay and found the battery too limp to start. This is because it has a bad fuel leak and to run it long enough to charge the battery risks running out of fuel, which diesels hate and is even more trouble than dragging the battery up to the house to charge. 

My rounds got stored in the loafing shed where Bruce can't reach and Leigh's rounds, which no-one is using, are stored in the hayshed where Bruce can reach. Once those are all moved/sold/fed out I will be storing mine in the hayshed where I can get at them. As it is I need Bessie to move a bale to the edge of the loafing shed where Bruce can pick it up. No Bessie, no hay bale. And so it's another silage bale which isn't getting eaten quite fast enough to stop waste in this wet.

If this sounds like a whinge, it is. It's so damn wet and clammy. It rains more days than not and is overcast and miserable when it doesn't rain. I tell myself every drop will help raise the soil moisture levels for when the rain stops.... but it's wearing thin. I am told this June was the wettest in decades so el nino is yet to show much effect here.

I need to get the vege garden down near the dairy back into use with some raised beds and sections that sheep can be let into to clean up or locked out of. Though, with this wet and overcast weather it's going to be hard to get anything to grow and stay healthy.

And get potatoes in. We experimented with a heap of different varieties and shapes and the spud I liked best out of all the colours and types was the good old dutch cream. We can tell the tourists from Tasmanians at work because when we ask what kind of spuds they brought to the checkout, the locals say "Kennebecs" or "Dutch Cream" or "Pink Eye" and the tourists say "errr..... dirty ones ?". 

  

Think I might take a week off before Emma goes on maternity leave and just get right into clearing a few things off my to do list. The short days and remorseless rain are putting me further and further behind. Bah humbug.