29th April, 2024

A cool and windy day, good for drying, not for spraying.

Thomas came around and we did a thistle spray because that's a spot spray and the wind doesn't push it around as much. We visited with the sheep and the far cows, and collected all the scattered feed tubs. 

Then we put a cloche on the small passionfruit and added fertiliser and snail bait. We gave the sheep bioworma, and they hooked right into that. I think it has an aniseed or licorice base, which is popular with grazing animals.

Last night's apples were mainly granny smiths, tonight I am back to king davids. Folded washing and put more out, I think I have one load to go and that will be seven for the weekend. Alot of that was linen and blankets. 

I also washed the bathroom walls and ceiling as mould was starting to develop. It's always a problem in a house with uninsulated walls and a very high draft level. When I build a new house it will have double glazed windows and insulated walls.

We burned about six months of accumulated cardboard in the new burn barrel, then had some salmon and salad for dinner. We're working on emptying a freezer to reduce the electricity bill. I took out some steak for marinating with teryaki sauce.

Beth, the accountant, sent me the figures for the last of the tax office payments for the SMSF, and I paid those out of the SMSF account. On the 1st of May I need to send her the account statements for March and April so she can calculate the exact figure that needs to be rolled over into First State Super. Once that's done we can start closing down the SMSF fund and accounts.

28th April, 2024

A cold day today with 5 - 10 mm forecast, which also did not arrive.

I had a busy day inside, vacuuming and mopping, six loads of washing, changed the bed linen and put another batch of apples on, and put on the new lounge covers. They're a soft grey and I'm not sure how they'll hold up to red mud, but they do look nice for now.

Jack is looking well, I tried him on lucerne cubes and he liked them. I'd like to find a supply of them, one of the things I'll be keeping an eye out for at AgFest. Beanie was in standing heat today, there were shenanigans going on with the herd and I was very stern with Jack that he wasn't to get involved until his back was properly healed.

Geoff made pumpkin soup, I think the pumpkin wasn't the fully ripe and in search of flavour he roasted the pumpkin with some sugar and I think it over caramelised. It's edible but has a faintly burned flavour. There is more of the pumpkin left and it might be better made into pumpkin pie. Which I haven't had for absolute ages.

Robyn next door has gone for a cruise trip to New Caledonia, Charlie is feeding the cows for her. I think I might get him to put out a bale of newer hay for me if he has time one afternoon. The cows aren't loving the last couple of bales of old hay and Annie still needs to put on weight for winter.

Thomas is coming for a couple of hours tomorrow and I need to pick a couple of jobs he can help me with that I need two sets of hands for. maybe picking up all the feed tubs and random bits of wood.

27th April, 2024

A cooler day today, it felt a bit like  rain but none was forecast and none arrived. I did a few loads of washing, picked the last of the hops and put another load of apples on to dry. The critters are all well, Jack is nearly back to normal. I think he's holding a grudge for the herding it took to get him up the far end with the others though. I'll have to give him extra scratches to make up.

I went down to the art gallery cafe today and watched Sandra Henderson paint for a couple of hours. I enjoyed chatting to her and she answered all my questions about painting methods and materials. She gave me her business card and said to send me photos of my work when I start doing some art.

 Nearly finished a painting

 The painting she was working on

26th April, 2024

A lovely autumn day, and there were so many people about. Just about every business in town felt that the place went nuts around 11am. For us that continued well into the night. I don't know why so many people, except maybe alot took the Friday off to make a four day weekend with Anzac day.

I bought more stock feed and a block and some chook feed, and then two tickets for AgFest for Aimee and I. Among other things I'm interested in, Tasbuilt Homes is going to have a display. I had bought some lounge covers online and they arrived so I threw them in the wash to put on this weekend.

Jason moved his cows onto the 75 acres, I hope they enjoy the grass that's there. We had a chat about the topography and where water and tracks are and where the mains run under the road. I think he's going to put some tanks up the top to gravity feed troughs. He also said he'd like to build a house there one day and I showed him the two places I'd identified as great house locations.

I picked most of the hops off the middle sized vine and all the ones off the smaller vine. I know the large vine was a Perle, I need to look up the other two because I couldn't find their tags.

25th April, 2024

The cheque cleared on Tuesday and I put the necessary funds into the SMSF fund and paid Siobhan back her loan. Dropped a little more into the BoQ credit card and now I just need Leigh's figures for the last of the work on the block.

That fixes the contravention with the tax office, and the next step is rolling the funds back into First State Super and closing the SMSF. Almost there.

The cows up the far end are happy, Annie's mob are happy, the sheep are happy. We had a big storm Tuesday night, both dogs wanted in and spent the night inside. We got around 30 mm, making the plants very happy. The next day was sunny and calm and there was alot of laying around in the sunshine.

Two eggs per week, probably will be about the standard until spring. I wish there was a good way to preserve eggs like the apples I am drying. The Jensen boys came and mowed and whippersnipped my house and the cottage. I bought more dry feed blocks because they are going through those fast.

Aimee should arrive in Tassie early next week, I am going to AgFest next Friday, and a painting demonstration by my new favourite artist (Sandra Henderson) this Saturday. I have posted some of her works previously in this blog.

Forest Secrets 2

22nd April, 2024

Cold and overcast today. There was a little sprinkle about 3pm, but that was just enough to dampen the washing.

Visited the far end cattle, will be doing that every day. Jack was moving more comfortably, not yet back to normal but somewhat improved.

I took chocolate chip cookies to the sheep with mixed results. Some said yuk and some loved them. I think maybe golden oat biscuits are more universally accepted.

Poppy's tablets arrived and I cut two weeks worth in half to save wrestling with the quite hard tablets each night. I ordered beef flavoured, but flavouring in meds for animals seems to be a bit of a con, the animals seldom agree that it tastes like anything nice.

My bank confirmed that the funds from the sale should be available tomorrow, and that the repayments on the mortgage will be about $650 a month. This is good news, the rent will cover that twice over.

I saw this design on facebook.We have a few of these palecons around the farm and I think this could be a fun use. Goats love to climb. I don't have any goats, yet. But I think I will have a milking goat one day. My sheep might use ground level ones and I can tow them between paddocks.

21st April, 2024

Two lovely classical autumn days, soft and gentle with blue skies.

The fatties seem to be quite happy up the end of the farm. I visit daily with a biscuit for each cow. The calves aren't game to come close to me yet so their mothers end up with their biscuit. They have been using the scratching pad and have plenty to eat.

I am a bit worried about Jack though, he doesn't seem to be comfortable or happy. He's eating and walking and getting up and down ok, but he seems to be stiff. I don't know if he's hurt himself carrying on when someone was in heat, or someone in heat has jumped on him and hurt him. Or even if he's got something like a displaced abomasum or hardware. If he's not improved a little tomorrow I'll get the vet to check on him. Backs take a while to heal, if that's what's wrong.

I put another round bale out for Annie's group, and they seem to be happier with this one. I also gave Star another halter lesson, this time including learning to stand quietly when tied. She is doing so well. Next lesson will be getting brushed while standing. It's also a chance to give her some extra calf muesli, as she's not as fat and round as the calves on their mothers. I think the poor grass this year is setting her back.

I tweaked the loungeroom furniture again, shuffled a few small things around and it looks less like everything is just crammed in and more like deliberate decorating. Looking in the cabinets I think it's probably time we went through the cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs and video tapes to see what is worth keeping.

Only one egg in the last week, I hope I don't have to resort to buying shop eggs. The next lot of hops are ready for picking and it's time to start bandicooting potatoes and jerusalem artichokes.

Finn was barking up a storm overnight, still carrying on in the wee small hours. I went out and looked around for a possum, but the torch showed a tabby cat sitting on the fence just out of Finn's reach. It looked just like Suzie/Shredder so I walked over to say hi, but it shot off at a great rate of knots and when I went inside I saw Suzie was sitting on the hot water tank, so it was an intruder and was obviously the cause of Finn's conniption. At least he was quiet once the cat had bolted off.

I saw a platypus crossing the road on the way home from work. I think it was a platypus because it was low and long, dark on top and light on the bottom and it had little legs windmilling like the clappers. I was worried I might have hit it, so did a u turn and came back, but there was nothing on the road so it made it across safely.

19th April, 2024

Another cool grey day. My fig is having a second crop and I wonder how much sun it needs to ripen. Right now they are going brown but are still hard.

When Geoff went out to work this morning someone had backed into our automatic gates and bent them. I suspect that an RV has gone down the Sledge Track by mistake and tried to do a reverse three point turn in the driveway. They do that about once a fortnight, but this is the first time one has managed to damage the gates. 

I think the hydraulic arms are ok, but we'll have to take the gates off and see if they can be straightened or new ones made. I will ring the insurance company on Monday and see if I can make a claim to offset the cost. 

Geoff thinks we might as well shift the arms so that they are normally closed instead of normally open, that means the hydraulic arm is telescoped so that the smooth metal isn't exposed to the erosion of dust all the time. It will make them last longer. I guess if he's willing to do the work of reconfiguring them I am happy to wait for the process.

18th April, 2024

A cold overcast day, there were a few sprinkles but mainly cold and windy.

I went straight down to the accountant's as soon as I finished breakfast and we started the paperwork for the SMSF finalisation. The bank cheque still hasn't cleared.

From there I went to the chemist and filled a script.  While I was at the chemist I had a free hearing test. I am still mostly in the normal range, there was a slight dip in my left ear, but the tester pointed out that ear was closest to the door and there was a fair bit of noise outside. 

Then over to the vet to pick up Poppy's carprieve script to send to an online pharmacy. This will be about half or less of the price of getting it through the vet, delivery seems to be very quick too. From there round to Siobhan's for a cuppa and catch up.

I took the quad up the far end of the paddock to check on the fatty herd, they are all settled in and using the scratch pad and munching on the lick block. I bought a couple of bags of cheap biscuits to take with me on visits to start getting friendly with the half grown calves, Freya and Zippy. These are choc chip cookies, which is fine because cows can eat chocolate with no issues.

I didn't get any apples into the dehydrator today, but Geoff used it to keep two wine brews warm. We have a kit with yeast and bottle tops with a rubber breather and it makes a basic wine quite quickly using grape juice or cider using apple juice. He had me bring home apple and black currant and I'm not sure what that blend might turn into.

17th April, 2024

Two cool days, rain possible but not eventuating.

Mitre 10 decided to shortcut the warranty process for me and deal with the maker themselves. I dropped off the dud whipper snipper and they gave me a new one. I'd have been happier with a store credit to use on a different make and model, but maybe this one will work ok.

I moved all the fatty mob into the far end of the main paddock to eat down the longer grass there and let the rest of it, that was cut for hay, regrow as best it can before it gets cold. We did about ten laps of the paddock with me behind them on the quad trying to push them up the end. 

I was about to give up when for some reason they all just decided to get with the program and went quietly. I gave them a bale of Scott's grass hay and moved their lick block up under the trees. They have one of the scratchy mats screwed to a tree up there too.

Shadow brought a rat into the house and let it go. In the course of hunting it out we moved both lounges out from the wall and ended up swapping them over and rearranging all the other furniture. It still needs some refinement, and we will have to sort and store some dvds that we haven't used in years, but it will make better use of a very small lounge room.

The money to pay down my mortgage went straight into the mortgage account by EFT. Then for some reason they cut a bank cheque for the balance and walked that down to the branch to put it into the same account. I can't quite figure that one out. And why don't bank cheques clear immediately ? Surely a bank is good for the money .... when that clears I can move the required amount across to the SMSF fund and that will get the tax office off my case.

The SMSF rollover is a complex set of forms and timings and my accountant will guide me through that part. I have to drop in tomorrow and start signing stuff. I am still waiting to get Leigh's figures off him, but will get started in paying back the loan from Siobhan.

Sarge has a sore foot. He has a bad habit of parking himself directly behind my heels when I am working in the kitchen and I often trip over him when I step backwards. Yesterday he managed to get the same foot stepped on twice, quite hard, and he is a bit limpy on it. I feel sorry for him, but I don't think it's broken and it's definitely self inflicted. He didn't learn anything because he still does it.

After letting the cows into the back yard to eat it down, I found they'd rubbed on a tap and left it running all night. The perennial problem with cows is what will the break when they go somewhere new ? You don't need the proverbial bull in the china shop to get bovine chaos.

Star had another halter lesson, and she is learning very quickly. I am very pleased with her progress. We did a lap of the driveway and a bit of grazing on lead and some stopping and starting.

Geoff did an analysis of the power usage of the dehydrator, because it seems like it would be a hungry appliance. He said it takes about $1 of electricity to do a full batch, which is ten apples. That's way cheaper than buying them. I dried a few springs of the lemon licorice mint, and I think I will incorporate that with my pepperberry salt for a seasoning.

Lemon licorice mint.

15th April, 2024

A cold day, windy, scattered clouds moving fast.

Today was the day, finally, that settlement on the 75 acres happened. Finally. There's plenty more paperwork to do with the SMSF, mortgage and other debts, but everything from here on in is just process. Seven years of slog, I've reached the mountain top and it's a steady jog down the other side. I hope.

Today I dropped ten bags of recycling off to the tip, and the old screen from the cameras. That goes into electronic waste. I picked more hops, threw more apples into the dehydrator and folded washing. I let the cows into the back yard to eat the grass down and bought some cinnamon scrolls from the Amish shop.

I hunted eggs too, but either they have gone up a level in their hiding skills or they're off the lay. Alot of them are moulting, might be the end of the run for a while.

Roasted tomatoes

14th April, 2024

Mostly cloudy, even felt like rain for a few hours.

Thomas came over and we brought Jaffa and her group over from the 75 acres. Having faith the settlement will actually happen tomorrow. We also picked some hops, tightened and straightened some fencing and put up five of the six cow scratching mats that I bought off Temu.

Billie left some grape and currant tomatoes in the mailbox along with some egg cartons. I roasted those, and put another batch of apples into the dehydrator. I've already eaten half of the first lot.

My bank has asked if I want to keep the mortgage repayments at the same level and pay the remaining mortgage off faster, or reduce the payments and keep the original term. I asked to reduce the payments. 

The rent can still go straight into the mortgage and offset some interest, but I will have access to the accumulated extra in case of emergencies. If there are no emergencies then it will work the same as paying it off at the higher rate.

I tightened the apple-bonsai again today. For reference, here is the tree before adding the supports.

Once the supports went in

Today after six months of gradual tightening

The post is gradually approaching vertical too...

13th April, 2024

It's been two perfect autumn days. It would be good to get another follow up fall, but there's no rain forecast for the next week.

Yesterday I fueled up the car at the other servo, our usual one being out of commission while they dig out leaky fuel tanks and replace them. We don't have an account with the new one, so I waited until I needed half a tank to make it worth their while writing out a receipt for our taxes. They are asking people to stay in their cars while they pump the petrol as it works out faster now they are handling the traffic of two servos.

Then I shopped around and found another two dry feed blocks, picked up some isopropyl alcohol for Geoff and went to Mitre 10 to check on the whipper snipper. Turns out they couldn't get it going either so sent it home with me to start the warranty process. When I emailed the maker they said I have to initiate the warranty process with the store. I sense this is going to be yet another slog.

Today I got four loads of washing out, rescued the chocolate mint plant that Geoff mistook for a weed, put out the lick blocks and gave Star a halter lesson. She did really well, I managed to put the halter on her and lead her around and change direction all in the first lesson. It helps that she is inclined to follow me anyway.

I did some weeding, and selected a place to put the lovely hot pink geranium. Still haven't decided where to put my jasmine. I trimmed a dead branch off the daphne and tidied up the red lantern tree, doesn't sound like much but I haven't done much besides water for a long time. Having become inspired I went down and picked a yoghurt bucket of hop flowers and hung them up to dry.

This evening I got out some colour pencils and a sketching pad and played around making patterns for half an hour, just getting my creativity in shape for setting up in the craft room. Geoff cooked a roast chicken as a test run for cooking one of Arfur's ducks, he wanted to see if the oven was working properly. It seems to be, so some time next week we will be ducking.

I picked a dozen apples, ran them through the apple-izer and put them in the dehydrator. They are reasonably thick slices so I think they will take about 12 hours to dry. I've been pinching some every time I walk through the kitchen as they are delicious. These are king david apples, a cider variety.

11th April, 2024

Sun, cloud, breeze, no rain.

Annie isn't loving the round bale I put out, nor is she hooking into the small square I gave her a biscuit of either. She wants grass, which we don't really have at the moment. Should I go and get another small square of lucerne from Scott Auton ?

Back at work tonight, probably shouldn't have. Will take it easy for the next few shifts.

I had worked out a plan for tackling the barley grass with the agronomist. Starting with spraying the newly emerged grass in July. Looks like it's germinating now, after that 30mm of rain. I don't know how farmers who have to make a living from seeding and planting ever figure it out.

I was hoping to have started dehydrating apples by now, but whatever bug I have is really sapping my energy and I'm just getting through the basics each day.

10th April, 2024

Another day off work with the head cold, a lovely autumn day. I started up the watering rotation again but as plants and trees shut down and start losing leaves I will stretch it out. I think I will harvest some of the hops this weekend.

I was going to bring Jaffa, Sorcha, Freya, Zippy and Jack back over to the 25, but I will wait til settlement happens.

Geoff cut up half of Pete's pumpkin and roasted that, ready for making pumpkin soup. He tried roasting the seeds, but Pete had picked the pumpkin too young and they had no meat.

My solicitor rang at the end of the afternoon and let me know that my bank had refused to fast track a settlement booking so we are stuck with another attempt next Monday.  Thanks for nothing BoQ. So, I will wait and see.

9th April, 2024

Yesterday was mizzly and overcast and today was sunny with a light breeze and a few clouds. Total fall for this round is 9mm.

Yesterday I had a haircut and went to a sheep EID (electronic identification device) seminar. From 1 Jan 25 electronic tags will be compulsory for any sheep leaving the farm. A bit like the cattle tags but a different shape. Cattle tags are big buttons and sheep tags are like a folded slip of plastic. 

I don't have a problem with electronic tags, I audit my cattle tags every six months and keep good records, so the change for sheep isn't a problem for me, I just needed to know the new rules. There are some rebates for the cost of the new tags for the first two years as well. 

After the seminar I slipped into the supermarket and picked up a few things to add to dinner and a whole lot of dog food.

Today I took the sheep into the shearing shed and trimmed a few feet. Ideally I should do every foot on all seven sheep, but the drama and waily waily about having a foot picked up was a bit much for me today (I have a deep head cold) so I just did the worst feet, called them all ridiculous over actors, gave them a snack and moved them back to the hops paddock.

Today was to be the settlement day for the sale of the 75 acre section to Jason. It didn't happen because his bank didn't get the funds to the solicitor in time, despite him paying an extra fee for it to be an immediate transfer instead of overnight. We are now waiting for the solicitor to book a new settlement date with both banks. I am more than a little pissed off about it, but there is nothing Jason or I can or need to do, the funds are now in place and it's (supposedly) just a matter of getting the settlement booked asap.

7th April, 2024

A relatively cool and overcast one, 8.5mm of rain overnight. I have washing on the line, which just about guaranteed that it would be damp.

I brought Annie, Abe, Belle, Moose, Beanie, Selkie, Joey, Flora and Star back over. I split Belle, Beanie, Flora, Selkie and Moose off into the main paddock and the rest, the ones needing supplementary feed, into the barnyard/piggery/sheep shelter paddocks. I will pop Flora in with them tomorrow.

Thomas overslept and didn't show up. Charlie did drop by and helped me fix the hay forks on the tractor properly. I put out a round bale for Annie's crew, and put air in one of the tractor's front tyres that was looking rather flat. Charlie took five bales of the old small bale hay for his calves, it's getting close to mulch, but cattle still seem to fancy it. He also dropped Pete's ladder back to him for me.

I counted all fourteen chooks today, I was beginning to wonder if we were one short. There's only three laying, I suspect some are past it and others are moulting.

We made home made hamburgers for dinner, with square bed toast. The edges of the toast always end up hard and scratch up my mouth, but they never do when I just have jam on toast or vegemite on toast.

A photo of the sheep eating apples

6th April, 2024

A couple of cloudy days and some sporadic showers today. The forecast of 10-20mm faded as the weekend approached, but even some rain falling is better than the last rain evaporating.

Things are still on track for settlement on the 9th, Tuesday coming. I need to make plans for which paddocks my cows and sheep will go into, what they will be fed and who will be in each group. This is where the drought and approaching winter gets pointy for me. I've been lucky so far, and haven't had to use much of the hay yet. 

I also need to double check if there are any items left over on the 75 that need to come back. Leigh still have some irrigation pipe and shed building stuff and one calf. I don't think Jason will lock the gate on him at midnight Tuesday, but he probably should get sorted.

I have picked all the apples off the cider trees (except the king david) and they are in tubs ready to feed to the stock. I had a loan of Pete's fancy ladder, with a really wide base and three legged setup, which is very stable.

I dropped into the open day at the new tiny home complex on King Street to check out the level of finish and space inside. They're pretty good, bigger than a bed sit. I think they've missed an opportunity to be really innovative in the fittings and storage, but I have been watching a series on building custom tiny houses that emphasises creative solutions. 

They'll be a good option for people who don't accumulate alot of stuff, or who need somewhere to be on regular visits to the area for work. Either way, they're not filling regular housing stock and have probably freed up a dozen other homes for families.

I also tried for the second time to bank a cheque received in payment for electrical work, but my old card had expired so the atm ate it on my first attempt and wouldn't let me use the new card because it hadn't been activated. The online system came up with "technical issues" when I tried to activate it online and then when I went into the branch the teller couldn't bank the cheque because the card hadn't been activated and couldn't activate the card because the manager had the electronic signing pad and was in a meeting. Remind me again about all this wonderful technology that is making branches obsolete ??

I took yesterday off because I was feeling a bit under the weather. A combination of being tired and having a cold. I worked tonight because I feel a bit better, but I would really like to retire, at least from Woolies. I think I am all peopled out. It was a relatively quiet night for once, a nice change.

Daylight savings ends tonight.

4th April 2024

We had a forecast of heavy rain and wind so I moved the sheep from the hops paddock back out to the main paddock where they have the big shelter. They have shelter in the hops paddock, but they won't use it. As it was we got about an inch overnight, soft and steady with no runoff, so they were pleased to be under cover.

All in all the fall was 30mm, and there is a tinge of green on the paddocks already. Hopefully there will be followup rain this weekend.

I did a short shift on Monday, which I was reluctant to take for a few reasons. One being I had planned Monday as a day of rest, another being that I hate day shifts, and another being that it would make five shifts for this week when I was already tired. But it was only three hours and it was at public holiday rates, so I put my hand up.

Pauline mentioned she might give me a few extra shifts in online. Not that keen for extra shifts, but the more work I do online the higher the chance I can do more of that and less checkout. I won't be chasing other jobs until after Aimee's visit as it won't be practical to take May off if I am starting a new job.

Annie is still marching across for breakfast, but looking at the mud on her udder I am wondering if Abe has weaned himself or if she has dried up following the mastitis. The mud on her teats is there every morning so I don't know if she's adding more each day or Abe hasn't been sucking. She's thin enough after being sick that if she is drying off it won't hurt her to be dry, but I'd better get on with getting her bred.

Settlement is still on track for the 9th, five days away. As far as I know all the paperwork is done and it's just a matter of the solicitors getting together on the day and putting a cheque in my bank.

I have spent a little more money than I should have, but bought a small dehydrator after my last one finally died of old age. I am going to dry all the king david apples, now that I have a corer/peeler/chopper machine to use it will be alot faster. I freeze in ziplock bags and enjoy the dried apples as a snack for the rest of the year. 

I also want to use some of the herbs I have growing to make seasonings and rubs. I have a "lemon and aniseed mint" that would be awesome with lamb. It looks more like oregano than a mint, but it could be a crossbred with lemon balm too.