6th September, 2024

We survived the polar cyclone with only one sheet of tin off the chook house roof, the paling fence over at the other cottage blowing over, and the glass in the doors. We were very lucky and didn't lose power. Some areas are going to be at least next week before getting power back. 

It's been raining most of the time since, though I did get one day of sun and breeze and worked like a navvy getting the washing done and dry. Not sure how that's going to work this weekend though, it's forecast to be dismal.

I got word that I didn't get the Contact Centre job with Service Tas. This is the one out of all the public service jobs I applied for that I really wanted. A little despondent about that, but it is what it is. I thought the interview went well, particularly the role play customer service phone call, but I will call next week and find out where I went wrong.

I'm wading through the documentation for the loan extension for the ride on mower, hopefully that will be finished early next week, maybe even ending with the funding before the end of the week. At least the water line in the dairy was a quick fix, there was enough slack to cut the chewed section off and just move the joiner down a bit. I greased up the whole line with vicks, not only will it be hard for rodents to walk on now, the eucalyptus smell will be a deterrent.

The animals are still all camping in shelter and venturing out only for hay. Flora, the 18 year old lowline cow, is in with the sheep because she got knocked over at the bale ring this week. She's in two minds about this, as she prefers to be with the cow herd, but she's enjoying easy access to a round bale and a pile of straw in the hayshed for a bed.

I rearranged the hayshed, dividing it in two and giving the sheep and Flora one half and their own bale and keeping the other half for the remaining rounds, grass squares and straw. They were knocking the piles over when they had access to the lot. It was a big effort, lots of fancy work with Bessie the tractor and dragging some big gates around to form barriers. Most chuffed with myself.

I also shifted a pile of fencing and Leigh's harrows away from the truck loading ramp, where they'd been dumped (not by me !) so that I can access that with the tractor now and load stuff onto a ute if required. There's no point having a good loading ramp blocked up with random stuff.

The dishwasher stopped working, so I pulled out all the bits I could and cleaned them and put it back together and it worked. Not sure what the issue was, I suspect it had more to do with low water pressure than anything I did, as the mains were quite low in pressure over the weekend.

I'm getting 10 litres a day from Belle, just milking the back quarters and leaving the front ones for Tiddy. I've dug out my recipes for dulce de leche (like caramel but from milk), mozzarella and haloumi, but so far I've only had time to make three batches of yoghurt.

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