13th October, 2024

Another sunny day with a mild breeze. By the late evening it was as still as anything, and felt quite comfortable, though when I breathed out I could see my breath, which suggests it's cold. The weather thingy says it's 8 degrees, but it feels nice.

Today I sprayed the driveway to try and reclaim some of the gravel back from the grass. Gray did some more on the silo steps and then we hooked in and did the back of the chook house. We pulled off all the old timber and replaced noggins where they had rotted out.

Charlie dropped by and returned the Waybill book and the three ear tags he was going to use for his steers as he's decided to keep them for a while longer. We did get most of his application for a PIC done, so he will be able to order his own Waybill book and ear tags soon. 

Another day on the hops paddock for the cows, they are very keen to go in and not keen to come out at the end of the day. There is maybe one or two more days grazing there, then I will have to look closely at what grass is available and perhaps open up some of the main paddock again, pending fertiliser delivery.

I cleaned the silo out for storage, but getting into it has been a matter of climbing a folding step ladder while balancing a storage tub and trying to climb under the band of steel that crosses the doorway to hold the round silo together. This will solve at least the climbing part and once we can access the silo properly we might be able to move the band to a better position. The first section of the silo steps.

The left hand side of the chook house was done a few years ago. The two halves are the same size, so I was able to count the palings and battens on that side to know how many to order for this round. There's enough to do the southern end as well, but that's been protected from the sun and the weather so we may not do that this time and do something else more urgent. This is after we've stripped the old timber off the back.

I found a dead feral cat in the driveway this morning, a big black tomcat. While I feel sad for the cat, he would have caused a few problems if he'd settled in, not least of them being that Sarge can't defend himself with no teeth and would have been a target for being bashed up. I think Finn must have killed him and it shows that he differentiates between the resident cats that he knows should be here, and strangers.

Tomorrow I will ring around the ag warehouse places to see who has 8 foot gates at what price, Gray may be able to dig the holes and set the new gate posts in ready if I can have the gates there to measure from. Geoff should then be able to hang the gates and program them. But I think it's going to be a special order and the work will be on the list for the next visit.

12th October, 2024

We've had some sunny days and some windy days, a series of fronts crossing the state.

I managed to kill a very nice boronia and a small jasmine somehow. I am not sure if it was water deprivation or the repeated chills (which the saffron and mulberry aren't loving either), but I am pretty sure both are toast. Same with the passionfruit. I guess I just keep planting things and those that survive are what I plant more of.

We also lost a chicken, old age I think, as many of the chooks have been here as long as I have.

I've had a few days off work with a bug, coinciding with me telling Janice I was resigning after a particularly difficult shift. There has been some confusion and I had to tell them I wasn't actually resigning (yet). I did lodge another two job applications though, so hopefully it's just a matter of time.

I put in one for part time work at a rural supplies store, Muir's, and one for work-from-home doing proof reading. No word on Elders or the Council yet.

Brad Hill and his team came and mowed and whippersnipped the driveway and Calab's garden, we can only hope that the next time it needs doing Geoff will be on his own zero turn mower and they will just go around with the whipper snipper. Hah.

Leigh brought his sheep over for shearing and broke the "long gut" in his shearing machine. That's the core of the machine that spins around and makes the shears cut. He also managed to leave a gate ajar and the cows all escaped down the Sledge Track and Jason had to bring them back up. They had a ball on their adventure but it could have had a bad outcome so I gave Leigh a lecture and will get a padlock and chain for the two road gates that aren't used regularly so that if someone needs to use them they will have to ask me for the key and I will therefore know to check them.

Gray is here for a couple of days doing odd jobs around the place. Today he repaired and put back up the cap from Calab's chimney, helped Geoff prune two apple trees, tied some wire back on the hop paddock fence posts, ran the cable for the internet into my craft room, and started work on the steps for the silo. 

Oh, and we figured out how to redo the automatic gate so that the arms are closed when the gate is closed instead of extended when the gate is closed, which will protect the arms more. With this worked out I can now order two gate posts and two eight foot gates and we will put new ones in. I will use the old seven foot ones around the farm.

We had another aurora display, not quite as dramatic as the last one, but still pretty awesome. I will put pictures up when I can get them off the phone.

The washing machine is playing up. I pulled all the removable parts out and cleaned them and put them all back together and it completed a cycle. I'll put another one on tomorrow and see if it's going to be an intermittent fault or my good clean out has solved the problem.

This is Beanie on the left and Annie on the right. Both are nursing calves at the moment so they get a little extra feed as the grass is still not coming on like it should. Belle is giving milk for the house and Tiddy is nice and fat. Sorcha and little Mato are doing well too.

I let the herd into the hops paddock today for half the day, it has knee length grass and they enjoyed the feast after having to work hard in the main paddock. I will give them that every second day and we might get a few grazes out of it. If the grass doesn't take off soon I will have to feed out my last six rounds, and then ask Robyn or Jason to rent a small area of grass. Surely proper spring has to arrive soon ?

6th October, 2024

Ok, weather-wise we've had one or two of just about every weather possible for this time of year. The two nice days were welcomed by everyone, especially the livestock.

The sheep have all stopped limping, so the antibiotic shot was able to treat their foot scald. Pickle is eating well and looks happier with that tooth out. The two calves haven't looked back, so the painkiller and local anesthetic worked well for them.

Jaffa is due soon, but hasn't really bagged up yet. She's pretty over the whole thing, she does get quite big in late pregnancy. 

The pet food butcher came and did Flora on Friday. He was very kind and gentle about it, he has pet cows too. He has a trailer with a winch so that I didn't need to borrow Robyn's tractor, Bruce, to load her body. He offered me $50, but since he came all the way from Launceston for one small cow and was very patient and kind I said I was happy to call it even. The only animals left that came from Dubbo are Poppy (maremma dog) and Jack (lowline steer).

Flora

No further word on the Council or Elders jobs. The sound of crickets chirping and tumbleweeds tumbling with regard to the loan for the mower.

Service Tas called and advised they'd like to appoint me, as I'd scored highest of all the applicants, but they couldn't find any way around the training at Hobart. Was I really, really sure it would be a problem ? Yes, it still was. They said they would definitely like to have me as I interviewed really well and "had an air of maturity". Which made me wonder what the rest of their applicants were like ! So in the end they said they'd contact me again before their next intake in February in case either my distance issues or their inability to train over the net had changed.

Jason came and looked at the herd, with Brax, his older son, tagging along. Brax and Joey had a good cuddle and Jason decided that as well as Freya and Zippy, he'd take Moose and Joey too, and maybe keep Joey as a companion for Billie's pet deer. That's four taken care of. Still no idea what I am going to do with Star.

Had the dinner at Launceston, at Stillwater restaurant. A place that would normally be outside my budget. It was a four course meal, absolutely delicious ! I bought Matthew Evans' books "On Eating Meat" and "Milk" and I'm six chapters in to the first one already. 

 

The view from the restaurant, the building right across the river is the Peppers Silo hotel, built in giant renovated grain silos.

I stayed the night at a pub in Launnie, small basic room with a bathroom down the corridor. But not a shared bathroom, each of the rooms had an individual bathroom in a row of bathrooms, with a shower, vanity and toilet in each one. Unusual arrangement, but it was all clean and fresh.

The corridor of bathrooms

My bathroom, toilet is tucked beside the shower

 

 

The bed, with a bar fridge bedside table

 

 

The rest of the bedroom 

The view from the pub room

While I was in Launceston I finalised my will, and bought a new mobile phone and a set of drinking glasses, unrelated purchases.

The electric rat trap I ordered online arrived and I've set that in the dairy. It spent a while not working because we had a power outage caused by a pole fire on the other side of Scottsdale. The power went back on about three minutes after Geoff got home from work and connected the generator up to the house. It's always the way. He's going to put an inlet point in the switchboard so the genny can power the house through that rather than running extension cords.

Belle's milk has been a little salty lately, and as I have plenty in the fridge I've been giving it directly to the dogs and chooks. The chooks are now laying enough eggs to supply us and some friends, they are getting plenty of protein and calcium.

Charlie borrowed some ear tags and the cattle waybill book, we are going to get him organised with his own PIC asap. Anyone with livestock has to have a PIC to buy and sell, so now that he is landed gentry he will have to get one.

The rubbish pickup once a month is working well, I put the bins out by the mailbox and he comes and empties them and leaves an invoice for however many bins I put out. I make sure they're nice and full with silage wrap and bale net, it'll take a while to get rid of all that but it's better than sending half empty bins.