10th March, 2024

Hot and steamy, top of 30 I think, not pleasant anyway. The few spots of rain did nothing but increase the relative humidity from 94% to 97%.

I finished clipping the 240V fence and connected it all up to power. There is some evidence of the cattle leaning on it to get at the soak grass, so the connection is just in time.

I picked two buckets of apples for the cattle, interrupted by the discovery of a large huntsman wanting to claim a bucket for a house. I used a branch to gently flick it off then ran the other way with my buckets. I am happy to let them live, but I like a good separation between me and them.

I finished the cider irrigation line and put that on, that and the orchard ones will save quite alot of time. There's a sprinkler on each tree so they will get water directly to their roots.

Geoff and I (and the cats and dogs, and probably the chooks, cows and sheep) had a nap in the hottest part of the day and then cool showers before going to Derby for dinner with Shane and Juliet. 

The restaurant was under new management and appears to be struggling with organisation. The entrees came out at the same time as the first two meals. Those two mains were finished by the time the last main came out, the chilli con carne was minus the chilli, and they messed up the drinks order. We went across the road to the Hub for dessert, nutella and strawberry calzones, and they showed the difference experience makes in customer service.

Setting up the irrigation run at the ciders

9th March, 2024

The forecast was for heatwave conditions, but by midday the temps had only reached 20 and there was sea fog and mizzle. By 4pm it had cleared and cranked up to 28. No wonder the plants are confused.

I separated Gizmo from Belle's herd and after breakfast put a halter on Annie and led him and her (as she is his mother) up the lane to Robyn's. Annie was keen for an adventure and pulled me all the way. We popped one of Robyn's tags in Gizmo as he had lost the one I put in him, and let him in with her herd of beefies. He will go with 20 odd of her stock on Wednesday and the proceeds will pay off some more debts.

Annie was just as keen to walk home at a fair clip so Robyn gave me a lift back behind her, saving me quite a slog. I tidied up the bale Annie's group have access to, it's behind a barrier so there is little waste, and moved Belle's group's dry feed block up by the water trough.

I had a good nap in the early afternoon and then started the fence clipping. The electric fence is off so as not to spark a fire, but it's so dry the cows will be pushing through it into the soak area soon. So I will have to clip the grass off the fence and turn it back on asap. I've done about half of the section powered by the 240V energiser, hopefully to finish that section tomorrow. 

We had a nice glass of wine as the sun went down, sitting at the new outdoor table. The cats think it's a great place to loll about too. I found another nest in the hayshed, not too many eggs so still fresh. I put some fake eggs in that to keep them laying there now that I know where it is.

My new wind chimes

8th March, 2024

I lashed out and bought the fittings for the cider irrigation and laid out the pipe ready for the spray heads. I also bought a bag of hose clamps and clamped all the irrigation lines, as some were popping. This should make the watering more predictable. I also bought cydectin pour on for the calves and I'll give that to them this weekend.

I figured it was a good day for waste management and emptied all the bins and recycling and put more cardboard down in the storage shed for when the fire ban lifts. Presumably after rain.

We slipped up to Bridport in the early afternoon and had afternoon tea with Barb and George. They are having a garage sale this weekend and we came home with a few items, including a boot puller onner for Geoff and a set of wind chimes for me.

We stopped in at Little Rivers for a couple of drinks with Pete before heading home for semi-home made pizza. This is when I take a base pizza like a cheese and spinach and add all the other interesting items. Then Geoff went up to Jason's to continue work on a 3 phase power point.

I sent my resume and references to the Tasmanian Farm Innovation Hub, and I think next will be the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture.

This is the outdoor setting Pete passed on to us. It was there when he bought Willow Lodge and possibly there when Dean and Ross bought the place. I suspect it once had two bench seats and the two short ones were for the ends. I might pick up another bench seat somewhere, perhaps the tip shop.

7th March, 2024

Forecast for 23 today, felt warmer because there wasn't much of a breeze.

I am working on extending my irrigation system so all I have to do is turn taps on and not spend too much time dragging hoses around that may or may not be the one that's long enough for a given situation.

The hops and silver birch now have hoses that are allocated just to them. I need to do one for the vege garden. The fig has its own, bottlebrush has its own. It's really the orchard and cider apples that need extension. 

I added more hose to the orchard one so that it can water both rows in one go. Next to create a loop for the cider apples to do the same. That will save damaging them and the sprayers by dragging them around the farm. I have to remember to get hose clamps, the fluctuating water pressure can pop the connections and end up not watering the plants and giving a square meter of grass a flood irrigation.

We headed over to Pete's at about 4pm to help him move some furniture around. Wine and nibbles afterwards and we came home with an outdoor setting. Nowhere really shady to put it, but it has a lovely big table and we can entertain outside in good weather.

Here's an idea for garden decorations, chicken mesh ghost figures. Remember you can click on the picture to make it bigger.

6th March, 2024

It was slated to be a hot one and did eventually get there. It's so dry for Tasmania. Robyn next door will be drying her cows off early because she has no more irrigation water for the pastures and it's green grass that makes milk. I have seen the same with Annie, she has plummeted from five litres surplus each day to none at all. So I am just feeding her in the bale to keep condition on her.

I put out the new dry feed block and the cows hit that immediately. They also enjoyed a couple of buckets of apples. I think I have two weeks of apples left and then the trees will be starting to dry leaves out ready for autumn. I picked up more chaff, if it goes another week without rain I will stockpile Annie's feed and pellets for the calves and feed will get hard to source.

Robyn and I went to dry cow seminar in Derby, where there were lectures, a meal and some games. I came top of the quiz and won a canister of dectomax along with the kit to use it. I don't use injectible wormers on the cattle so I gave that to Shaelyn and her family to use as Robyn already has a canister.  There were also a couple of different padded satchels, one of which is the perfect size for my smart phone and one which has a heap of pockets like an apron. I'll think of a use for that. And a cap. In summer ag prizes include caps and in winter it's beanies. I give the caps to Geoff and I keep the beanies.

Here's some of my small squares loaded on the carryall ready to move.

And all 30 stowed safely in the hay shed. A shed full of hay makes a farmer feel more wealthy than a wallet full of notes.

5th March, 2024

A bit of a warm day, no rain in sight.

I headed off for Launceston right after breakfast. With Annie having no milk for me it's no longer important to get her milked out at any particular time. My appointment was at 10.45 am but I had to leave some extra time for road works.

So, they did an echo cardiogram and a sonogram before I exercised, then had me walk on a treadmill at increasing slope and speed until my heart reached 141 beats per minute then did the ECG and sonogram again. The results are that there are no leaks, no valve problems, no sign of any artery clogging and the heart seems to be just fine. So I can go ahead and get into some more intense exercise without worrying about dropping dead.

After the test I went to a few electronics shops to find a new phone for Geoff, as his old one is 3G and won't be any good after the end of June. He has a tradie phone, which has a tough rubbery case. That style of phone is long gone, the closest I could find is an Opel Rugged for $269, which is pretty cheap for a phone these days.

Then I browsed cat trees, picked up some dog food and some dog treats before going to Bunnings to buy a hose and look for copper flashing for Geoff. They didn't have any, so he'll have to get some copper sheet from Rankin & Bond. Then I went to Blue for lunch, it's changed menus and was pretty disappointing. This seems to happen to me alot. Back to Pierre's for lunch next time. Then I dropped some returns off the AWM, the electrical supplier, and went home.

I guess all the exercise and shopping wore me out as I had a cuppa and a nap before feeding Annie and the calves and milking out about a litre of milk. I took the opportunity to split Annie and Abe and the calves back into the barnyard with the hay bale and will get Flora in tomorrow. With fewer teeth Flora needs free access to easy food and is an adult cow for company for Annie. Handed out apples and fed the chooks and then spent the evening working my way through emails that needed action or noting.

The farm (and the whole district) is looking very dry. King Island, which we think of as being wet and windy, is now drought declared. I skipped watering today but will pick up the rotation tomorrow. I picked some tomatoes from the bushes in the raised beds, finally.

4th March, 2024

The wind finally died and the temperature is lovely. If it wasn't so dry it would be a perfect day.

This is the first day of my week off, which is supposed to be on sick leave as the dr gave me a certificate to try and rest my foot. For some reason woolies put it through as annual leave despite the certificate. It would be nice not to have some complication to fight every time I ask for something not routine.

I tested Bessie to see if she would start and she did, so I unhitched the hay forks and hitched up the carryall (yay me !) and shifted the hay into the hayshed six bales at a time. Much easier than taking them one at a time over uneven ground on a removalist trolley. These will be used on occasions when I have one or two cows needing supplement but not enough to get out a round bale.

I fueled the car and picked up a dry feed block for the cattle. There's still no muesli, so Annie is getting golden oat biscuits as her treat. There's no real point in milking with Gizmo in with her, I got enough milk for a glass with breakfast. The spare milk from a few days ago that I set to clabbering for the chickens is done and I served up a big bowl of it for them. They'll eat that over the next couple of days.

With the grass mowed I am picking up a whole lot of fallen apples to give the cows, leaving the ones on the trees as they will stay fresh. I fed two buckets out and then filled another two buckets ready for tomorrow as I am off to Launceston for my heart stress test.

3rd March, 2024

Aaarrrgghhh ! The wind ! Not particularly hot but the wind was strong enough to tear a sheet of roof off the silver shack at the back of the house.

Charlie dropped around with Bruce to pick up another bale of silage and put one out for me while he was at it. I combined all the sheep and cattle that were on the 25 acres and let them all at the bale. The sheep were pretty "meh" about it, but the cattle hooked right in.

I gave the calves another feed of mixed milk and pellets, and this time Star dived in and Joey got all waily waily because I wouldn't shovel it into his mouth.

Scott Auton dropped off 30 small bales of this years hay, which I will move into the hayshed tomorrow.

I did a three hour shift at work, supposed to be training with online. Tyler figured out that if I worked there he'd be finished too early and have to go help out on the front end so he told me I wasn't needed and I did the rest of the shift on front end. I did manage to do the computer training for online, which really consisted of a cartoon figure saying try not to tip the trolley over for five minutes. The only worthwhile part of the shift was that it was at double pay.

The hops have yielded quite well this year. I need to put on another batch of fertiliser before they start to dry off so that they go into winter with good reserves in the roots. I need to look up some more recipes or uses for green and dried hops.

2nd March, 2024

Another busy few days. No rain, hot and cold, plenty of wind. Keeping the water up, hate to see the Tas Water bill at the end of the quarter but trees take a while to grow and it's better to keep them alive.

I've been taking 5 litres a day from Annie, with the back quarters varying quite considerably. I have a bucket turning into clabber for the chickens and I poured 5 litres in with the calves pellets and chaff today. I had to milk at 12.30pm as I had a shift from 9am to 12pm. The calves were horrified at first, the liquid not being how pellets are supposed to feel. But some face stuffing got Joey eating the mash, and he's as close to a rock in intellect as I have seen in a calf. Star wasn't having a bar of it, but hopefully she'll come around watching him eat.

I found an egg cache right next to the feeding area for the chooks. The cows have eaten that corner down because it's a bit greener thanks to the grey water channel from the house, revealing a spot that I didn't even see. Those eggs were too iffy even for the dogs, so I took them down the paddock for the crows, if they want them.

I went to a climate change seminar at Winnaleah on Wednesday night that was focussed on northeast Tasmania. It was very interesting and gave me alot to think about with preparing the farm to become 25 acres and sustainable into the future. Specifically there is likely to be less winter rain and more summer rain, in more intense falls. This means I should be taking steps to slow the flow of rain across the landscape and retain it on the farm long enough to soak in properly. I might need to put in a few contour banks.

I think Poppy's tablets are starting to work, she's getting out and about more and seems a little less stiff.

Beanie's calf, Selkie, managed to get in with Annie's group somehow, so I shifted Beanie in with them for the night and then worked the two of them back out the next day. This ended up with all Annies group bouncing around in the hay shed and I had to do some roaring and hay fork waving to get them all out.

I hadn't seen my cows over on the 75 acres for 48 hours so I took the quad and went looking for them. Turns out Leigh had closed them into the bottom dam pasture when he wanted to bring his calves up for marking and hadn't let them out. They had food, water and shade but checking on them meant either a long walk or a quad ride as opposed to seeing them at the water troughs at the top of the hill every day. So I let them out and made a note to check if I don't lay eyes on them every day.

Charlie came around today and hung the gates in the ranch gateway and the boat shed. It's great seeing some progress around the place. Brad Hill came and mowed all the driveway with the zero turn mower and it's all tidy and clean now. The Jensen boys came and mowed the front and back yard and did some of Calab's too.

The ciders, and Sarge

 

 The circle

The orchard

The front yard

27th February, 2024

A pleasant day with a cool start. Mostly overcast.

I milked 5 litres again and the fridge is full. I will have to start finding other ways to use it. Not enough to use the machine, only enough to frustrate the calves, the chooks and dogs will have to step up to the mark. Chooks can only drink a certain amount of liquid milk, but if you clabber it (which is a sort of self starting yoghurt) they can use heaps of it.

Elders didn't have any calf muesli, so there are going to be some disappointed cows for the next few days. Time to stock up on bagged feeds as the dry continues feed will be harder to get.

The snake hasn't been back in the water trough since my surprise, I will continue to check.

I picked up the carprieve for Poppy and gave her the first dose. I think it made a difference already even though the vet said it might take up to a week to kick in.