30th October, 2023

Back to rainy spring, and according to the dogs, there was a thunderstorm out there somewhere. There's snow in the central highlands and the wind is coming straight off that.

Finn has developed an aversion to the back steps. They are tiled and relatively slippery, and it's possible he did slip on the way down (he's perfectly happy to go up) and hurt himself and now he's scared to go down. He did have a day or two of needing convincing to go down the one step out the front door, but we had a discussion about having to get out of the house sooner or later, one way or another.

We made another curry with a marked down roast pork from Woolies. It goes really well in the rich coconut milk curries, toss in a heap of veges and squirt of lime juice and a little yoghurt and it's a lovely meal.

It's Aimee's 30th birthday today. I remember holding her in my lap as a days old baby.

As Sarge isn't very efficient with his cleaning I've instituted a wipe down each evening to help clean his coat. He's alot more tolerant of that than a weekly bath and is dry and comfortable alot sooner.

While I was out thistle spraying I walked the fenced off soak area. The trees we planted as 20cm high seedlings are now well established and starting to flower at the moment. Many of them are on the spiky side and make great nesting places for native birds.

Many small glades are among the trees, kept open by wallabies. These glades are protected from the wind and are lovely sun traps.

29th October, 2023

Another lovely day, and a very productive one. After doing all the basics I went and checked on all the stock, everyone is in good condition and enjoying the sunshine.

I weeded the side garden and collected calendula seeds to scatter. Then I brought the mower up and mowed the left half and nearly all of the right half of the front garden. It looks heaps better mowed, and now I can find the edges of the gardens to get in and weed the front beds.

A couple of loads of washing in and out, most of the house cleaning done yesterday with the cleaner, and some admin done.

I also took the sprayer out and walked a couple of paddocks looking for thistles. I have one more to do and a plastic tree guard to cut off a tree, and a fence to move. It's good to get out and walk and look at things close up.

28th October, 2023

I didn't get much sleep last night. My head wasn't slowing down, even by 2am. A glass of wine sometimes help sleep, but it does bring on hot flashes. I think I am going to try proper kava and see if that does the job for the once a monthish that I need to wind my mind down, without triggering the hot flashes.

Leigh finished shearing his sheep, a slow job when he's doing himself. Somehow he managed to let them get out into the piggery paddock and then spent half an hour trying to chase them back into the yards before calling Siobhan and the kids to help. Then back on the truck and back to their paddock on the other side of Scottsdale. 

The automatic gates were very slow opening, so investigations found that Leigh had turned the power for the shearing shed off at the wall in the dairy, which threw the gates back on battery power. Switched on they were back to full speed. I probably need to move the plugs around so that one stays on.

We had a lovely dinner with Warwick & Teena at their farm on the other side of Scottsdale. They run a few sheep and cattle and have two very large dogs, cane corso, a huge mastiff breed from Italy,

27th October, 2023

I was greeted by half a starling when I got up. Someone obviously decided to snack before breakfast and left the rest for the silly humans who can't catch their own food.

I came home from a trip into Scottsdale to hear sheep baaing as I paused at the gate. Where are my sheep now ? What are they doing ? Then I heard a lamb baa and I realised Leigh had put his sheep in the shearing shed to clear out for shearing. I poked my head in and saw the new ram, a young fella with a friendly eye, unlike old Jack, who lived to be a jerk.

The calves are now on 450g of powder in 3 litres of water until the powder runs out. They are eating enough muesli and there is enough protein in the grass to wean them off the milk now.

I went out with the spray pack and tagged all the thistles in the first part of the main paddock around cowmahal. They were variegated thistle and already flowering. Probably need to do a quick walk around and check the rest of the paddocks.

Little Moo is now scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Work was madly busy, it bodes ill for the run up to Christmas as it's not going to get any quieter.

26th October, 2023

O lovely day ! Yes, a slightly excessively breezy day, but there was abundant sun. And apparently snow at Cradle Mountain, which explains the icy edge to that breeze.

Did the basics, a heap of admin, and sprayed some thistles.

The new Thai restaurant at Anabel's opens on Saturday, woo hoo !

25th October, 2023

Cold day today, that wind is coming off snow somewhere.

I went down to top up the calve's muesli and it was almost empty. I hope it's been the calves getting into it and not the chickens or some possum. Lots of eggs, either they're picking up or it's been a few more days than I thought since I collected them.

I took a load of recycling to the tip, picked up some medication, hamburgers from the new cafe for lunch and some interesting wines from the local bottle shop. And helped Rob Taylor rescue a cat that had managed to get his toes caught in the cage of a fan.

After being held up closing the supermarket by a recalcitrant customer, it was nice to come home to a lovely massaman curry that Geoff made with the leftovers of a pork roast.

24th October, 2023

An early-ish morning to get things done before heading off to Lilydale to visit a robotic dairy with the Legendairy Ladies. It was really interesting, especially the cow behaviour parts of the discussion.

 Three robots with cows inside and waiting

 A cow being milked

A three way gate, depending on the cow (as identified by an electronic tag on her collar) the gate will open in a different direction to send her into the milking area or off to other paddocks, or to a holding pen.

Weather was crappy, windy as heck and spattery And it got steadily worse over the day. It's like nature held out yesterday and said "See this lovely warm sunny weather ?" and then yanked it back and said "Well you can't have it !".

 

23rd October, 2023

With the forecast for "mostly sunny" I put a load of washing on last night to be ready to hang out first thing and save an hour in getting the weeks washing through in one day. I got up with Geoff and put a second load on, so I had two ready to go when the sun warmed up. The rest chugged through, including all the lounge blankets that are a bit, er, doggy.

The weather itself started off glorious, fading in and out all day. Jason and the others that have cut an early batch of silage will be stoked at the 35mm of rain followed by good sun. All my baby paddock trees will love it too.

I've calculated the milk reduction regime for the calves, they're now getting into the muesli so weaning will begin. Milk is $144 for 20 feeds, while muesli is $33 for 20 feeds.

I had a response to the Council job application. I had the interview a couple of weeks ago as they were looking for part time admin workers. With the delay since I assumed I didn't get the job, however it turns out they had an internal juggle and while they have filled the Bridport admin roles they are now looking for a full time admin at Scottsdale. They want to know if I want to put my hand up for consideration in the full time role. I did give it some serious thought, but the farm's not ready to be run on weekends.

It was a real conundrum, no more Woolies and a chance for my body to heal, but less flexibility for running the farm and getting out and about during the day. If I don't go for the full time they want to hold my application for future part time and project work.

I had lunch with Kelly, at the Ellesmere Patissere. We ended up leaving when they pulled all the seats in from the pavement, a bit like when the pub starts putting the chairs on the tables. We also stopped by the Amish vege stall, they are post winter veges and pre spring veges, so we picked up some apples and spuds.

At least we have lots of greens in the house garden, here's a shot of some of the self seeding rainbow chard that has now turned into small trees.

 

22nd October, 2023

Last night was all thunder and lightning, probably the biggest thunderstorm I've seen in nine years in Tassie. It doesn't tend to get hot enough to generate really big lightning, but the slightly warmer than normal couple of days combined with air drawn down from the mainland to brew one up. It certainly kept the dogs in for the night.

As a result, there has been a pause on Little Moo, Josh the Butcher had a sunroom roof torn off last night in the storms.

One of the cameras hosted a refugee. I doubt he was going to catch much, but he didn't blow away.

21st October, 2023

There was rain forecast for today, but other than fitful showers it took a long while to arrive. Now, at 10.30 pm, there has been thunder and lightning and heavy rain and the dogs are camped at my feet. We've had one 30 second blackout, but hopefully the worst is past. All the whitegoods are unplugged, I'd better make sure the fridges and freezers are plugged in again before bed ...

After the cleaner left this morning I took the quad bike up to Robyn's to pick up Bruce, the larger tractor. He will be used to lift Little Moo in the morning, if the appointment with Josh still goes ahead with the forecast weather. It's time for Little Moo to go and join Big Moo, he's lately showing he's ready to give up being a cow, life has become harder and harder for him as arthritis and his jaw tumour get worse. It's better to save him pain than drag life out at any cost.

I checked on the hop vines and set up the chains for their spring growth, and gave the silver beech saplings a pre-rain water so that the rain would soak right in. I collected the eggs and topped up the calves' muesli and made sure the chooks were good for a day stuck in their coop. Cast my eyes over Jaffa and her group under the macrocarpas, and the herd across the road, Annie and her mob in the loafing shed, and the sheep hunkered down in Cowmahal. I think we are as battened down as we can be.