September 2007

The weather is such that I'm hard pressed to sit down during the weekend. Instead we've extended the garden borders, and digging over new ground. New ground which is thick with blackberry roots. While there isn't a blistering sun, there are plenty of blisters to be had. While we still can't plant out frost sensitive veggies we've been going hard with broad beans, peas, carrots, onions, celery, snowpeas, the yams are in their beds, still sleeping, while we prematurely wake rockmelons, sugarbabies, pumpkins, zuchini, squash, cucumber and tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Asparagus are on the rise, while raspberries are stepping out of their beds and require a good kneecapping to stop them wandering.

Blossom on the majority of trees, though, with our recent acquisition, Gustave the glorious Cochin/Flaveral rooster, there are a few less cherries in our orchard. The poor girls had been cloistered in their nunnery for so long I'm not sure they knew what was going on when he started dipping his wing and dancing around them. They soon caught on. Caleb has been sick, he has a double ear infection, throat and sinus infection as well as the horrible vomitting/diarrhea bug, and he's been miserable. However the day that Gussy arrived he perched on the shed windowsill and gave us a blow by blow account of filial relations in the chook yard. We've never used the word 'hussy' before, as it's not a nice thing to say in regard to another human being, but the New Hampshire chook spent her whole time flirting with him to the point we called her one. Caleb has caught on quick with the new vocab. Nuju, of course, just sits there salivating and waiting for an opportunity, that hopefully, will never come.

Nuju has recently come to understand that we really don't want Annabella, the young goat to be on the wrong side of the electric fence. So he sits and watchs her very closely until she hops over, as soon as she does he's off, chases her giving her a quick nip on her way over to cheers and congratulations from us (she recently demolished my passionfruits, blackberries, bamboos. She's decided it's too much to risk and has decided the grass is not that much greener on our side of the fence, not enough, it seems, to risk a run in with Nuju.

Made tofu in the last couple of days. I haven't pressed it hard enough, so it's not as firm as I like it, but still edible. I've been buying organic soy beans from the health food store and figured it was about time I put my hand back to making our own. One kilo of dried beans made almost 2 kilos of tofu. If you're into soy milk it's one of the steps on the way through. Easy enough to make large amounts of your own.

Trev has had to do a bit of waiting around for timber to arrive, so he's been busy and spread 950kg of lime and chook poo by hand. I arrived home (unfortunately without a camera) to find him a crusty white and smelling, well ... I didn't get too close.

As soon as it rains we'll be planting out sunflowers, wheat, and corn.

The house is coming on, the foundations are complete and Trev put up the first post which felt very good. The house is gaining a real shape.

I've been reading everything I can about beekeeping and going to beekeeping 'days' over the last few years. I ordered a hive last year, and it will be ready to collect in a fortnights time. Of course I'm re-reading all the books again because it's all gone a bit hazy. I've been collecting the gear, to reduce the fear. I don't mind bees at all, but not sure how I will feel if they all decide to get their stinging apparatus into action. All the honey bees are of European origin and they have very long memories... so even though we don't have bears here bees might decide if you are big brown and lumbering that you are one, and that you have a taste for honey, so they are inclined to attack big brown and lumbering things. Hence beekeepers wear white. Now what I'd like to know is how many generations of bees and beekeepers will it take before they associate big, white and lumbering objects as honey theives and go them too? Hopefully not this beekeepers generation. Of course we have two brown goats that while they'd probably enjoy honey would only be standing on top of the beehive because they're goats and they can, so I'll be building a small gated area for the beehive to keep them out. I'm keen to make it something that we can attach solid sides to in winter to keep the big winds off them, and perhaps even a roof for extended rain periods. I haven't read through the entire book again yet to have made a firm decision.

I must admit to standing on a small hillock of soil today and taking 360 degree series of photos which I will make into a panorama sometime soon, and having one of those moments of satisfaction with my life that takes in the valley views with the plethora of flowering silver wattles, the progress on the house, the patchwork of fertile garden beds, the scratching chooks, a dog lolloping around with a tennis ball in its mouth, the dam water hose spraying across the growing seedlings, the goats tangling horns together in play. Yes, all is good. I just wish it would rain :-)

30 September 2007

Raining, hailing, sleet and storm, time to stay inside where it's warm. So darn noisy, just can't talk, no where to run, no room to walk. Sit at computer, twitter away, time to update the website today.

The beehive we ordered is ready for pick up next weekend. Last weekend we made a goat free bee compound which is on a tilt forward so when it rains it drains out the front of the hive, and doesn't wet the bees. I have ordered and received my beekeeping bits and bobs, can't wait to load up my smoker and get started. The big issue will be getting the beehive from Woodbridge, where it currently is, to here without mishap. I have horrid visions of losing the hive off the back of the ute and a swarm of angry bees. There was a fantastic article in the Australian Weekend Magazine a week or so ago about bees, the role they play in agriculture, how they are suffering from various diseases, that knowledgable beekeepers are retiring and are not being replaced by a younger generation, and it's all looking desparate. The Sting So pleased I'm doing my, admittedly, little, bit.

Trev and I ordered 20kg of spring wheat for sowing at our local stock feed store, and specified untreated seed. They assured us it wouldn't be, but of course when I got it home and pulled out the bag I read that it's treated with Baytan, so back it goes, and they tell me that the kind of flour wheat I want doesn't come any other way. Returned it anyway and then tried to track down organic wheat of a good variety. Found wheat in kg bags at a health food store, no doubt for sprouting, and I have no idea what kind of wheat it is, whether its suitable for spring sowing, temperate clime all those things, figure if it works it will be a wonder, and if not the goats will have a good gobble.

Trev is currently making the first batch of fetta for a while, as spring has sprung and Bella's milk is up. I've just finished making a seed/nut health bar for Caleb's lunchs next week. I'm always trying to find things that are kid attractive and nutrient rich for treats. Especially since he cops flak at lunchtimes when he has nothing brightly coloured, wrapped and that stinks like raspberry flavoured chemicals and comes at 1000% increase on the original cost of the ingredients. This one,Healthy Nut Bars came from 'The Chef and the Cook.'

Next up comes a couple more loaves of bread. Someone emailed me a while back about making good bread and I found this website to send back. It's good to recognise the mistakes and correct them rather than trial and error (a technique Trev and I are rather too fond of). Tips for better bread making

Trev is into asking me whenever I'm in the kitchen, 'Have you filled in a written application form to use my kitchen', invariably responded to with a 'no, and not likely too, get out of my bloody way'. Yes, we will both be pleased when we finally have an area that isn't reminiscent of a dolls ktichen.

Trev and I have dug through a lot more ground and discovered it's not blackberry root we're pulling up but brackern fern. We measure our progress by how many barrows of root we've pulled out, about a full barrow for metre square is average. Hopefully we'll only ever need to do this once.

The kiwifruit have budded and burst, the pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, quince, figs and passionfruit are all similiarly spurred on by the gentle spring, hope, hope, hope, we don't have one like last year in which a sudden late hard frost put a lot of people back, including us.

The housebuilding continues, though recent weather and a general lack of timber to build with have set us back a bit. Our supplier has other projects he's onto right now, and our timber order languishes. But somehow, now the contracting forces of winter are abating and we're into that wonderful expansive feeling of spring where all things seem possible, and we're generally expanding too, more ground in crop, more animals for the flock, beehive to come, and possibly a sheep or two soon it feels good. The only part of me I'm interested in not expanding is the waistline, which is suffering a bit from the winter malaise of sitting around too long and eating too much.

Yesterday we did one of those rare things, went for a drive which was the result of a growing list of things we needed to do, one thing was to incorporate a tip shop run at Margate, and we tracked down an old potters wheel for $30. While I'd love to get into pottery too as I think when we dug out the dam we came up with potting quality clay, it will be used to help manufacture a honey extractor, as they're expensive beasts to buy. Maybe somewhere down the track I'll start making our own pots and plates too. I'm keen to try my hand at that, and follow the lead in some of the Time Team episodes where they make their own kilns. Main Page