September 2006

	The Sustainable Goat House The goat house was not made of cord wood, cob or strawbale as we had intended. This was mostly due to Bella and Annabella deciding one rainy day, to demolish their temporary dwelling by pulling it to pieces mouthful by mouthful, not for food but entertainment. It became obvious we'd have to come up with something very quickly as goats hate nothing more than getting wet. So the race was on. Trev rose to the challenge and made the goat house in under a week and for $50.
	The structural timber Trev bought for $30 from the sawmiller on our road who creates building quality timber from logs salvaged from forestry who have left the logs behind and would normally be included as part of a burn off. The rest of the timber Trev used in the goat house construction (the sap wood cladding) was salvaged from the mills waste pile, which is usually burnt as firewood. So we've further extended the use of the timber. The secondhand corrogated iron cost $6 and we'll say another $14 was spent on nuts, bolts, screws and wear and tear on power tools.
	Trev is quite proud of his knock up goat house, he made a bail from scrap wood, so that Bella has to push her head through a space to get to her food and then a piece of timber is slotted into place making it impossible, with her horns, to pull back out again. This means she is fairly stationary at the front end while you deal with her back end.
	We've discovered that Possum really was a very difficult goat to milk as Bella is a breeze. She was producing around a litre every two days when we bought her, and now, with the advent of spring, better pasture and a wider range of grains (she was fed only oats) she has increased her yield considerably. She follows Trev to the goat house whenever he walks over to it bearing a bucket. (the bucket doesn't necessarily have to have anything in it). She seems quite happy to be milked in it
	Then the hitch. The goats, with the range of the block decide the best spot is under the caravan. They like the company of humans and hang a round the sheds and have been known to come in for a nosy beak when no ones looking.
	In order to get them used to their new abode we used the electric fence and kept them in closer proximity to the goat 'palace'. They'd not encoutered electric fences before, nor had Nuju. A few yelps and unexpected leaps into space and they all had it worked out. Respect the fence and use the goat house as a comfortable place to sleep at night and get out of the rain. They moved in. So, despite a few comments from neighbourhood kids that it looked like a good cubby house the small balls of goat poo have put them off. Though Nuju thinks they're lollies.

We've received so many emails in the last week that I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up with replies. But I'm getting there. Thanks for the many supportive emails! I'd like to post some of the emails, on a different page. I'll remove the references to the person formally known as W, but whom now parades under many other names that readers have given him... or her. I love hearing what other people are doing, and these are the parts I'll be posting. I hope to get to this soon and will be posting a link.

Ended up rushing to hospital on Friday night with Caleb. We removed some of his bandaging and revealed a very mucky looking area around his pins that stunk appallingly. All his bravery has flown out the window in the last few weeks, I think he's just had enough of the whole thing, and when he saw a doctor approaching with a whirring power tool he removed his arm from within reach and shouted 'Give me drugs!' However, all was well, the wound around the two pins, while being very bloody and pulpy from being bumped into things repeatedly, is not infected. So a new cast was applied. Looking forward to next week when the pins are removed. These appear to be the cause of most of the pain he is experiencing.


The cherries trees have burst into leaf and flower and my seeds are germinating! The chooks are laying eggs... getting closer to being able to feed ourselves soon!


September 18th

Have to share the cherry blossom with you! It's been great having a spring, and, like lots of things, I've been popping up in the garden often while I weed, plant and water. It's been a record dry winter, so things are not looking good for the summer, but we still have great soil moisture. We can only assume that transpiration and evaporation will be less than in QLD and hopefully will not lead to such a dust filled disaster.

I spent half a day watering the garden beds and the trees from Trev's gravity fed hose coming from the dam at the top of the block. Enough pressure to use a sprinkler. The funny thing is that a warm sunny day can be a very pleasant 14 degrees. Once upon a time I would have thought that was arctic, but unless there's a wind up (which there often can be), I wouldn't ask for it to be much warmer. Trev's fathers day present was a weather station with a remote outdoor sensor. Eventually, when the house is built we can rig it up and record internal and external temps of a strawbale house and see if what they say of them is really true. But for now, its interesting to see the difference between being inside and uninsulated shed and the outdoors. Usually 10 degrees with the combustion stove on.


Trev chopped down a dead tree on the block and found it full of witchetty grubs, and he danced around the shed giving us wanton displays of their ingestion to Caleb's and my cries of 'ewwwww!' Which was, of course, the effect he was after. He claims they are macadamia like in taste but much squishier in texture.

I've started working four days a week at a local community centre as coordinator, which is great. So I'm not around as much and Trev has great swacks of time to himself of which I am sure he is grateful. Caleb had his pins out a fortnight ago, and last Friday had the last of the bandaging removed. His arm is Frankensteinian,but still works, though his thumb and forefinger are still not operational, we hope the median nerve will heal in the next while otherwise he may be in for another operation.

A neighbour has kindly provided me with lots of comfrey plants, which are fantastic plants, they didn't grow as well in QLD, as they suffered in the heat, but they grow like weeds down here. Which is good as they make great mulch, there tap root is able to bring up lots of nutrients. So I'm planting them around the perimeter fences and I'll be able to rip the leaves off and use them as convenient mulch and make liquid fertiliser from them. It smells so bad you know if must be good! They also make good chook food. Trev used to dip them in batter and fry them. But there is lots of medical advice to say you probably shouldn't do that too often or you may be at risk of frying your liver.
indepth Organic Gardener info on Comfrey

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