20170408 Saturday. Easter week is coming. Tomorrow is going to be a sunny day so we are planning to do laundry. Did a tour of the vegetable patches to see what has survived and where we can sow new greens. The vegs are slowly coming to life but sadly only slowly due to all the rain. We have had intermittent rain since the drought. Poor Mick was hoping to become at least summer vegan but no…. ok autumn vegan? Sorry no….. The ground is super soggy everywhere you go. Only grass is growing like crazy but we are not cows. The appendix is not working the way it should since generations back. Todays harvest is lots of parsley, broccolini – mainly the leaves but some tiny florets, 2 carrots, 3 wax beans and some Chinese cabbage – type pak choy.
All posts by aussiebarons
After the flood
Today we went to Kemp to bulk up on food and visit the library.
Yesterday we walked up the slope with a shovel and a pick on P`s to check out the ruts and bog holes. We dug some ditches to lead the water off the road and thought we did a pretty good job.
Today on the way to K we brought the shovel and both chain saws. The little one that is new did not even start. Anyway we had to clear some branches big and smaller, some trees with vines on and one bigger which craved the big chain saw. Some larger stones had to be pushes off the edge too. Further on on the Kemp- Armidale road a big part of the mountain had slid down over the road but had just been cleared. Like: oh my gawd! After that it was just like any other day. Had a different lunch. Usually we have fish and chips because that was sort of a delicacy but now we have found not too expensive frozen barra in the store (not always) so fish is not a biggie anymore. Had a good salad and ribs at the pub. No visit to Bunnings today. On to Woolies and then home again. It took a big part of the day anyway since clearing the bush road took a bit of time.
Checked on the creek later and took a dip even. It was a bit milky greenish. The sand and beach have changed a lot again. It will be exciting to see how much.
Puny harvest during drought
Beets, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, parsley and lemongrass.
Turtle
Found a turtle while raking. Thought at first it was a Jacaranda seed amongst the leaves.
Our mob
This is out mob of about 10 -11 including joeys at all ages.
From our journal
Jen was a bit tired all day. Mick fixed the door to the old dunny by the creek. We use it as a shed. Mick dug a shallow trench for the water pipe over the the old road to Five Day Creek village and also dug down the pipe over the path to the creek. Put some potatoes into patch 3 out of which we harvested 3 more new potatoes. Put coffee on the beans that are very eaten and some other vegs. Tiny slugs and tiny larvae and tiny grasshoppers are eating our vegies. Yesterday we had showers in the afternoon evening but today we only had dark clouds. The creek has risen a bit though and it is also clearer without all that stuff floating around and not too much algae. It´s seems a bit brown, possibly from Neal´s wood cutting further up. We got a package from daughter with card and pic of granddaughter. Beautiful both.
Wednesday. We had brekkie and then took recycling to the Bellbrook recycling centre. They were fixing it up and mowing and stuff. Nice. Back home had lunch and then we filled the water tank, baked bread and did the dishes all at the same time. Mick took all the leftover pipes that were connected with connectors due to cows stepping on them, all the ones we substituted with new pipes that we bought before Christmas, and laid them out to se if they would suffice to the different places were we want water: garden, bathroom and kitchen. We want them to follow the fence so that cows who run amuk from their owner´s do not step on them. They should also be easy to dig down and to find. We may also try and set up a sink by the patches to make it easy to rinse off the worst soil from the vegs. After all the afternoon chores we had the last ice cream and keso apple cake from New Years and a dip in the creek. Then time to make dinner and call it a day with a dvd from the library.
Setting up the new water tank
We decided to move the water tank in order to get a better pressure in the shower. Also the base the water tank was standing on was a bit on the lop sided end. We started looking for a new place to put it on and then started to dig there. Up by the roof there were some nice posts we could use for base so we sawed some off and used them. Then we thought we could maybe use some of the board from the old stand.
We bought pipes and lay them out from the creek to the new spot and tried out the pump so see if it would work
One day we were going to fill the tank and saw how the boards underneath it were really sagging and at one point on the meld it had started leaking again. The bottom was slowly caving out. Time for the move! Might as well clean it while we were at it.
So in pictures:
Australian King Parrot
Mrs. Australian King Parrot
Mr. Australian King Parrot
Some Yule tide pictures
After rain Lilies but we still do not get enough rain.
So it is summer and Jul. We decided to combine hem this year and probably in the future. Midsummer-Yule wreath.
Here is the old Rudolf from Torrance, still going strong with his pointsettias and added some summer roses and tulips. We know tulips are spring flowers but so what.
Here is the smaller Yellow Guava starting to bloom. It has really come into it´s own since we took down the Liquid Ambar.
Here are the pointsettias Maki and Kalle gave us last Jul. They wre tiny tiny then. Thinking of relocating them into the garden one day but they do not really belong in the bush. We´ll see. Gardenia in the background.
Saturday
Watered early in the morning, did laundry, dishes, made lunch and let it get cold before we ate. Sat mostly on the veranda and read or stared at the sky. Then we got clouds and they got darker and the we had some showers but they did not amount to more than 2.5 millimiters. Found an old James Bond in the drawers and watched that. Tried a Tarrantino first but it had the wrong area code. Hate area codes. Had boiled and chilled egg on sandwich in the evening. Yup it is that hot.
Oh yea sat around in the creek for a long long time. The creek is getting slimy and green with algae.