Rampant and Alive

Today is the last day of winter. A time supposedly devoid of hope, like in Narnia where it is always winter and never Christmas. Not for me though – we’ve only been here for 18 months and I suspect that winter is the front-runner for my favourite time of the year. Nonetheless it’s very exciting to be on the verge of spring, everything ready to burst forth with life. Rampant and alive, starting anew again, a chance to be reborn.


I spent the day warmed by the sun chipping at bricks down at the tip, cleaning them up for re-use in my friend’s path, the next stretch of paving now in progress. The work was repetitive, physical and perhaps a little boring but I don’t mind days like that from time to time. A big wedgetail eagle circled high above the tip and reminded me of Tim Low’s book The New Nature, where he talks about the inextricable relationship between wildlife and urban spaces.


Noah’s friend has an amazing collection of costumes, mostly made by his very talented mother, feeding and encouraging his obsession with dinosaurs and other more contemporary wildlife. Noah often gets to borrow one or two when he goes to visit but we seem to have accumulated a few, and his favourite thing at the moment is to wear them all at once – wings, shell, comb, and about three different tails.


At home Em kept Noah entertained and treated the horses for ticks, unfortunately a bit overdue. We’ve been umming and ahhing for a week or two about how bad it is, then we bought some sulphur blocks to help boost their natural resistance, but the final straw came the other day when I went over to feed them some apples. The poor loves had bites all over them, big swollen ticks under their manes and Nugget’s muzzle had dozens of bush ticks crawling on it. Sue and Rob talked to the vet and got something we can spray on them, which Em and Sue did today while Noah took some photos. It is another reminder to us how vigilant we need to be in our stewardship of the animals in our care.

Tonight Em and I watched some of the River Cottage series with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It is so good to feed our vision of the farm we want to create, the life we want to live. There were bits on beekeeping, butchering your own animals, brewing your own beer, keeping pigs, spring gardening and eating feral pest species. Yay. Em is always thinking of design and decor and it has started to spread to me, so much so that we have to pause the video and admire window seats, rock walls and kitchens big enough to hang a butchered lamb in - excited by what's in front of us.


“I’m grateful that I licked the bowl and I taked photos of the horses.”
(Confused? Look)

One below

We think our duck, the widow Marmalade, has been taken by a fox. She didn’t come back on Sunday evening when I put the chooks away at night and it’s been two days now. The poor love, we miss her and feel bad.


Last night we partied like forty year olds – a few beers, some guitar, a couch, a cup of tea, just a little nap… all over by about 11pm. Dave has a beautiful, amazing voice and when he plays and sings I just put down my guitar and listen. I would probably pay to hear him sing a shopping list. This morning we went for a walk to the waterfall at Wilson River, discovering that there is two waterfalls and we’d been going to the small one all this time. Getting to the big one involves scrambling up rocks to a path that wends its way above the smaller one, well worth the effort. The falls are about three times larger than the one below and breathtaking.


And finally our Confluence Point trip has been uploaded to the website.

“I’m grateful that I went to preschool and had a nice day, and I’ve got the same shirt as a kid in preschool.”
(Confused? Look)

Unearthing

Such beautiful weather at the moment. The days are warm and sunny and the nights are starting to lose their bite, and through it all clear, clear skies – brilliant blue in the day and full of stars at night. Em and I drove Noah to preschool this morning and then spent all day shopping and doing errands. At the tip we picked up some cardboard for the garden, diving deep into the recycling bins and unearthing boxes of good books which we took to the op shop so they could sell them. At the Tender Centre in Port I picked up a 120L drum for making worm juice in, and then went and bought an aquarium pump for feeding the bacteria with oxygen. Exciting stuff.


Can I tell you more tomorrow? I’ve just got back from choir and I’m off to play guitar with friends. Sorry Em, my love.

Funk it up

A few months ago we bought an old caravan from a friend so we wouldn’t have to keep putting guests up in tents when they came to stay. It’s a classic old 1974 Viscount, with a gaudy gold DIY paint job. Inside and out. The cracked skylights had leaked water into the ceiling, rotting the plywood and fostering some fine moulds in the mattress and cushions. Rather than redo the roof we saved money by building a new roof over the top to stop the leaks before ripping out the ceiling, the bed and half the cupboards. It now has a new ceiling, two single beds and a new paint job. Emma is planning to give it another coat of paint to help funk it up and she’s enlisted the help of our friend to re-upholster the cushions.


For a long time the caravan was owned by an aerialist, a trapeze artist who would travel up and down the eastern seaboard going to festivals, towing her caravan behind her. Fortunately for us some of her stuff got left behind, tucked away in little drawers and cupboards – treasure waiting to be found. Feathers, jewellery, costumes, lights, underwear, glasses, belts, stickers and even tiny mirror balls. The kids now have one hell of a dress up box.


Today I had my first performance with the Bella Bago choir at the Choral Kaleidoscope in Port Macquarie. For the performance we had to wear black and purple with a splash of yellow. I have a favourite pair of old, black dress pants with suspenders which are not long for this world so I dug them out so they could shine once more. They have holes in them but I improvised and coloured in my leg with black texta where the holes were. I was having a lot of trouble finding a black or purple shirt until, minutes before I had to go Em fished a tight, shiny purple top from the dress up box. Perfect. The performance went well although I think everyone was upstaged by the all-male choir Blokes Notes who did some fun stuff including a Steve Taberner song that involved pulling out nose hairs with multigrips.


“I’m grateful that I went to Bryony’s and had a nice day, and played with Morrow.”
(Confused? Look)

Passion and Belief

To market, to market to buy a fat pig. The Farmer’s Market was on today in Wauchope, too enticing these days to pass up. There really was a man there selling fat pigs, well pork. His name is Brian Wehlburg and his farm is in Kindee in the next valley to the south, where he also raises beef and eggs, free-ranging on pasture. We met him when he gave a small talk a while ago at one of the Small Farmers Network workshops organised through Landcare, and then again when he ran a weekend workshop on pasture management, introducing us to cell grazing and opening the door to what we don’t know. He does a good job promoting his produce, made easier because he has both passion and belief in what he is doing. A powerful combination when used for the powers of good. We dig swine, but mainly bacon and prosciutto so we’ll pass on his cuts of pork but it looks like we might get one of his beef packs. We ran into some friends at the markets and sat around drinking coffee, trying to work out how much beef we could fit in our freezers if we shared half or quarter of a cow.


Noah was fascinated watching a spinning demonstration, four women lined up with their wheels, ready to take on any comers, turning alpaca fleece into yarn. Outside in a light splattering of rain Elly was hosting a cook-off where the contestants had to use produce from the markets, fresh and local. Leeks were sautéed, egg whites stiffened, mushrooms and tomatoes enveloped in a local, free-range, organic omelette. The judges couldn’t separate the dishes so they split the prizes and drew straws to see who progressed to the semi-finals.


Home is a nice place to be on a rainy Saturday afternoon, sitting on the verandah, listening to the rain, watching the mist in the hills. Dozing.

“I’m grateful that I had a little run around with Denny, and Denny chased me.”
(Confused? Look)

Lush Life

Days get swallowed up in the never ending procession of things to do. The new chooks (Tiplet, Lauren and Claire) enjoyed their new pen, from both inside and out. After having to go and catch them twice I worked out they were climbing up the stays for the fence posts so I spent some time blocking their escape using old oven racks we had in the shack.


It was a warm day today. Lovely and warm. It felt like the first day of spring, too impatient to wait the last week, vigorously shaking off winter early, ready to go. The new chooks had no shade, spending the hottest part of the day in their night house so I went and cut up the old tank on the hill behind Sue and Rob’s to use as a shelter in the pen. Everything feels like it’s just starting to grow, just starting to explode into lush life.

We planted the potatoes in the afternoon. The soil has been top dressed with compost and cow poo in the last week and is moist and rich. We dug deep trenches and covered them in a few inches of soil, then horse poo, a little lime and then mulched with old straw in case we get any more frosts and also to keep the soil open and the worms happy. Finally we put a little blood and bone on the straw so it doesn’t draw the nitrogen it needs to break down from the soil. I’m hoping that by the time the potatoes have poked through and need covering again the whole lot will have broken down into yummy goodness.


Late in the afternoon I turned in the green manures in the Root Crop bed and the Good Companions bed. The Good Companions include things like sweetcorn and cucurbits – pumpkins, zucchinis and cucumbers. We won’t add anything more to the Root Crop bed to stop the carrots from forking, but the Good Companions will get both compost and manure, fed heavily, then covered and left to break down for a while before they are planted. There is a lot to do. Emma reminded me that it’s important to enjoy the journey and it is good advice.

We have bats in the walls out the back. Well, in the doors. We kept the old cow doors when doing up the Dairy but only as a façade, boarding up behind them and nailing them shut. Last night Em and I saw little microbats swooping out of the cracks at dusk, emerging from the tiny void in the back. Tonight I shone my torch in and could see tiny little toes and wing hooks in the gap in the top.


“I’m grateful that we seen the bat and there was bats in the wall.”
(Confused? Look)

The Mercy of Foxes

I walked to the tank in thick mist this morning. The water level had dropped about an inch overnight, which doesn’t sound like much but it works out at about 800 litres per day. We’re losing over five tonnes of water a week somewhere and I have no idea where, and the ground is already wet from the rain making it hard to spot. Tonight I will go and turn off the supply to Sue and Rob’s and see if the level drops again, if not then the problem is somewhere between the tank and the pump, including the Dairy.

We spent the day turning the half-finished duck pen into a chicken pen. The wire is up, perches are up and I made a gate, which I need to hang tomorrow. It was good to get it up fast, most of the hard work already done, as we will hopefully only be using it for while, until we’ve sorted out the mobile chook pen as part of the cell rotation system for the cows. Then it can house the duck again and all her new friends that are on the way. One of the locals down the road who has lived here all his life has offered us a drake who keeps trying to chase after the wood ducks, and next month I should be getting some Indian Runners from the guy I spoke to a couple of weeks ago. We’d like to get some geese too, to keep the grass down in the orchard. There is a gaggle of escapee geese that live down in Beechwood, grazing by the side of the road, at the mercy of foxes at night. There was an ad in the Beechwood Post once that said if you could catch them you could have them, and I was sorely tempted. I have enquired since but I get the feeling I might be taking away the town’s beloved geese. Unless nobody likes them. The new chicken pen is going to house Ange’s rooster Tiplet, along with two of Gladys’ daughters Claire and Lauren. Building up our breeding stock.


Em wants to do the caravan up so she can also use it as an art studio and I almost had a meltdown today trying to choose paint colours for it. Something that would match the fake 70s wood veneer and orange speckled laminex benchtops. What was I thinking? Finally I saw the light, relented and now I’m just going to let Emma sort it out. I can see why the Amish paint their buggies the same shade of grey.

Tonight we went up to Sue and Rob’s and watched Gourmet Farmer. This week he was talking about his pigs, Wessex Saddlebacks, which he is rearing on his farm in Tasmania to sell. We are considering getting some pigs one day so it was very interesting stuff, and interesting also to read his article on it, especially the expense of the grain. As we left we grabbed the rooster and the two girls to take to their new home. Tiplet was roosting in the lychee tree behind the chook pen and we all stood around, shining our torches into the branches, trying to find him. He was about seven feet up, the wrong end pointing at me as I reached up to grab him. We took them home, Noah got a photo and we put them on their new perches, Roddy crowing next door. The widow Marmalade has been shifted to the chook tractor for a while, until we make a new duck house somewhere.


“I’m grateful that I gave you those nails, and the duck, and we didn’t hang it up, and I liked the gate.”
(Confused? Look)

Starlight and Boobooks

I just got back from my walk. Lots of frogs, mist in the hills. Starlight and boobooks. Fantastic. Walking in the dark reminded me of years ago when I lived in England where close by there was an abandoned train tunnel that had been bricked up, big and beautiful. Someone had bashed a hole in either end so you could walk through, the light diminishing until you were in almost pitch blackness, where you would finally see the faint light of the other end up ahead. Occasionally I would go there at night and run through, totally blind in the darkness, my hand on the wall. I may have been drunk.

Big Hair Psycho

Noah got hold of the camera this morning and took 86 photos. A catalogue of the Dairy and garden from three feet high. He came running in from outside, “Can I have the camera? I’ve got a great shot!” He’d seen some galahs in the chook pen and snuck up on them, camera poised.


I keep thinking about improving our pasture for the dairy cows. This morning Em, Noah and I helped our neighbours Steve and Anne look for a new calf in the bracken in the river paddock, giving me a chance to talk to Steve about getting the Dairy paddocks aerated. He thinks he might be able to borrow a homemade aerator from a friend to do his paddocks and I’d like to run it over ours too. I haven’t seen it yet but he describes it as a spiked roller that digs in a little as it rolls and then gives a bit of a twist on the way out, opening up the topsoil, breaking up the crust. We would use a chisel plough, which would penetrate much deeper, but we have too much rock in the soil profile. Steve let Noah drive his big Massey Ferguson tractor, leaving me to take a photo, maybe just a little jealous.


Em and I have just finished watching Season One of Twin Peaks. There’s a lot to like about it – the music, the saw sharpener during the opening credits and my favourite, Special Agent Dale Cooper. Cooper lets fly with little gems like this: “Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.” Today, after lunch, instead of going straight back to work I had a little siesta on the bed next to my wife. There’s wisdom everywhere, even in early 90s big hair psycho tele-dramas.


Rob thinks there’s a leak in the water tank. The first step in finding it is to establish that there actually is a leak so tonight I’m going to rug up warm, take a torch and walk up to the tanks and measure the water level. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up early and test it again. I’m looking forward to the walk in the dark, eyes wide to let in every little bit of light, trusting the path that I will only barely be able to see, the sound of frogs calling next to the tank, shining the torch in and seeing if there’s anything inside. An extraordinary experience to savour.


“I’m grateful that I checked the eggs and there was one egg.”
(Confused? Look)

Half a Gazillion

Not unlike a conjunction of planets everything aligned today spectacularly. It was the first time Emma has been home for Noah’s second day of preschool, the day that Sue and Rob take him in for. They arrived early, took him away and brought him home around four in the afternoon. How wonderful. We had a peaceful lunch together facing each other across the table, smiling and dreaming of full time school next year.


I had such a productive, pleasant day today getting little jobs done, feeling so content that nothing was able to put a dent in my mood. The rain was beautiful, inevitable. I gave my compost heap its first turn, the steaming chemistry already underway, transferring it across to the next bay, inverting and excavating. It is always so interesting to see each layer slowly break down and become incorporated into one living heap over the weeks with each turning. I turn it every three days for three weeks and then assess how it’s going. Along the way I sometimes add more water if it is too dry or nitrogen if it isn’t breaking down sufficiently. The nitrogen in this heap is cow poo. Sloppy and stinky.


In the afternoon I finished off two more architraves, the ones I worked on yesterday, nailing them up in position. They fitted really well, all except the one I made half an inch too short but I cut a tiny triangle of scrap and glued it in. A bit of putty and no-one will ever know. I went a-visiting later, looking at a new job restoring a leadlight window, picking up some timber to replace some rotten handrails, and installing a cupboard door. The hinges they’ve got won’t work but I have half a gazillion good quality European hinges that I salvaged from an old kitchen that was being thrown out at a friends house back in Freo – thanks Joe. Re-use, recycle.

The best part of my day was yet to come. Walking back home from Sue and Rob’s I met a friend on their way home from seeing Em. She’s been meaning to pick up some tile adhesive for at least three visits now and she’d forgotten again so she turned the car around and I rode on the bullbar on the front of the car. Hanging on to the timber she had strapped to the roof, nothing in front of me, the wind in my face. Relaxed, happy, exhilarated. Yeeeeehaaaar!

“I’m grateful that I went to preschool and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)

Yummed up

Em bought some seed potatoes today. She took Noah in to preschool and spent the day in town. It’s such a long drive it pays to make a day of it. While Sophie is in the US Noah has picked up a second day at preschool and Sue and Rob will take him in tomorrow and do their weekly shopping and errands. I remember reading about International Buy Nothing Day a while ago, and it has been on my mind again lately, thinking how most of our days are Buy Nothing Days. It does seem to mean that our spending just gets concentrated into fewer days, but I guess we don’t have the opportunity to make as many impulse purchases.

Home alone I squelched up to Sue and Rob’s and worked on the few remaining architraves for the Dairy. Complicated. Our old Dairy leans to the north by about an inch but the door frames had to be perfectly plumb so a few of the architraves get really interesting. I spent the whole day dressing and making architraves for two doors. A lot of work but I’m happy with them – recycled timber, custom built, made well. I worked under cover in the big shed, staying dry as the rain came in waves.

Em and I are trying to agree on how to set up our pens to avoid inbreeding in the chooks. I’m so confused I’m not even sure we disagree. Em wants to have two pens, with only one rooster in one of the pens. Any offspring (girls only, boys get yummed up) get put in the second pen and then every year or two the rooster gets the chop and all the chickens get put back in together and start again with a new rooster. I’m not so sure what my idea is but I thought if we had something like three or four pens, each with a rooster, then we could put the offspring from pen A into pen B, and the offspring from pen B into pen C, and so on. By the time the offspring gets back to pen A it should be OK to breed with their distant relative. Similar to Em’s idea every now and then we would replace the roosters with external stock. Do we want this many chickens? Do I really care?

“I’m grateful that I took those two dinosaur postcards and had a lovely day at preschool.”
(Confused? Look)

Curly Spirals

It has started raining again here. A heavy, steady downpour overnight has eased into an intermittent soaking throughout the day. Squelching and leeches. Our little heifers, Bessie and Violet, were banished from their paddock out the front of the Dairy to make way for our neighbours cows, moving through on their way to greener pastures. Literally, not figuratively. The new compost heap needs some room for turning so I spread the remains of the last heap onto the potato bed and the freshly cleared herb bed. I think I’ll give the potato bed some horse poo before planting, little eggs of slow release goodness to decompose under a top dressing of straw.


Em planted some beans the other day amongst the broccoli and cauliflowers which will need a trellis. I spent a day or so, knowing that I would find something that would work, looking, waiting. Eventually I found an old bed in the junk heap in the gully. I love the old rusty springs, curly spirals hooked together in all directions.


Our car seat has been broken for a few days now. The other day I was driving when suddenly it felt as if I was sitting on a balloon rapidly losing air until I had sunk down into my seat, my bum too low, like a parent sitting in their child’s kindergarten seat on Parent Teacher night. Today I took the seat out to have a go at fixing it. Unlike most car repairs I figured I’d be able to sort this one out with some shade cloth and a sewing machine, so I headed over to my friend’s house. The sewing didn’t take very long but a cup of tea and a chat sometimes requires a lot of time and Noah was having fun playing with his friends.


I get such satisfaction out of making things myself, improvising solutions, fixing things – compost, trellises, car seats. Self-sufficiency that goes beyond producing food or electricity. I figure the cost of buying or fixing these things would be close to a day’s work, a day’s work that probably wouldn’t include friends, cups of tea, kids playing and learning, or watching another shower of rain washing up the valley.

“I’m grateful that we got the seat done and had a lovely day.”
(Confused? Look)

Close the loop

Yesterday I wrote that we have seven beds in our veggie garden for crop rotation. It is true we have seven beds but only six of them are in the rotation. The seventh is for our perennials, plants that will last longer than one season. Like everything in the Dairy it is small, but there is enough room for some rhubarb and about ten asparagus crowns, which should last over twenty years. We planted two year old crowns last year so now, three years old, they are ready to start harvesting. Asparagus stands out in my mind as what you eat when the winter vegetables have finished and before the spring vegetables are ready to harvest. An indulgent, necessary feast. The first spears are poking through the mulch, sniffing the air to see if the frosts have finished. We’re wondering too. Asparagus is a heavy feeder so if the frosts are over we will rake back the mulch and feed them heavily with blood and bone before covering them again. I will use the blood and bone because we still have some but I’m keen to try and use solely what we have on site. Close the loop. I think chook poo would work quite well, perhaps aged a little first so it’s not so hot.

I made Impossible Pie this morning using duck eggs and topped with three asparagus spears from the garden, my contribution to pot luck lunch with our friend’s who were going to show a few of us how to make pasta. Em made little citrus tartlets, sweet and delicious, and like my pie a good way to use up a few eggs.


Making your own pasta is one of those things that is hard to justify if you consider cost alone, as it is so cheap. But we spent such a delightful day, hanging out with friends, sharing a meal, kids playing together, listening to music, learning something new. Taking one more thing off the list that we have to make the long drive into town for. And we’re keeping alive the knowledge and skills of how to feed ourselves, using flour and our own organic eggs. The shops don’t stock what we made today.


“I’m grateful that we went to Chay and Pete’s and I eat a bit of that pasta.”
(Confused? Look)

Worm juice

Our garden has seven beds in it, set up for crop rotation. Today I weeded the potato bed which had peas, beans and brassicas in it last year, and will have carrots, parsnips and beetroot in it next year. The soil is rich and moist from the weeds that were protecting it. Worms abound. To weed it and leave it bare feels like I’m killing it. We are planning to plant potatoes soon and I’m going to add compost, manure and some lime, then cover it with mulch and give it time to break down, breed some life. The soil will also be inoculated with worm juice, made from steeping worm castings in water, not the black liquid that collects in the bottom of plastic worm farms. The worms have a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria, both sowing and feeding on the microbes that also break down the organic matter and the still water is too anaerobic for the oxygen loving bacteria. More and more I think that good farming depends on good bacteria farming.

The castings are soaked, suspended in a drum of water with added carbon and nitrogen to allow the bacteria to colonise the water. Oxygen is also required so I will either have to stir vigorously for about an hour or get an aquarium pump. I’m planning to do trials, side by side in the veggie garden, testing whether I get better crops and improved resistance to disease with regular sprays of the worm juice. A test plot in the paddock is next.


I used the shredder today to break up the lemongrass we took out so I could add it to the final layers of the compost. I don’t feel great about using the shredder, using petrol to make compost. I’m not sure I’ll do it again, even though it works well for uncomposty material like lemongrass. The shredder is Sue and Rob's who have had it for years, Rob always maintaining it - sharpening the cutter, replacing the bearings.

I will have to add some more poo in the top layer. I’m really liking the soupy poo I'm experimenting with. Besides stinking it also makes a thick sauce that soaks right in to all the layers, making great conditions for the bacteria to feed and multiply, heating it up and transforming it.


We all worked in the garden today, getting things done, one job flowing on to the next, surprised to find later that we had gotten burnt. The garden needed some work. We neglected it last year in the push to get into the Dairy and then it was suddenly full of rampant kikuyu. We’ve spent months mustering up the energy to weed it, mulch the paths, reclaim it. Spring is almost here and we’re getting it ready to explode.

“I’m grateful that we all worked in the garden and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)

Orange and Thistle

Composting is fun, especially here. We have such a variety of ingredients, and in such abundance. I haven’t composted for a few months now, ever since my last batch didn’t get hot enough to kill the kikuyu runners, leaving them well fed and sprouting. Regardless of whether it is too cold for composting spring is almost upon us and the garden is crying out for renewal, for fresh organic matter bursting with bacteria, worms, life. So I am making orange and thistle compost. Oranges from making juice and thistles from around the house, along with other weeds – Parramatta grass, fireweed, dandelions and young bindies. To help keep the temperature up I am adding lots of cow poo soaked in water, rather than adding both cow poo and water. It is a subtle difference but I am hoping that the soupy poo will have a much greater surface area and permeate the pile more thoroughly, aiding the breakdown of the thick paddock grasses.


Yesterday Em showed Noah and I where the bower close to our Dairy was. Today when Noah and I went to collect paddock grass for the compost we checked it out again. The male has used a base of straw out the front of his bower to help his blue objects stand out – a square of tarpaulin, a clothes peg, a burst balloon, some rolled up tape, a lid. The most amazing thing was the small LED torch from the car that went missing months ago. A torch. How can a bower bird carry a torch? It was still working too.


I didn’t get my compost finished today, instead we spent most of the day catching up with friends and having cups of tea. And Japanese sake. The composting can wait.


“I’m grateful that we done the compost and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)

How do you stop

When I designed the dairy, one feature I had in mind was that each room should have two different sources of natural light. The hardest room to achieve this in was our bedroom which has only one external wall. To overcome this I put a high window into the hallway, high enough that you couldn’t see in, and then almost directly opposite it I put a window out to the outdoor laundry. The pair of windows also have the added function of letting cooling summer breezes from the south into the bedroom. The other room that was a bit challenging to light from two sources was the bathroom/toilet, although it ended up being a classic case of problems turning into opportunities, with the high, long window that I made for above the toilet framing a beautiful view for any men tall enough to look out on as they stand, straining the potatoes as Barry McKenzie might say.


We received an invitation from the local Landcare group to a farming workshop as part of their Small Farmers Network. We’ve already been to a number of workshops as part of the network and each one has been great, for the things we’ve learnt, the people we’ve met and the farms we’ve got to go and see. And they're free. I really love going and checking out what other people are doing, talking to them and learning how they’ve dealt with the same problems we struggle with. Like how do you stop Monitor lizards from stealing chook eggs? The last workshop was on pasture management and we came away making plans to introduce a cell grazing rotation system using electric fences, followed by chooks. The idea is the cows, being confined to a smaller cell, have to eat everything before being moved on to the next cell thereby circumventing their tendency to just eat the most delicious feed. It also can help control unpalatable weeds by keeping the cattle herded together, trampling the weeds down rather than just picking around them. The chooks spread the dung and eat the fly larvae, and make eggs of course. And meat. We’re waiting until the spring growth before we start but we’ll need to invest in some electric fencing and we’ll have to sow some more pasture species next autumn. Probably some perennial ryegrass to start with but we’d like to build up to a diverse range of pasture species, providing different minerals and creating a more resilient pasture, able to handle a range of conditions and seasons. I have found an old trailer in the dump in our gully and I’m wondering about doing it up as a dual-purpose mobile water and mineral supplement station.

“I’m grateful that I waited in the car for Mum to send that present.”
(Confused? Look)

Jiggety-jig

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. Where the heart is. My Mum has gone home. Emma is home. And because Emma is home Noah and I are home too.


I remember a trip to Indonesia years ago when we went for three weeks but after two changed our tickets and went home, having had enough holiday. “A month is too long,” Em tells Noah “too long to be away from you.” We drive and talk and eat. Home things. Noah takes our picture and we go for a walk up the back of the block. I try and see the trees and hills through Em’s eyes, holding it up against places I haven’t seen and can only imagine. It’s very beautiful.


Emma has brought me a cut throat razor as a present and I’m very happy. And scared. I’ve wanted a straight razor for some time now. I like that I can reuse it, no longer needing to buy expensive blades and throw them out when they get blunt. I also like that I have to learn how to use it, and how to maintain it. Good skills. The blade is etched with “Turk MFG Co” and a quick search online tells me that the Turks are the best straight razor shavers in the world. Apparently they have it down to a science. This razor however was made sometime after 1977 by Dennis Turk’s manufacturing company in Oregon, who now make things like atmosphere-to-vacuum actuators.


Over dinner Noah asks us, “Should we build a house for Nana and Pop? A bit more closer to us. So I can get up, go outside and see her every day.” He’s called Emma “Nana” twice so far.

“I’m grateful that I raced to Mum and had a big cuddle and saw the airplane.”
(Confused? Look)

Serious attachment

Today is day thirty three since Emma left, and she’s back tomorrow, flying above the Pacific Ocean as I write this. I’m really looking forward to her return. There’s a lot to do so I start early and just keep going, making the house clean and welcoming for Emma. The busy morning is punctuated by little moments of beauty – a thick, lingering mist, the walk down to Blackbutt Creek to start the pump.


We went and saw Mum off in the afternoon, another return journey, like partners twirling their way back to where they started having danced their way around the room. She’ll miss Noah very much. I drive home and leave Noah with Sue and Rob and then turn around and drive back into town for choir. Madness. The drive is too long. I’m tired when I get home, Noah is still buzzing after his long sleep in the car, and I still have to cook and light the fire.


Noah is back in his own bed tonight, a transition that went very smoothly, which is almost to be expected. He has taken Emma’s absence in his stride, never having once asked for her, never questioned why she wasn’t there. This may be evidence of some serious attachment issue but instead I like to think it’s the opposite, that he’s just very settled and confident and trusting, and feels very loved. I couldn’t have done it without Mum.

“I’m grateful that I had dinner with Sue and Rob and I went to preschool and we went and saw Nana’s plane take off with the big propellers.”
(Confused? Look)

Designs over dessert

As I meditate this morning a male satin bowerbird rests for a while by the garden gate, checking out how the garden is coming along, seeing if there are any tomatoes yet. The bower birds are thieves. Untouched tomatoes are rare throughout summer and their bowers are always decorated with bright blue debris taken from around the house – pegs, string, lids. Their eyes are almost unsettlingly bright blue as well, seeing the world through cornflower-tinted glasses. Sue and Rob have a bower at their place in the garden.


There’s an interesting show on at noon so I go up to Sue and Rob’s with Noah to watch it. It’s about increasing the connection between producer and consumer in the Australian beef industry using social media. It's great to see that relationship created and strengthened and it will be interesting to see what affect the direct feedback will have.


Noah and I decide to hunt for a bower near the Dairy and go and explore the gully behind us that feeds into Blackbutt Creek. It needs work, full of cow trails, blackberry, privet, lantana. It has only seasonal flow and now the creek bed is easy to follow. We don’t find a bower but treasures from the junk heap up ahead have been washed down for us to find along the way – old bottles, a rusty milk can.


Mum goes tomorrow and we’re still working – painting windows and architraves, scraping and cleaning windows. She’s a good trooper, keeping at it despite a sore knee from getting on and off chairs. It feels so good to be finishing something else, moving it into the past. Time and again I notice I’m staring at them, dreaming. Noah amuses himself through the neglect creating machines out of Lego for catching stars, harrassing the duck, being helpful. I’m cleaning the toilet window when dark clouds blow up the valley from the south, bringing rain and then hail.


We have a roast dinner up at the big house with Sue and Rob and then watch the new series of Grand Designs over dessert while Noah has a bath. Emma should be here. One sad omission from the Dairy is a bath, and as the water's still warm when the show finishes I hop in with him. Nana reads him some books before bed for the last time before she goes. She's holding it together well.


“I’m grateful that we went for a walk and seen all the great things with you in the gully too.”
(Confused? Look)

Enjoying whatever

I often get overwhelmed by how much there is to do. I’ll be starting to build Ange and Ken’s house soon, still waiting on a few approvals and maybe a little more cash; I’m also expecting delivery of about 25 poles any day now for the new covered orchard that we’re going to put in just below their house (When I say “any day now” it’s only because I’ve been waiting since April); I have a couple of jobs on the go – building, handyman work, and the occasional bit of book-keeping; there’s the dairy to finish; a new milking shed needs to be built within the next year or so; I’ve got plans for the garden; the caravan needs to be finished; the shack needs to be re-organised and one day renovated; the car needs servicing; there’s compost to make… I’m going to stop there.

On top of all this I still need to make time for family and friends, music and riding, exploring and just lazing around. I think there’s so much to do because this isn’t a fourth generation family farm, instead we’ve just moved here eighteen months ago. I imagine one day there will be time for swinging in hammocks but I can’t even smell it yet.


So I lower my eyes and focus on what is in front of me. Fertilising the garden. Doing the washing. Mixing minerals for the cow’s stock lick. Routing and planing architraves. Helping Mum with the painting. Entertaining Noah. Cooking. If I can just keep hold of the idea of enjoying whatever I’m doing I’m going to have a ball, but saying ain’t doing. Gillian Welch sings to me as I drive up to Sue and Rob’s, “Hard times ain’t gonna rule my mind, no more”. It’s my favourite.

“I’m grateful that we had a nice day and I help you did the architraves.”
(Confused? Look)

In your jocks

Mild frost and warm coffee followed by paving in Port. On the way home we stopped in at the salvage yard and talked to the giant who owns it. He’s a warm, gentle man and I like him a lot. He told us how radios crackle when close to him, how he can only have one next to his bed for a few months before it dies and he has to buy a new one. He can also change the channel on the TV just by crossing his legs. “You shouldn’t keep the remote in your jocks” said Jim.


At home we had laksa for dinner with broccoli, lemongrass, kaffir lime and coriander, all from the garden. I’m amazed the coriander is still going, thriving, with these frosts. Before dinner Noah sat on the couch and read Mum and me a book he has only heard a couple of times, all from memory. He has quite an amazing memory for books, not Rainman or anything but a good approximation. He’s convinced he can read. He’s also learning some jokes.


“I’m grateful that we had a nice day and I read you those two stories.”
(Confused? Look)

Flapping slow

Em suggested that I try to give the cows a brush, get them used to being handled, used to being around people. I was giving Bessie a pat yesterday as she ate her breakfast, checking for ticks. She didn’t seem that keen and turned and wandered away. Then whack! A quick kick that just missed me and got her feed bucket. If it had got me it would have really hurt. I’ve been explaining to Noah lately that brave means being scared of something and doing it anyway, so this morning I gave Bessie a brush. Not that I was that scared, but I noticed I moved pretty quickly when she started to turn at one stage.


Mum and I worked on the architraves again today while Noah alternated between helping and playing with his new stencil that Nana gave to him this morning. She’s been here for nearly four weeks and she’s still pulling presents out of her case. I started the tricky architraves after lunch, denailing and dressing the dirty grey timbers. I really enjoy dressing old timber, making it straight and square with the thicknesser and jointer. I also get far too much pleasure out of the shavings from these. I collect them and put them in a bucket next to the composting toilet, carbon to balance the nitrogen in our humanure. They’re quite soft, although sometimes crunchy, and make cool little swirls and patterns. Reusing what we have, reducing waste. I also quite enjoy showers after a day thicknessing timber, finding out how much sawdust ends up in my nose.


I caught little snippets of Pema Chodron as I drove back and forth between Sue and Rob’s and home. “Come back to the present moment.” “Look at the sky.” “Wake up.” Late in the day I was hunched over outside, chopping wood, when a distant screech made me stand up and look at the sky. It was black cockatoos, calling to each other up the valley, flapping slow and flying fast.

“I’m grateful that I did that vacuuming and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)

Spokeshave Rob

We had frost for the second day in a row today, and I’m expecting another one tomorrow. I crunched quickly through my morning chores, getting ready for Bryony who was coming over at eight for a ride. It was refreshing having someone who knows what they’re doing, calm and confident, giving me a chance to learn a bit more. No more shenanigans from Nugget today. We rode up to the back of the block but had to turn back before the sawmill so Bryony could feed her little one. Like a yummy meal that doesn’t quite fill you up I’m looking forward to going back for more.


The postman delivered five postcards to Noah and me today, all from Em. We sat around after lunch reading them, the highlight being Noah’s 3D moving dinosaur. I snuck away to read mine by myself. Messages from far away and (compared to the regular email updates) long ago, tactile and precious. I’ve known posties who would read every postcard that they delivered. After lunch Mum and I kept on with the architraves – filling, painting, getting there, getting there.


Later I took Noah up to Sue and Rob’s to fit a new shovel handle. This is the third tool that needed a new handle this month and each time I’ve really enjoyed using the spokeshave. Rob has good tools like that, often two and both sharp. Even though it takes more time to keep everything so well maintained it does make the work a lot more pleasurable, that and having the right tool for the job. When I was done I had a big pile of long, curly shavings that looked fantastic. Too good to throw away so I added them to the sawdust bucket for the composting toilet.

“I’m grateful that we emptied the toilet and had a nice day and looked at the horizon.”
(Confused? Look)