Down the path

I want to make an almanac for our farm. Not so much information about the weather but more about what needs to be done when, although it could evolve into all sorts of things over time. I want to be reminded that it’s time to manure the fruit trees, or when to sow seeds so they’ll be ready to plant in spring, even things like servicing the car and cleaning the gutters. I realise this could be seen as too much, perhaps too rigid or regimented, but what can I do? This kind of thing floats my boat, and rather than head down the path of self-denigration I’d rather see things in a more positive light. Having passion for what you do is so valuable and can take you to such interesting and satisfying places so I’m going to let my bright light shine. I’m going to write down when it’s time to rotate the beds in the veggie garden; when to worm the chooks; make time for going on regular adventures and when I need to prune the fruit trees.


I’m quite a compost dag at the moment. To work out the thing I was most interested in I imagined myself at a party that was really boring and wanting to go home, then just before I leave I change my mind when someone starts talking about……compost. I go to sleep reading about compost. I get a little excited when it’s time to turn my compost, to see how it is going - how hot it is, how wet it is, how broken down.


Today I had fire training but when it was finished I went and cut a trailer load of bracken to shred for my next compost. The light was beautiful, showing off the surrounding hills... and the compost. See? Dag.


“I’m grateful that I goed to Morrow’s and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)

Happy cheeping

In a quiet moment, just before bed, Noah told me that his favourite friend is Brooke, the eight year old girl up the road. He has been quite challenging lately, wilfully disobedient as Em and I never were as children, but when he told me earnestly in his quiet and confiding voice that Brooke was his favourite friend it was very sweet, like he had given me a little present.


Chatterbox Salmony is an only chick. Sadly none of the other eggs hatched and so after about 25 days we took the eggs away at night and returned Chatterbox to her mum, along with a broken egg shell for added effect. She was quickly ushered under a wing and snuggled up in her Gladys’s warm feathers. We don’t know why the eggs didn’t hatch but we have a few theories. It could have been that she was sitting on too many - she had ten for most of the time and she looked like she was struggling to cover them all. Or maybe it was because she kicked the straw out and the eggs were just sitting on the cold plastic of the lawnmower catcher with no insulation from the cold underneath. Next time we will give her a different box, and not quite so many eggs. Until then Chatterbox is happy cheeping and peeping with her mum as she shows her how to do chooky things like gobble up worms.

How to fly

I asked Noah what he was thinking about as we had dinner. Without pausing to think he replied, "I'm thinking about crocodiles, how to fly and dinosaurs."

“I’m grateful that Morrow came over after school.”
(Confused? Look)

Long catkins

The asparagus soil is duplex – sawdusty, moist and full of worms in the top and hard, sticky soil underneath. The worms need to work their magic and incorporate it all together so I need to keep them happy. I know you can’t overfeed asparagus so I’d like to be giving it a liquid nitrogen weekly, ideally some liquid manure left to brew for a long time but until I’ve made some I could use some fish emulsion. I like thinking about how to provide all our garden’s needs from what we have. I’m trying to make potash rich compost using bracken; we’re increasing the size of our chook flock to provide us with some hot nitrogen fertilizer; we’re making regular batches of compost; we collect horse and cow manure; and we have a good working worm farm. We need to get in lime and rock dust, which if we buy in now hopefully we won’t have to do much again.

I’d like to have about a dozen compost bins. I think we need about half a dozen up at the top of the orchard just to use on the fruit trees. If we made a pile every two months we could let it break down properly over a year before using it. Woody compost giving the trees lots of fungi which they love. I could also use about half a dozen down here. Maybe a few more. I’d like two big bins over by the deciduous trees on the road so I can collect the fallen leaves and make leaf mold. Then I could use that instead of buying peat blocks to hold moisture for things like planting little seeds, making potting mix and seed raising mix. The other bins I’d use just for normal compost, once again trying to keep it for a year before using it so it really breaks down well and gets populated with lots of micro-organisms.


The pecan tree is covered in long catkins, male flowers, but no sign of the smaller female flowers yet.

“I’m grateful that I went to preschool.”
(Confused? Look)

Chatterbox Salmony

Our chick has been with us for over three days now but Gladys's other eggs are still sitting tight. We candled them tonight and there's chick action in all of them. Emma might be in love with our new chick, which Noah has named Chatterbox Salmony.

Rhubarb

What a beautiful day, hanging out with Em – a little singing, a little weeding, a little cake. We’re still adjusting to daylight saving so we’re only just working out that in order to get Noah into bed before 9-9.30pm we need to be having dinner while it’s still light outside. Subsequently he’s been sleeping in until about 9am in the morning, sometimes playing with his toys before he comes out - the other day he emerged around midday. Imagine what he’s going to be like as a teenager.

My choir teacher is sniffing the valley to see if there’s enough interest for a local choir so this morning I went along to the singing workshop she was holding at Hollisdale, armed with a rhubarb and apple tea cake. Our rhubarb is going off at the moment and we're loving it. Unfortunately only six of us turned up, enough for a good sing but not enough for a regular class. Singing is such a pleasure at the moment and I’m determined to keep it that way. I don’t need any extra worries in my life so I’m just not worrying about it. It’s a nice feeling.


Back at home Em and I made a start on clearing the track down to our new waterhole spot. It has been raining a little here in the last few days so the days are still cool and not too sunny – nice weather for working. Or pottering. We pottered along, clearing privet and making big piles to put through the shredder for the compost. By the time we have cleared it all it will probably be summer and we’ll be able to jump straight in.

“I’m grateful that I went up to Morrow’s house.”
(Confused? Look)

Cheepy and peepy

Yesterday one of our chicks hatched. Gladys has taken to kicking the straw out from under her so we found our new little chick squashed beneath her, slimy and wet and pressed against the cold, hard plastic of the old lawnmower catcher. It looked barely alive so we decided to remove it, worried that she wouldn’t look after it as she waited for the other eggs to hatch.


A day inside under a lamp and it’s all fluffy, cheepy and peepy. Now we’ve just got to wait for some more of the eggs to hatch and we’ll have a go at slipping it back under our good mum at night.

“I’m grateful that the little chicky survived.”
(Confused? Look)

No more blue lego

I’m not a big fan of organised religion but one thing they get right is rest days. It’s easy for me to fall into the trap of never-ending work, keeping on until I’m completely exhausted, so remembering to have a break every now and then is essential. I don’t see my rest days coming but I get the first hint when the couch develops its own gravitational pull. Once there I do make some genuine attempts to get up but it’s not to be.


It all started yesterday and I was well ensconced on the couch until Em rescued me and took me for a walk down to Blackbutt Creek, showing me where she thinks we should create a little kiddie swimming spot. All well and good except we signed (yes signed) a piece of paper the other week pledging to not spend any money or have any big ideas until we were back on our feet financially. We are not there yet and the path to the creek is almost impenetrable - thick with privet, lantana and blackberry. I could put the woody buggers through the shredder and use them to bulk out my compost heap but…..we promised. I would like to add some woodiness to my compost. I’ve been making a new heap today from bracken and horse poo but as it's for the new fruit trees any added woodiness will help encourage fungi in the compost which trees prefer.


The spot by the creek is quite pretty with shady spots and shallow, fast-flowing water but there is quite a bit of work to do. Instead we planted a few more trees around the house – a black mulberry in the chicken pen to the north of their house so it will be shaded in summer and also let the low winter sun through when it loses its leaves. The chooks also got passionfruit planted along their fences, as well as watermelon and chokos. Em has been thinking about our lack of chook forage and shade and has decided to do something about it. Very admirable. Each hole got some horse poo, blood and bone, a little lime, worm castings and compost, before being watered in with a little liquid seaweed. The compost is thick with worms and looks great.


Now that it is warming up the lace monitor lizards are on the prowl again, raiding eggs and probably even sizing up the chooks. Twice our early warning system went off – the kookaburras go crazy with a distinctive call before the magpies swoop in and give them hell. We caught one just outside Gladys’s chook tractor where she’s sitting on her eggs (it didn’t get in though!) and shooed it off and then later harassed another that was in the big chook pen, closing in on the eggs. It took off and climbed the pecan tree, staying there despite the magpie continuing to harass it. I am so pleased that we have our bird-powered early warning system I am prepared to forgive the bower bird for its incessant thieving. At least we know where to look when there’s no more blue lego left.


“I’m grateful that Morrow came over to play.”
(Confused? Look)

A little seed

I have a little seed of a theory growing that my mental health is better when I blog every day. Maybe.

PLAGGA at our house on Sunday was great, certainly befitting of a major blog post with bells, whistles and of course no pressure. Until then I’d like to share my favourite photo from the day.

Made at home

Our turn came around once more and we had the pleasure of hosting PLAGGA (Pappinbarra Ladies and Gentlemen’s Gardening Auxiliary) on Sunday. Friends descended on our place intent on adding willing workers to whatever gardening task took our fancy. This time we used our workforce to wire up the orchard, plant the fruit trees and collect bracken and horse poo for mulch and compost.


My head has been so full of getting ready it was hard for me to switch my brain off and enjoy it but it was a real pleasure, as it always is – good friends sharing work and yummy food. An especially appreciated effort is made by the people who do the childcare. I didn’t see Noah for most of the day and yet I could relax knowing he was being well looked after.


Now all our fruit trees are in the ground, the first layer of wire is up, there is a tap in the orchard for watering and we have a trailer load of bracken and a trailer load of horse poo. The trees look so good in the ground, finally growing and full of potential. I’m desperate to make a new compost heap using the bracken which is high in potassium and I’m willing to cheat and use both the shredder and blood and bone, just to get it composting fast and hot - I have lots of new trees that need good compost and you can't buy the best stuff, made at home and full of life.


If I get a good result I’m going to try and compost the bracken without shredding it – hopefully mowing it with the slasher on the tractor will be sufficient, and I would like to move away from having to buy in blood and bone but we need to build up our chook numbers first. The eggs Gladys is sitting on are due to hatch in the next few days so we should have a lot more little peepers soon.


“I’m grateful that we got that bracken.”
(Confused? Look)

Might work for carpet

Never mind the quality – feel the width! While it might work for carpet salesmen I’m not sure it’s the right approach to blogging. Debateable perhaps because I’ve found that forcing myself to post daily has been positive in so many ways but I really don’t want to stray into posting dross just for the sake of it.


I am completely flat out. We have PLAGGA here in two hours and there’s still lots to do but I couldn’t resist a quick little post because yesterday was really cool and today is going to be great too! Yesterday our big posts went up thanks to the skill and guidance of Mountain Ryan. The last posts he put up for an orchard went up over three days but we managed ours in one, with time left over at the end for cider on the verandah, soaking up the sun. The days here are a little wet but mostly still dazzlingly beautiful. Seriously.



“I’m grateful that we played that game at Morrow's.”
(Confused? Look)

Byeeeeee!

I'm on hold with Westnet, my internet provider, cancelling my service - without break fees! Hopefully I'll be back up soon...

Lying in the mud

Our internet provider is being annoying. They’ve changed our plan without telling us and now want to charge us for excess usage instead of shaping. If I wasn’t so busy I would have sorted it by now. Because we’re over our limit for the month we can only use the internet during off-peak, which they’ve reduced as well – now it’s only midnight until seven in the morning.


I have solved the wet pole holes in the orchard, lying in the mud, reaching down with a little yoghurt container and bucketing it out and then using crusher dust and rocks to compact until I am out of the mud and can use earth again. The poles are solid, three metres high and don’t move. Just in case I am staying them as well and I’m almost finished that now.


In the evening, exhausted, I walk back down the hill and spend an hour working in the garden. For sanity and to feel like other things are still moving along. This week I’ve planted corn, prepared the root crop bed and mowed the lawn.


I am reading a book about a couple that moves to the country in response to Peak Oil and it is a timely reminder of why we work so hard. It is not a question of ‘if’ but a question of ‘when’. With such far reaching implications I would rather be overly cautious and have acted early, as opposed to ignoring the problem and waiting until things get really tough. And suppose, just for arguments sake that Peak Oil won’t be a problem (technology will come up with a solution; new reserves will be found; transition to natural gas, etc), then I haven’t lost anything as I am living exactly the life I dream of and wouldn’t wish for anything different.

Deep holes

I’m battling mild despair as the 50mm of rain we’ve had in the last two days attempts to scuttle my plans for getting the orchard up. We got close. I have five big four metre poles sitting in deep holes filled with water and little chance of compacting them in. I tried bucketing the water out but the dry dirt I shovelled in quickly turned to mush and within quarter of an hour the holes were filling fast with water again as more seeped through the profile. Now I’m covered in sticky mud and no closer to a solution. Gravel might work. On top of that I need to auger six more holes and get another six more short poles in (and compacted!) before tomorrow; my operator has a greater crisis to attend to and can’t help; and I still need to put in at least ten stays today. If I can’t get them finished today I won’t be standing up the big six metre centre poles tomorrow, which then flows on and makes Sunday’s PLAGGA look a bit suspect.

All I can do is focus on what I can control and let the rest take care of itself. Things will work out and these problems will all fade into the past, it’s just a matter of when. I didn’t give up stressing in the city to come and stress in the country. It's a beautiful day out there.