Bicicletas Locos

It’s a beautiful morning here and amazingly there’s not a cloud in the sky, just beautiful blue. Yesterday evening was gorgeous too. After three days of solid rain it finally gave up in the afternoon, giving us time to walk down to Blackbutt Bridge and then across the Olsen’s bridge which was about a foot under water, the sound of roaring water able to be heard from the dairy.

We’d been into town earlier for the Farmer’s market which had a hard time attracting a crowd in the pouring rain, which was a shame because it was the final of the local food cook-off. The dishes were delicious though and it probably just meant there was more for me. An Indian take on an Australian open steak sandwich won over duck breast with an avocado and summer berry relish. I was too late to taste the duck but the steak sandwich was delicious – marinated local Kindee beef from Brian with a toasted flatbread and a homemade tomato relish.

Noah is enjoying finding and catching bugs at the moment. Christmas beetles, crickets, caterpillars, moths – all get put into his bugcatcher, usually to be given to Morrow at a later date. With him distracted with bugs and the exercise bike Em and I had a chance to get into the garden and work in the beautiful late afternoon. So beautiful. And not raining. I pulled out our garlic which looks fantastic, surprising because I had given up on it with it’s skinny stems and no bulb action. But it was all going on underground and it’s now hanging up to dry under the verandah. Next year we’ll plant a lot more – a dozen heads just isn’t going to cut it.


We’ve also started harvesting the potatoes. I dug up one plant and got two kilos of tasty spuds, boggling at how much food is in the ground – I reckon we have over 50 plants. Would we eat two kilos of spuds a week? We picked our first zucchini, as well as our first beetroots, small and sweet, really just thinning them out so the rest have more room to grow. Our onions are drying well and we’ll hang them up soon, although the ones still in the ground haven’t really formed good bulbs. We’ll see.


The beans are starting to go rampant so I finally got around to making a trellis for them. I have been wondering what to use, considering harvesting bamboo at a friend’s place, until I was stacking onto the bonfire big long straight lengths of privet that Em cut last month. A few hours later I had recycled our waste, weedy privet into a zero-cost bean trellis that Em describes as “…a bit Andrew Goldsworthy but not as beautiful.”

The exercise bike Noah has been playing on is a gift from our friend, eager to see the bicicletas locos come to fruition, putting things in front of me. The what? Bicicletas locos – crazy bikes. Things like this. I want to make a pedal-powered butter churn. And blender. And … the bike is a beaut – a Malvern Star from the 70s or 80s with clunky old pedals and a seat big enough for your Aunt’s ass as she puffs away, shedding those kilos. Noah loves it.



“I’m grateful that I catched some bugs.”
(Confused? Look)