It's been a summer of ups and downs, and there's been a great deal on socially that has hindered a lot of the plans for more productive work. I will start out saying that taking up lawn bowls is not something that should be considered lightly if you value your weekend freedom! On the other hand, it's great for making friends and having a good time. We've managed to get out and about on the odd occasion too.
The picture to the right is an old log cabin we found when we went wandering off the beaten track out in Nangar National Park, which is just out west of us. Judging by it's construction method it's been there for a very long time (in Australian terms) but I wonder why it's not signposted or highlighted in any of the information about the park at all.
We've also had a couple of floods, a fair serve of rain, and not a lot of excessive heat, which is always a bonus here. I think we only put the swampy on twice through the summer, and only then because I must be getting soft :-)
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| Floods in January |
Our fruit trees did a marvellous job of producing fruit, the fruit flies did a marvellous job of infecting it. We did get a few apples and a fairly good serve of peaches this year, though we lost at least ten times more. The crop of quinces on the tree was astounding, but sadly all of them went to the chooks. Pomegranates have been pretty good, though even they don't seem to be immune to the fly. We'd even started spraying chemicals around, figuring we were buying fruit from the shops that had been sprayed, so we'd be going one better spraying our own fruit to save it. If we're to try that again next year we'll need to be a lot more consistent and organised with it if we're to make it worth the effort.
The vegetable garden has produced a moderate amount for us, beans were good as always, and we did get to pick some tomatoes for the first time in a few years, even without a lot of spraying. A lot of spaghetti squash, a fairly typical serve of zucchinis, some celery, a couple of eggplants and a range of other odds and ends such as cucumbers and chillis to round it out.
We did have some nice pumpkins but unfortunately they were left to dry in a spot accessible to the puppy and so we didn't have quite so many pumpkins after all. We also had the best year for luffa gourds so far, with two finished and another on the way. Not sure how far three luffas go toward fulfilling our annual requirements though!
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| Compost cage |
We've been using a compost cage in one of the new beds, which we fill up with the weeds as we pull them out. The idea is that the compost is created in situ to fill up the new bed. It started out full, at a metre high, and is now down to 40cm odd, so we're either going to need a few more, or a lot more weeds!
Sheep have been added to the yard again, and they've managed to decimate a few favourite trees with their enthusiasm, but it wont be long now until harvest time, then we'll just be left with an old retiree, Pinky, to help keep the grass down, eliminating the need for a lot of the mowing.
The chook population has exploded with a good batch of light sussex from the incubator, and probably twice as many wild-grown bantam chooks which are now running feral around the place. We're slowly harvesting our way through them, though that particular project may receive added attention after one of the hens with chicks in tow decimated the newly planted bed full of our winter seedlings the other day. DW was most unamused by it.
There have been a number of problems on the infrastructure front, with leaking pipes in between the floors of the house and a few other plumbing issues, all of which have been resolved but have taken their toll on our patience with the place. The termites have now been declared eliminated thanks to the efforts of our pest controller, but we've not even idly considered any of our other plans on that front given how much other stuff has been on.
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| Pinky the ancient ewe on the right |
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I got a few odd jobs done over the summer, the new vegetable beds are still a work in progress, but are probably over half way towards completion now. The chook yard has been modified to expand it a fair bit, and the nursery area has also been "upgraded". I still haven't finished the new duck tractor that I wanted to build a while back, though I've almost got the frame welded up, so it shouldn't be long now. A fair bit of new internal fencing has also been done to accommodate the sheep, though I want to do a deal more to let them into other areas that we currently mow.
The
block of land is still for sale, we've only had one person express even a vague interest which quickly died out when we confirmed that we weren't going to drop the price to the level they desired. We have lowered the price to a last-resort level in the hope of getting rid of it, so the only other thing we can do at this stage is keep our fingers firmly crossed. Seems the real estate market is a bit stagnant at the moment. Hopefully we'll live through some mistakes to be able to learn from them :-P
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| Arrowroot |
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| Our first Black Walnuts |
Many of the leaves are still clinging tenaciously to the trees, though there are some bright yellows and oranges on the pistachios out the front so it shouldn't be long before it's looking distinctly more wintery. A lot of the fruit trees have already lost their leaves without the intervening display of colour, so hopefully they grow back again come spring! We did have to do a bit of supplementary watering at the end of the season, but nowhere near as much as we would in a typical year.
With luck winter should be a bit more peaceful on the social front so more can be done around the place, such as finishing the new vege beds. I'd also like to tackle building a furnace and a smoker over winter now that it's fire season again, though that will have to vie with woodchopping in order to keep the place warm, so I'm not holding out too much hope! Doing at least one of the projects would be good!
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| Olives pickling using the salt method |
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