Windy Old Friday

First, a couple of pictures of the new place for your viewing pleasure.

Below is the beginnings of the orchard, a pair of neat rows of holes, all filled with golden, black coloured, goodness. The rabbits haven't been digging into it as I had feared they might, though the goats have been wandering over it for some reason. Apples will be in row number 1, to the left, row number 2, probably odd fruit like plums, pears and peaches. I intend on at least one more this season, for the grapes. I've got four or five varieties so far, just want some of the wine varieties to cover the drinking side of the grape equation.


Next is a sepia stained picture of the tree we felled. This big fella was a little close to both the house and shed sites for comfort. Being dead it was only a matter of time before it decided to start dropping bits of itself across the landscape. There's a fair bit of firewood in it, and I'm toying with the idea of making one of the big logs into the base for a picnic table, but I'll have to see how I go for time and enthusiasm. Why the arty sepia? It was taken on my mobile, which provides for washed out photos, so a bit of playing around produced something more palatable.


Still no DA for the shed, sadly. I called them up yesterday, then again this morning after they didn't call me back as they had said they would. The news is not too promising. Sure we've been told we should get our DA by the end of next week, but in passing he mentioned that it's taken so long because he had to review the whole history of the previous subdivision and the DA for the house. Then he mentioned conditions relating to road shoulders and access to the block. Seems ominous considering it's just for a darned farm shed for storing some of our stuff out of the weather.

I guess I'm working myself up into a lather over nothing concrete, and fearing the worst, but I've got past experiences to guide this anticipatory enthusiasm. I'll let you know now, if things don't go well when I receive the offending document the blog post to follow will contain the word "rant" in the title to forewarn you :-) If it's really bad I might just insist on council buying the block of land from us and we can pick a spot in a region with a more reasonable bunch of bureaucrats. I'm also toying with the idea of creating a "council watch" website, where we can post horrendous stories of their malfeasance, and view a matrix of their authoritarian-ness, region by region. Might help me if we decide to move on rather than put up with the ...

On a much more positive note, it's Friday. Yes, that's the one. I like posting on a Friday, because it's when half my mind is turned to plans for the weekend, and that invariably involves assessing what has happened before. I've got more to say then, twice as much in fact. Half about what was, half about what may be.

I'm slowly working my way through the seedling trees in the greenhouses, potting them on. The Black Wattles in particular, as they're growing well, and will do even better with an upgrade prior to planting out this winter. I shall occupy some time this weekend finishing that task off (5 down, 24 to go, though I did take care of some other bits of plant life last time, fig and lemon verbena cuttings that have taken well, etc. I actually got around to turning the old chook yard into a new greenhouse, and shifting the plants out of the glasshouse that didn't need to be in there, which then led to the potting on mentioned in the first place. It's a long and winding road for sure.

You can see the remaining wattles to be potted on mid-top of the image above. To the left are three avocado trees, these will need to go back in the glasshouse for winter, they don't like the frost. I've got to pick a nice microclimate out at the new place for them, and that requires a bit of observation through winter. At the bottom are half a dozen or eight or perhaps even nine (lets make it ten shall we?) carob trees, grown up from seed.

On top of that I'm going to get our generator up and running. Did I mention we had a generator? Won by the skin of the teeth on eBay week before last, a beautiful old 16hp Briggs and Stratton motor on a 7.5kVA/6kW Dunlite generator. Should be enough for all our tomtoolery out at the new block, including welding. All it needs is a new spark plug and a bit of fresh fuel (oh, and a new air cleaner element, but that can wait!).

No doubt there'll be a trip out to the block on Sunday, most likely for another round of digging holes for trees... We've got to have somewhere to put all of these, eventually!

Not The End Of The World

Presented below is a rough poem about peak oil and the future that came to me the other night. I hope you will indulge me, and not run screaming for the door.


The end of the age of oil is
Not the end of the world
The end of collective fantasy
Following Father too long
While Mother has been beckoning
Back to her embrace

Time now
To quench the fires of industry
To still the broken atoms
To put aside spear and shield
And find what we've forgotten

Time now
To dirty hands with Mother Earth
To go gathering up the bounty
To take up the scythe and staff
And seek out what's within

Black gold fools gold
Has blinded us too long
True gold black gold
Reeking earthy mold
Virulent life
Verdant trees
Blue raincloaked skies
And crystal streams once more

Jan 09 Activities

The weekend before last I took advantage of the offer of free sheep manure and collected a big load of the stuff. Half of that went on topping up vegetable beds here at the farmlet, in preparation for the winter crops. The other half took a trip out to the new block with me this weekend just gone.

I measured out two rows 40 metres long, and dug myself 30 holes in total, on 2 metre spacings. We've decided on the espaliered high security orchard up near the house, as this will be easiest to maintain and protect over the next year or two. In the plan I'm allocating enough room for 5 such rows in total, giving space for 75 plants, though I'm only going to tackle two this season, or maybe three.

Espalier orchard is the long lines to the top right.

We'll get 15 trees from Woodbridge, enough for one row, and stock the other with grapes, unless I get really keen and put in an extra row further down the hill, and get enough extra work to afford more trees from Tassie. The holes are now filled with the black gold, and I've got my fingers crossed hoping the rabbits and hares don't dig it all out making themselves new burrows whilst we're not there.

I've yet to decide on the best way of fencing them in and protecting them from said rabbits and hares, it's either a small fenced area to keep the goats out, with individual guards round each tree to protect from the vermin, or aiming for a truly high-security rabbit and hare proof fence around the whole lot. I'm doubtful about the reliability of a fence around the lot, and it would be quite a bit of work, so I think we'll end up guarding each plant.

Site of the new espaliered orchard.

I'll need to go and get another load of manure, and should be able to put in a heap of random trees in the forest area with that bounty. In addition to the high security espalier I'm thinking a food forest style arrangement may work well further down the hill, with trees on their own roots rather than dwarfing stock.

If we want to plant even half of the stuff we've got here in pots I've got a lot of planning to do between now and winter (and a lot of digging!) Where am I going to put the woodlot? What about all the odd fruit trees, such as figs, pomegranates and citrus? Where do I want the stone pines and carobs to go? Besides having to pick a nice spot for these things, I need to make sure it doesn't interfere with future plans such as the olive grove and stock routes.

Still no DA for the shed, I called them on Friday and they tell me it's with the engineers for a checkover, and should be out to me before too long. My fingers are firmly crossed.

We desperately need some rain across the region, but I'm thankful we're not suffering as our southern friends are. I've attended only one firecall so far this summer (touch wood), and I don't think there's been too many more than that. They really need to start working on that old inland sea idea :-P

2009: 11: 2

Welcome to 2009!

For those who enjoy looking beyond the mundane, we are entering an eleven year, or a two year, depending on how you like to reduce such things. I generally think in terms of one to nine, especially when thinking about years. It's interesting to note though, that the number eleven, at least according to this site has the following meaning, which could be quite portentious:

11 is not an easy number, especially for material interests. You want to avoid heavy speculation, for example, . There is a huge potential for loss in high risk material concerns, .

And:

Some of the more challenging traits associated with the number eleven may include any of the following (other considerations in the charts collectively either support or mitigate the energy): Nervous energy, intense fear, unpredictability, unrealistic outlook, lack of discernment, religious dogma, fanaticism, insecurity, ...

If we consider the number two, it's generally considered to be a split from unity to either co-operation or division, or to consideration of duality. Being a bit irreverent, I also like to consider numbers in terms of Tarot, where two gives us Balance, Contrast, Partnerships, Choice etc. Two is also considered to be the number of Karma. It can also be about questioning which path to take. (from http://www.tarotteachings.com/meaning-of-two.html)

So we're in for quite an interesting year (as if we needed numerology to tell us that ;-) ) I can envisage that a lot of the world will be playing out many of these things over the coming year, faced as we are with an increasingly worsening economic crisis, with peak oil and climate change hovering on the horizon of our collective mind, and the fact that our leaders are scrambling for politically palatable solutions that continue to serve the interests of the big end of town without ruffling the feathers of the flock.

Back in the mundane world, we've taken delivery of our shed and are now waiting on our development application to be approved. Once that's through we will get a construction certificate in short order and will be set to begin. Having a shed on the new block is a big mental step, in a way it cements our relationship with that patch of the earth, as well as providing infrastructure to be able to get started on numerous other projects. Once we've got a tank stuck on there we'll be able to water things. Once we can water things, we can plant things!

Over the Christmas break we were lucky enough to source as much sheep manure as we are willing to dig and cart. Our plans to put in the initial orchard at the new place are thus given a great boost, as we can prepare each hole with this brown gold. We're still vacillating between an old-style orchard for aesthetics, or espaliered orchard for practicality. Given that one aspect of this enterprise is increasing our resilience as we head into the low energy future I think the espaliering will win out. It gives us greater security as we can net the fruit much more easily, protecting it from the voracious birds. At the very least we will have a high-security orchard as well as some traditional orchard.

In addition, I'd like to get some of the many trees we've grown up here out onto the farm. We're planning a forested area down one of the slopes from the house, though it's going to look a bit odd to start with, given we'll most likely be using apple bin tree surrounds to protect them from the goats and hares.

We got ourselves a new rooster, from Bron at crankycockatoo, and he has settled in wonderfully. He's calm and cool, even with the kids running around, and hasn't attacked anyone, the primary reason for changing from our previous fellow who was as vicious as a pit bull. We'll be getting ourselves a few point of lay chooks in the near future, as the current ladies are getting a bit old and don't produce many eggs anymore. Being sentimental as we are we'll probably keep the old birds on as mulchers, rather than trying to boil the woodiness out of them to make a meal.

This weekend we're going to be knocking down a big dead tree that sits right next to the house and shed sites, and I'm sure we'll manage to think of something to do for Australia Day as well, most likely celebrating in the traditional fashion with a BBQ and a beer or three.

I'd like to finish up with a question: Is it true democracy if you cannot walk away from it? Is it a truly free society if you cannot abstain or secede?

All the best for the year ahead!!