Today Jeff and I got to and got all that wood stacked and undercover.
There are bits of me now that are not playing nice with the other bits!
I have tried to add a timelapse of the job we did today above. It does say “Error loading this Resource” Hmmmm.
I will have to try it on my facebook page if it isn’t going to play the game here!!
Me – after a job well done! (unless I go out tomorrow and find the stack fallen down in a shamble that is)
So – in case the timelapse didn’t work – this is where we started –
This is somewhere in the middle-
And this is pretty much done!
That should keep us going for another little while.
Jeff took some time to split some of the smaller pieces up into kindling
After a break (in which I sat on the edge of my herb garden and amused both myself- and I am sure Jeff- by blowing bubbles) I went into the hothouse.
I decided that the cucumber had finally bitten the dust
I was going to clean up in here a little more but Margie and Ruby dropped in for a cuppa and by that time we were more than ready to come in and load up on caffeine!!
One month of winter gone and still a few tomatoes! Yay!Cleared the hanging tomatoes and cucumber
Happy with the progress of the indoor broccoli
Even the potato plant-that-I-didn’t-plant is going well
I think only a couple of the cucumbers will be ok… we ate all the tomatoes at dinner tonight (cooked them up in a mix of onion and garlic!!)
Even a few chillies!
Time for me to crawl into bed!!
So much for Sunday being a day of rest!! 😀
Cheers!
Told you Tasmanian weather can’t make up its mind!
OK – just kidding. I am not going to write a whole post about chook poo! 🙂
The poor chickens. Their coop was a bit horrible. We had trouble finding hay recently- of all things in the country to have difficulty finding mind you!! Bad weather, bad timing etc. Finally picked up a couple of bags of chopped hay off my favourite vendor down at the local markets. Lucky I went early as he said there is no more for a long while!!
A few wheelbarrow loads off to the compost! We put this lot in the established compost – more room.
We threw some lime about – helps with mites and lice (And apparently odours) then made the whole coop lovely and fluffy with new hay.
Of course – five minutes later of unsupervised chickens had them kicking it out the door already!!
They will have some fun creating new nests
Once the weather changes back to not horrible I am going to whitewash the whole coop!!! I will feel like I am living in an Enid Blyton book!!
The weather was pretty nice for most of the day – that is, we had gorgeous sunshine until the washing went out and we started in the garden! 😀
Some of the canes were a bit wonky…
So, we got to and dug a couple of small rows for the raspberries – extending the existing ones.
The chickens were most helpful (not)
Every time I dug a hole, someone got in it, in a frantic worm-search and another would kick all my dirt all over the place!!
Despite all the feathery ‘help’ we got the canes in. Hoping they are happy about their small move and produce some fruit this upcoming season.
There was still enough daylight left to get back into the duck-yard and try to finish up the weeding we started last week
The chickens weren’t our only company – I looked up to suddenly see this lot staring at me!!
So funny to be in your little weeding world and look up into the faces of a couple of calves!!
Right on dusk, Cousin Jeff pulled up at the gate with a load of firewood!!!
We had seen his wife at the local school market that we went to this morning and asked if she could ask Jeff if he has some more dry wood – the last lot is still a bit heavy, so we need to mix it in with drier wood and we were running short of the older stuff.
I didn’t say it was THAT much of an emergency!! 😀
Lucky us – Spiderman delivers our wood!! (Not that you can really see Jeff’s son’s costume, but trust me… its cool!)
So – I know what I will be doing with the non-rainy days this week!!
Going to have to get this stacked ASAP before it gets totally rained on
Night had pretty much fallen by the time Jeff had unloaded the wood. I did take the time to go back to my ‘garden’ to admire it. Or stand there and imagine what will be next season!!!
Hope everyone has had a lovely start to their weekends!
Cheers!
The fact that Tasmanian weather can never make up its mind, means we get a lot of rainbows!
Well, I caught a cold the other day and I am shaking off the tail end of it.
That meant no visiting Ruby, who I am sure appreciates me not sharing my bugs around.
Happily this particular cold seemed to come and go really speedily (probably all the weeding scared it off)
Soooo… today I was working on some photos getting ready for my upcoming photo challenge on facebook… (I wrote a post here about it if you are interested)
One of the subjects is ‘Bubbles’ so I tried making a super strength bubble mixture and went outside to play!
Getting the knack
It was actually tricky to get a free floating bubble – not least then get the camera aimed and focused before there was a pop.
Fabulous bubble – dubious background
It’s pretty hard to steer bubbles. It was a total game of chance
Wind came by and helped out
Soapy rainbow colours
A few floated away
And more than a few popped before I could even snap the photo
Timing or what??
It was a good start to getting ‘that perfect image’ but I am going to have to enlist Jeff as Bubble-Assistant so I can be free to take the photos while he creates the bubbles! (I am sure he is dying to play with bubbles on his days off)
(Will add the mixture I used today at bottom of post)
I had Pip outside with me, as the sun was mostly shining. He went Mad-Cat half way through the bubble project and shot up a tree!
Something happened in that cat brain and off he went!Up the apple tree
He isn’t generally a tree climber, so impressed he made it that far without falling out!My handsome boy (not that I am biased)
He got down really easily – that is I unclipped his lead and he used my shoulders as a landing pad.
On my way to visit the chooks this afternoon I went into the vegie patch to see what the garlic was doing. I was so pleased – the purple variety, which is an early garlic, has all shot up really well!!
Even the regular garlic is making a move with tiny shoots showing
While I was there, I thought I might as well raid the broccoli patch for dinner
Tasty
One of the other subjects in the challenge is “From the Graveyard”
I visited the local cemetery by the river to see what was there that was aesthetically pleasing.
This graveyard is not used anymore – well, no new additions anyway. There are a few ancestors of mine in here too.
Family graves
A lot of the graves are rundown, neglected and quite frankly look as if the residents are trying to escape!
Frances has been laid to rest in here… I wonder why they thought they needed a 5 foot iron fence surround with spikes on top?? Who WAS this person???
I really like old graveyards. I like reading the dates, names and little notes that people have on their headstones.
The effort that has gone into someones final resting place really is impressive compared to the fairly boring more modern cemeteries.
Elaborate fences around plots
I am not sure if its ok to be amused while walking through a graveyard, or if you are supposed to keep an air of solemn – ness the whole time.
The finger pointing down… Yes, I know they are ‘down there’ !!More spikes, although a little less sharp than Frances’s spikes
I am actually waiting for a foggy night or morning to get my ‘final’ shot as of course a graveyard looks so much more impressive looming though the mist!
Have a lovely day everyone!
Cheers!
************************
Todays Bubble Mixture
6 cups water
1/2 cup cornflour
1/2 cup dishwashing detergent
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon glycerin
Mix water into corn flour first then add all other ingredients. Let sit for an hour.
I love raspberries! Tasmania is a great place to grow raspberries – it has the right kind of weather – and I keep telling Jeff its the main reason we moved here.
Last season my two modest rows of raspberry canes produced a massive 31 kilos of fruit! (around 70 pounds)
My happy place
I still have several bags of frozen raspberries in the freezer ready for whenever I want to cook something ‘raspberry’
Raspberry muffins
Today ended up being a day to attend to the wayward canes. I went down to the market this morning to pick up some wheat and hay for the chickens. While chatting with a few different people, I learned that everyone was pruning and planting their canes! Right! Best get right onto that!
Two rows of canes to prune and cut outBefore
After
I still have to take the lines that run along the canes down and restring them tighter so they have something to give them a bit of support.
I also tied bundles of them together, which also helps support them – we get a lot of wind here!
Bunching them together
I pruned a lot of them back. Mostly it was easy to tell if the cane was dead and needed cutting out completely, but sometimes taking the tip off you can see the green in the cross section. Of course, those ones I left in to hopefully produce another great crop later this year
Not dead!
Quite a lot of new canes have been poking up through the ground in places that are not convenient. I got to, and dug a lot of them out by the roots. I ran out of time today, but I plan to dig another row and put these back in
Re-homing a bunch of canes
I cut out a LOT of dead canes.
I look at this and see compost
I figured I might as well drag out the little mulcher and put all these dead canes through and add it to my new compost bins.
The dry canes went through like a dream – a noisy dream.That’s a significant reduction in pile size!I will mix it tomorrow – one bin full already!
Well…That’s almost another tick off the long gardening list.
Lucky me! My fabulous husband went online shopping and bought me a surprise… two surprises actually! Compost bins!
He figured it would take too long to get around to building more and found these!
Luckily I collect weird things, like bags of chicken poo, so I was able to 3/4 fill one already with the hay/chicken poo mix from cleaning the chicken coop.
My chicken poo collection.
I have also dumped in a lot of worms, transported mostly from the original compost.
Looking forward to filling them up with more scraps & mulch etc.
It really was a fabulous day out there! When Tassie weather is on form, its gorgeous! I was in a t-shirt all day.
Jeff had begun to dig and weed the duck yard (we have never actually HAD ducks, but because this yard originally had a pond area, we figured ducks must have lived here!)
The weeds really had taken over as its not an area we use – its a chicken yard really.
I have plans for those big rocks!!Whatever this is, its growing very well. Happily it wasn’t too hard to dig up – just a lot of it.
Screecher, our one remaining original chicken, totally knows the ropes when it comes to us digging in the garden… snacks galore!
Sucking back worms like spaghetti!
The other girls got in on the act too
Poor worms
I thought it would be good for Pip to be outside for a change. He has spent far too many hours buried under the doona, the lazy cat!
Seeking entry into the back paddock!I think cats also photosynthesise!
Funny to watch one of the new chickens trying to get brave enough to get closer to check out what kind of weird bird he was!
She kept clucking at him as well!
We made quite a lot of progress over the afternoon, along with several chooks coming in to ‘help’ dig
Jeff & the Team
Rewards were plentiful!
I am pretty sure all the chooks had a great afternoon! So much enthusiastic scratching and scoffing of worms!
Scratch, scratch, peck peckOnce the new girls got the hang of what was going on, they were quite bold in the worm catching arena!On overtime now.
The sun was gone, moon had risen, about time to call it a day!
Last barrow loadNot quite a full moon yet
Felt so good to be out in the garden again getting some work done!
Disposed of several of these today!
So pleased with todays work!!
I should be able to finish off the last bit tomorrow afternoon if the weather plays nice again.
We are going to block the chickens access to this area next season and this lovely big space is destined to be one of my new vegetable gardens!
I figured I could have a good patch of corn, and also put the space hungry pumpkins and zucchinis in this area. Also along the taller fence to the right of the below image, I could plant a row of runner beans that can climb up the fence and do their thing.
I also plan to boarder as much of it as possible with marigolds!
Despite being winter, the herb garden is still going strong
Hello!
Well… the pantry is nearly under control. Its already pretty fabulous to walk in and know where stuff is, grab it and walk out!! 🙂
Tonight we are feeling rather full and content, as I decided to to make a lamb roast for dinner. Along with the beef in the freezer, we had also bought a lamb.
First stop was the herb garden – rosemary & oregano for the cooking and mint to make some mint sauce.
My garlic of course
I usually cut up some garlic, then stab holes in the top to poke the garlic in all over it. A bit of oil on top, garlic salt, plus the chopped up herbs and into the oven it went
Ready for the oven
Next step – vegetable garden foraging
Fresh carrotsFresh broccoliStill tons of parsleyCut into one of my pumpkinsGood colour!
I love being able to create a dinner almost entirely out of the garden!
Ready for baking
I hadn’t made mint sauce in an eon… I know its supposed to go on the meat, but I have always loved it on my potatoes!!
Old fashioned herb chopper
Mint sauce is pretty easy to make – if you haven’t and want to, simply chop up a good handful of mint, boil the kettle. Put a couple of spoons of sugar in a bowl and use the hot water to dissolve it. Add your mint, then add splashes of cider vinegar to the mix and taste test until you like it. Sometimes you have to do a bit of a balancing act between the sugar and vinegar.
Fresh!!
The thing I really love about roast lamb, is leftovers! Cold lamb on sandwiches with home-made relish!!
Ahhhh – the good life!
Cheers
Of course gravy and cheese sauce to finish it off!! That’s local lamb (Cousins farm) 5 different vegetables from my vegie patch (Potato, pumpkin, broccoli, carrot & garlic) and three different herbs – Rosemary, oregano & mint! (yeah yeah – indulge me while I have my proud gardeners moment!)
It was time to get out and get that garlic in the ground. The weather went back to gloomy and overcast… but I only got misted on rather than rained on really.
Right now, its midnight and the rain is coming back steadily. Communities are being evacuated, cows are washing up on beaches, and rivers are swollen to several times their size. A real testing time for little Tasmania!
Anyway, I raked out the area to make the surface a bit more even
Nice and neat
I find it easier to go along and poke holes in the ground where I want the garlic to go first.
Ready, set, plant!
When I plant my garlic I leave a tiny bit of the top poking out
I was able to fit in 135 plants! I guess that will have to do me for this year.
I am listening to the rain and hoping it won’t go too crazy as going back to the vegetable garden and trying to recover 135 cloves of washed away garlic would be tedious.
Oca
I noticed that the couple of self seeded oca was dying off so decided to dig them up and see if anything worthy was in the ground
Small harvest
Enough for the dinner plate tonight and some to save and hopefully plant later this year.
It belongs to the oxalis family. I hadn’t heard of them before coming here. they are nice baked in a bit of olive oil and garlic salt. Maybe next season if I deliberately plant them AND take care of them I will get bigger tubers.
My naughty chickens were stalking the broccoli again!
Wrong side of the fence Missies!!!!
Halfway though planting my garlic THREE of them flew back over into this patch again! I tried to scare them out but it seems its ok to fly in but no idea how to fly out again! One panicked and got caught in the bird netting! I was worried she would injure herself! I finally got her and un-netted her. The bonus being I got to give her a good long cuddle! She was surprisingly really quiet in my arms and her feathers are silky soft! Lucky me!
Bad chook
Then off to the hothouse! Plenty of water in the rain barrels to give everything a nice long drink
Still lots of cucumbers!
Offloaded a couple to a visiting cousin today – and ate one tonight
Tomatoes are slowly ripening
Some go rotten quickly – the chickens win those ones but mostly we are still getting a decent amount from here
The chillies are ripening and reflowering all over the place!
Ready!
We got some succulent cuttings a week or two ago – supposedly for the path that just got washed away… they have produced roots really quickly
Pig FaceLooking positive
And lastly, the broccoli in the hot house is really charging along!
That’s all from me… I am just sitting here listening to that rain get heavier!!
Well… after a wild and woolly night, I was greeted with a bit of a mess this morning.
A new direction in problem solving!
Its insane how much stony gravel there was…. I am sure we didn’t have that much! But it certainly spread its way down the back!
This is going to be really annoying to clean upReflecting on the job ahead
So really, my way of dealing with the situation was to grab my camera, jump in the car and go see what was happening in the local area.
Lots of stories floating (haha) about with damage, flooding, missing boats and garages collapsing on BMW’s (I didn’t even know someone in little sleepy Wynyard actually owned a BMW) 🙂
Insurance companies were incredibly busy today running about sorting out claims.
Anyway, first unscheduled stop was the bridge at the start of our river walk. I saw cars parked, including police, so I dove in, parked and went to stare at the raging torrent our little tidal river had become!
Here is what we are used to seeing:
Taken from the footbridge
This was today:
Footbridge was under water. This was taken from the highway bridge. Tree in the middle is same as tree on right side of above photo if you are trying to work out scale.
The river walk path has been obliterated and the people on the corner property have lost their fence (you can see it on the right side)
Next stop, Wynyard Wharf
Pulling up logs that had jammed under the boats and pier
It was a very busy scene
A huge chunk of tree!Its not even quite high tide, but the water is higher than I have seen it before
Some of the boats did not have a good night
My cousins boat has survived even if it has a little bit of a lean! (This is at the mouth of the Inglis River looking out to the ocean)
Next stop… see what Wynyard Beach looks like
So much debris washed up on the beach!Waves are mud!Sun trying to break through
It seems incredible that mere water can move huge tree stumps like this!
Kids playing on the ‘driftwood’ before the tide came in even furtherI spent a while getting ‘splash’ photos!Churning muddy waters
Someone lost more than just a few woodchips and stones!
Poor battered boat
I did enjoy a bit of art that was provided by Mother Nature
Storm Sculpture
I hope everyone else’s day was a little bit drier!
Well…I think it was a good call to abandon any thoughts of going to a market today.
It was soggy
A constant downpour – oh yes… wind too!
Partway through the afternoon we sprung a leak in the lounge room – which was a worry as there is an upstairs before the roof!!
Jeff searching for solutions
In the end we took the panel off the wall upstairs to see where the water was running in from. Its really hard to get into places in this old house. We shoved an old towel into the gap and let it hang down… once it was soaked, we could guide most of the drips into a bucket. Very high tech.
Water Catchment Management System!
Unfortunately that’s not the only leak. The skylight in the dining room always gets drippy with prolonged heavy rainfalls and we haven’t managed to stop it yet! Its a slow drip, so a few buckets are under it.
Then, for the first time, our old fireplace seems to have sprung a substantial leak!!
Catching a fair bit of water here!!
BUT… that’s not the worst of it!
I have just spent the last hour outside in the dark, paddling about in the rain. Why? Well… I got to thinking about my rain-gauge spiders and how the rain gauge was filling up like no-ones business. I thought by morning the poor things would be drowned! (Weird, but I got a little fond of them)
So… I took the rain gauge into the newly cleared bbq area and relocated them into the kindling box. I am pretty sure they will be happy there.
I also measured 169mm of rain (6.6in)
I’ll be interested to see what we get overnight
The gutters and downpipes are at capacity!!
Our front yard is in a bit of trouble…
I stood there and waved goodbye to our woodchips 🙁
Then that lovely area that I started cleaning up to make a garden?? Well… its a pretty spectacular waterfall right now!
Damn (or really lack thereof)
I am wondering by morning if we are going to be able to access the garage!!
The path in front of the garage door is being eroded away!
I went down to the foot of our waterfall – it actually looks quite pretty although I couldn’t quite get a decent photo – something about holding a torch, umbrella and trying not to get an expensive camera wet – did I mention it was dark and raining???
The stones and woodchip from the path have washed right down the back and its a mess. I’ll have to inspect it properly in daylight tomorrow – if it ever stops raining!
Going to trot off to Pinterest and see if anyone has Ark-Building instructions available!
Stay dry
Cheers
The water starts somewhere around the front, flows in front of the house then to here…before turning into Norwich Falls!!
Really, today was another gorgeous day for winter – but I was so boring I am not going to send you to sleep reliving my domestics!
Our local Jehovah Witness lady popped by this morning with a couple of potted plants for me! Cool huh? She has finally given up on my immortal soul and we talk about chickens and gardens instead! 😀 Not even a hint of the Watchtower!!
Borage and Chickery
Apparently the plant on the right is edible in a salad but is a bit bitter. Its a good one for the chickens and when it goes to seed, it goes really tall and produces daily blue flowers that are also edible in salads! Can’t wait!
Speaking of chickens… their reaction to the rosemary in their usual nesting box was – to move to another nesting box!!! I laughed when I saw where the eggs were today!
There are three nesting boxes – they always all lay in the same one!! Todays production low with only three!!
I did spend some time contemplating my major garden overhauls during this winter.
The winter back yard looks kinda forlorn!
I am pretty bad at getting a plan in my head. We need the access as we drive down to the back of the hothouse to drop firewood off and sometimes other bigger garden purchases like mushroom compost.
I need to be able to still let the chickens out to a decent sized run, but would have to keep any additional garden beds very separate from them! I like the idea of a bunch of raised beds in the back area somehow.
I have decided to extend the raspberry patch by one more row.
Then – there is the back of the house yard which I so very much want to landscape!
I have plans to move the clothesline to the side of the hothouse – it will get good sun there but not be in our view.
This whole area to me is wasted as lawn. I have dreams of a crazy rambling garden – but no idea where to start!! (Hence it being lawn for 4 years!!)
Oh well… I have the whole winter to work on that. Readers suggestions (Sensible and crazy) are totally welcome!
Cheers!
You know the fire is hot enough when the cat starts oozing out of his sleeping bag!!!
