An expansion of an earlier post on hot water

In an earlier post back in June I touched briefly on  our hot water at the farm.
When we purchased the property the only hot water we had was  an existing  collection of messy tanks and pipes up on the roof that was gravity fed from a tank on the hill behind the house and then passed through  pipes into the kitchen and into the firebox of our wood cook stove and was heated that way. Not so great  or efficient in our long hot Aussie summers.

When we  first tried to get it all working, we lit the fire, and Brian and his uncle got up on the roof(This was after a couple of beers during happy hour,late in the afternoon0 to find out why the water wasn't coming through to the house.
Our Aunt Barb and I were in the kitchen after  hours of cleaning, as we had found the house in a filthy state, when all of a sudden there was a great  explosion, and soot and ash went everywhere. Apparently a valve or something up on top had been  put in back to front and the pressure had built up as the fire heated up  until it released with a bang.
We then heard the men laughing and went outside to see what was happening, only to find them soaking wet up on the roof where a pipe had blown off.
After a massive clean up we were able to all sit down and laugh about it and could see the funny side of it.

The above pics show my poor old stove in pieces being cleaned out and  our wonderful Aunt and Uncle who have helped us so much  along the way.
We decided that this type of system wasn't ideal and we had  been hearing about evacuated tube hot water services, so decided to take the plunge and purchase one.
We had to get one specifically designed to be used on  a gravity feed water service, so we ordered it, and transported it up to the farm and there it sat for a few months until we were able to call in a few volunteers to lend a hand.

I added these photos to give  a perspective on how big this system is. The tank holds 300 litres( about 70 gallons) and is sitting on a queen sized bed. There are 10 glass tubes that heat the water from the sun.

Brian dismantled the old system and removed it off the roof and then they began assembling the framework for the new system to sit on.

each tube had to be filled with water, with a special silicone seal on it and then had to be carefully positioned into the system.

It took several hours to  complete this, but with our extra help all ran smoothly.
We decided to keep  the circuit of pipes that ran into our wood stove as an extra back up in case we got a few too many cloudy days in a row. We rarely have had to  light the fire to heat the water, quite  the opposite in fact, we have had to cover the  tubes over summer with shade cloth to  stop the water overheating and evaporating, and also to protect the glass from hail storms if we are away.( the glass is hail resistant but not guaranteed    to  be hail proof.
We have found this system to be wonderful ,it has been up now for about 6 years and we have never had a problem with it. Our next door neighbours have just recently also purchased  one similar to ours as they have seen how successful it is.

Nothing beats the luxury of hot water, and life is just so much more comfortable with it.
Above is how the place stands, solar on the roof of the shed and the evaporated tube solar hot water on the roof of the house, they arn't elegant but they are efficient.
So enough of my ramblings,
Until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane .

Family gatherings,Aussie bush style.

My husbands large family likes to gather together, and as he was originally one of 11 and now one of 10 surviving siblings the numbers are quickly growing over the years. We tend to use any excuse that we can to get them  together,especially significant  birthdays and celebrations.
Last year at the end of September was one of those times, one brother was reaching his 60th milestone and another his 50th, so we combined the two celebrations and got together next door(where the 60 year old lives) and overflowed to our place.
We were lucky a neighbour  raised a few pigs and we were able to select a a nice one to go onto the spit.

My husband and his brother butchered the pig and we hung it in a cool room for a couple of days before the party.They also did a  lamb to put on a    spit   another day over the weekend and a second lamb just all cut up  into chops to use on the barbeque for the weekend, as we had quite a crowd to feed..They had also  put about 8 chickens on the spit  the day before and chilled them..

The roast pork was superb,and along with hot vegies and salads and beautiful desserts it was a wonderful feast.One of  my husbands brothers prides himself as the best "pig on the spit" cook.
There was not a single piece of pork left, all the bones and the head were even stripped that night.
There is just something extra special about a spit roast.

We got a group photo, late in the afternoon but many more arrived later as darkness fell.

The photo above is my husband and his brothers and sisters. It's rare these days to get all 10 together let alone get a photograph of them together. This is them ranging  from left(youngest) to Right (oldest) Rough looking bunch(lol) but mostly they are all good mates and have a great time when they are together. I think the family did it fairly hard in their early years( and what big family didn't  in the 40's,50's and 60's), Their parents would have been very proud of all of them. All hard working, decent  good family people.
So a wonderful weekend was had by all, took us all the next week to recover from all the preparations,celebrations and clean ups. We were exhausted.
The following week as we were leaving to return to the coast, just not far from our house (about a kilometre) we saw this little fur ball crossing the road and climb up into a nearby tree. We stopped to have a look and see what we found. A beautiful koala. We have  often have heard their growling  mating noises in the night in the distance from our house  but have never came across one so close to home.So i thought I would share it with you.

We thought it was beautiful. I had grown up in that area and when I asked my mum, she said she had never seen one around there in roughly 50 years, so we were honoured.
So back in the car and back to the rat race...
So until we meet again,
Stay safe,
Cheers,
Jane from Aus.

Flannel Flowers

Right behind our house the terrain rises steeply into a big rocky ledge with a couple of smaller caves carved into it. On top it plateaus off and there is a rather lovely stand of typical Aussie bush covering a few acres of the place.

We regularly walk around this area and for the first 6-7 years there  were no sight of the white flowers that you can see in the photograph above, but one day  my husband appeared back at the  house with a few flowers to show me. These are our wonderful native bush Flannel Flowers, that  ever since have been prolific up on the hill. (they prefer rough rocky,scrubby areas , and thrive in well drained  soil.

They flower about October-November and are so beautiful. Imagine my surprise last year when my man appeared with a massive bunch..He's never been a flower buyer, but he will pick the odd one for me from the garden or out in the bush.

So here's hoping that the weather has been right this year and we may be lucky once again to see this sea of white flowers.We have a few other native wildflowers that grow on our place. They usually come into flower a little earlier than the Flannel Flowers. The wattle and broome and boronia and native sarsparella  start to flower in August /September. I always pick them each year and we take them out to our Dads graves at the local cemetery  for Fathers Day.

Cheers,
Jane