We have babies !!!

Since our last dry visit up to the farm, we have anxiously watching the weather, but alas we have had not a drop of rain in the last 3 weeks and we made the decision to make a hasty trip back up with a trailer load of  lucerne  hay for the sheep that we were able to purchase here in the Hunter Valley off a property near the river that irrigates.There is very little hay around  the farm area and what is there is ridiculously expensive, so it was cheaper for us to purchase some bales   on route and cart it  up there.

The sheep eagerly watched us arrive and waited patiently for Brian to unload the hay and give them some. Our next door neighbour does feed the hay out for us at regular intervals when we are away.

Our neighbour had sent us a message to tell us   that we had  babies, 2 single births and 1 set of tiny twins. we had decided to only put 6 ewes in with the ram as we were trying to  control our numbers,So far 3

ewes have had lambs, 3 still to go.They are just the cutest little babies.Looks like we scored three girls and one boy( but we left them alone and didn't do a closer inspection.

We really thought by this that we would have had some decent drought breaking rain, and under normal circumstances we would have done. So these mums and bubs will do it a lot harder  then they would have in normal times. Our neighbour has  agreed to feed out extra feed for them in our absence.
They were very grateful for the hay and  gobbled it up very quickly.

While were were there on our whistle stop visit I decided to spend a morning sorting out some of my  empty Fowlers Vacola preserving jars that I had stored down in the shed. They were filthy and in need of a different storage solution. So I washed them all up and sorted into sizes. ( We share about half of our empty jars with our neighbour(my husbands brother and his wife to preserve in as they have an orchard, but no preserving gear.)

I then had a thought.. we had an old defunct chest freezer and I mentioned to Brian that it may be useful storage for some of my jars.

This held about 110 jars, could've held more but I kept sizes separate. I put the bigger taller 4" jars in a pantry in my laundry room. Our Fowlers are a little more bulky than mason jars and therefore take up more storage room.My laundry room is already crammed full of empty and full mason jars.
While there we also decided to dig  the small potato crop that we had put in. We  suspected that we would get nothing much from it as  there had just been no where near enough rain, but even so were still disappointed with the outcome.

At least it is enough for a couple of meals. We realize that we are really at natures mercy  until we live at the farm full  time and can control the water situation onto the gardens.
Often as we sat on the verandah  or were going about our jobs, we would see the sheep standing at the fence, looking wistfully(or should I say enviously) at bits of green inside the yard around the shrubs where the water  drip system works. I feel really mean, but if you let them in they would devour any and everything in sight.

Also doing a lot of verandah guard duty is my blue mate Tilly, she sits a lot these days as she gets older. She has been suffering a bit of conjunctivitis in her eyes this week, We will have to keep a watch on her.

When we woke yesterday morning ,ready to head off, the sheep looked like they were relaxed and had full tummies.I never tire of this sight.

Brian threw out 2 bales of hay for them to make sure those mums with bubs had  a chance to keep milk up to those precious bundles. It looked like they were taking turns at baby sitting. At this point the mum with the tiny twins seemed to be watching after all four babies.

As  I was shutting the gate at one point I noticed that the sheep are cutting deep ruts into the dry ground., Brian said he will run the ripper along them when we return next time ,to make the sheep walk around them to reduce further damage to the paddocks.

We said  farewell to our little place for the time being, hoping to return for a month long stay(which will be wonderful) in about 4 weeks time. Hopefully there will have been rain by then.
On our trips to and from the farm we always stop at the same spot. It is a four hour run, so we stop roughly halfway off the road in the pretty spot to give Tilly a toilet break and a run around while we have morning tea/lunch/afternoon tea, depending on time. We really love this spot, nearly always green no matter how dry it is, and it has these two really unusual rock formation. Totally natural and apparently only seen in a couple of places in Australia. This off road picnic area is called "Battery Rock"

As we got nearer to home at an old disused service station, we noticed a pile of 1000 litre plastic water cubes for sale, so we called in.(we have been looking for some more of these locally and at a reasonable price but hadn't found any)We decided to purchase 4 of them at $75 each and loaded all four up onto our empty trailer and strapped them down. We have brought them back to the coast and will take 2 at a time up to the farm at a later date. Our next trip up will probably  require us to take up  another load of hay.

So , hopefully  there will be rain soon,(nothing predicted though for the next week), But who knows, Mother Nature works in mysterious ways.
So until we meet again, hope everyone stays healthy and happy,
Cheers,
Jane.

veggie protection in our hot Aussie summers

About 5 years ago we had this great idea of making a hoop shade house to protect our plants in the  extremely hot summers we have here in Australia.
We built the shelter with just three hoops. 2 inch poly agricultural pipe over metal star pickets forming the skeleton. We then covered it with nylon bird mesh to keep out birds and other  nuisance animals and then covered it with high density  shade cloth.
We found that this was totally impractical as it was too shaded and the plants went spindy  and leggy and  didn't thrive.
We removed the shade cloth and just left it for several years with just the mesh.

Recently I had a whole pile of potatoes sprout  and I suggested to Brian that we plant them up at the farm in those garden beds, As they would have no protection we mulched them heavily with sugar cane mulch .It has been extremely dry up here  and the mulch has helped greatly.
So yesterday I suggested to Brian that we really needed to put some cover over the potatoes or they just would not survive the next  couple of months and we would loose them.
So we decided to revamp the  hoop  structure a little.

Where we originally had three poly hoops we now have five.
We then screwed in  three horizontal rows of metal as   strenthening supports to the structure.

For this we used some old metal tent poles that we had been hoarding for years for no particular reason but knew they would come in handy one day.
We then made a very lucky phone call to enquire  about the price of shade cloth . We first rang our next major town  which is 32 miles away (thinking that our little local place wouldn't stock it. The price in the bigger town was $13.90 per metre for 3.6 metre wide cloth.
We decided  just to check  our local fellow (6 miles away) to be really surprised that he quoted us $5.60 per metre for the same width. We went in immediately and purchased  the required amount , double checked the price, paid and made a  very quick exit as that was super,super cheap.

We attached the shade cloth  ,making it higher up on the back side of the cover as the sun is more prominent on the  front side most of the day.
On the side where it is hanging down we attached a 7.5 metre long 1 inch diametre plastic pipe so that we could use the overhang as a roll up blind, that we have up for most of the year and just roll down when the heat is extreme.

We think that this amount of shade will be the right amount and that hopefully we will grow  lot's of healthy vegetables under here. Our blue Cattle dog Tilly certainly seemed to be enjoying the shade as she barely moved from laying in one of the gardens for the whole day while we were  working there, even today she has spent a few hours under there9 even though there is plenty of other shade for her.)
So here's hoping this works,I will update you all at a future date to check on the progress and see how it goes.
So a cheery farewell to all,
regards,
Jane.

Thanks Dad !!!

Our Blue Cattle Dog Tilly  and her mate Doug the Kelpie love to chase  a soccer ball. They will chase it all day every day all over the farm.They get to be a real nuisance at times pushing the ball into the middle of what ever project you happen to be doing at the time and expecting you to kick it or throw it for them..

We have a grey water pit at  the farm into which all out kitchen,bathroom and laundry grey water flows into. We then hook up a small petrol pump and pump the water from the pit  out onto the lawn and trees. It passes through a rudimentary grease trap before running into the pit.
The pit is quite deep, my husband can nearly stand up in it.
Well recently when Brian was pumping it out, the dogs were racing around crazy with their ball and it just happened to fall into the pit.I just love the following images, they were just too cute.

And then it was like...."Hey Tilly the ball has  fallen in, come and look"

And then...."oh dear what will we do"
I think they thought that if they watched hard enough and really willed it to happen, that the ball would just magically appear again.

I think it was about then that they realized that Dad was there and they began asking him to save it for them

 

So good old Dad came to the rescue and pulled out that dirty smelly old soccer ball out  of the grey water pit.

So there were two happy dogs ,once again playing with their old soccer ball.

Another time when Brian had just started  pumping it out, Doug the Kelpie was racing around chasing the ball and then he just disappeared. Suddenly Brian realized that he had fallen into the pit and had to quickly rescue him as the water level was quite high. It certainly scared him and he was very wary of it that day.
For safety reasons we always keep a heavy concrete lid on it, the only time it is removed is when it is being pumped out. Because we don't live there full time it doesn't have to be emptied as often as it will when we become full timers.
 Today is the end of Winter, with Spring just around the corner with the promise of new growth and colour, all we need is that ever evasive rain.
Until next time,
Cheers,
Jane.

It's a dogs life!

Nearly every trip that we have made to the farm we have in tow at least one furry friend and often two, when our daughters' dog Doug needs a little farm holiday.
So in the station wagon we pile, and they know !!! They are always so excited to get there  as they are aware of what a fun dog place the farm is and all the racing around like crazy that they can do.

We own the Australian Blue Cattle Dog, her name is Tilly, she is nearly 10 years old now and a real treasure.She is now full of arthritis and really starting to slow down. We have even treated her to a real luxury of a doggy electric blanket for her bed in the laundry where she sleeps.
BUT !!! When we are at the farm, especially in the winter, she knows that we allow them to bring their beds inside where the fire is to sleep.Such spoilt babies.
The Other ruined four legged mate is Doug the Australian Kelpie, belongs to our daughter who got him by default and  is so part of the family.

These two have such a wonderful life, going for big walks, helping  the man of the house with sheep work and racing aroung crazy chasing rabbits and balls and every other thing that moves.
We have a grey water pit into which our kitchen,laundry and bathroom water runs into ,and one day we were pumping it out(after having removed the manhole cover on top, turned our backs and Doug had fallen in,He was after his ball which  had gone in and  he went in after it.Such a panic.He was rescued ,safe and sound.

I know we spoil them, but their life is only very limited so why not give them the best time we can, well that's my  thoughts anyway.
Cheers
Jane