Tomorrow looks like a bad day

Steadily we are getting everything in order for the bushfire season. Today I re-worked the water distribution pipe work at the pump. By extending the primary outlet pipe an additional two taps were added to the system with room for more if necessary. These taps remain in operation when the entire distribution system is turned off. Something that will have to be done in the event of a grass fire as our pipes around the property are all above ground along the fence lines.

The generator has been moved up to the house near our emergency bolt hole. The table holds the sprinkler system for it and the pressure pump. The table will also keep some of the water off the generator. And if it rains there is a canvass sheet to cover the lot until the fire season finishes.

The chicken evacuation area is now complete with its own sprinkler system

We continued watering around the house and chicken run to try and establish a green zone. And have finally assembled the backup 12 volt pump. It can't be tested until some additional fittings are purchased later in the week but so far it is looking good. We were given some retired UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) batteries and although old function very well. One runs a portable electric fence energiser and is recharged by a solar panel. The other two are used to run 12 volt devices such as a tyre compressor and spark plug cleaner. These are on the charger to make sure they are fully functional to run the 12 volt pump.

The big orange UPS battery charging

Yesterday's Havarti spent a few hours in a brine solution and will now drain for a couple of days before waxing.

The postal service delivered a batch of seeds from Eden Seeds. Very exciting. Some of our seeds had gone well beyond their use by date and having germination problems. We have also decided to grow more beans this year and use them as dried beans. The newly arrived seeds went straight into seed trays as soon as they were unpacked.

I was looking at Farmer Liz's blog on composting and noticed eggshells in the compost additions. We keep our eggshells in a stainless steel bowl in the warming oven and when full it is heated in the oven. The shells are scrunched up into small pieces and added to the chooks food as another source of calcium. The cooking processes is just so they are not eating raw egg traces.

Our kitchen scraps go into a bricked off area in the back of the chicken run.

The back end of the chook pen is bricked off for food scraps

Paper scraps, stuff that isn't interesting to chooks and garden weeds go into our brick compost and will later be processed through a hot compost to kill of any seeds. Thicker woodier material is put to one side to be run through the mulcher before going into the brick compost or directly into a hot compost.

One of the two loose brick composts