Autumn - Finally

Its arrived after a long wait. The cool of Autumn. The early mornings are mid to low teens and the days mid to low 20's. Long pants during the evening and a jumper in the morning. Overcast and wet during the day encouraging a day indoors with visitors.

Jean spent the day entertaining the visitors while I made the day productive on the computer. Apart from a punishing session in the pool with the pool manager very little else got done. We are doing 30+ laps each afternoon in various time groupings. All of the brackets leave me breathing heavily so it must be good.

The pool closes in less than 2 weeks and this blood rush at the end is to ensure a good finish for the season. The body is starting to feel as if it is getting some work.

Looking out the kitchen window sees the grass growing in these ideal conditions. The soil is still warm and the rain accelerated growth. Bugger! another mowing later this week will be required.

Martinique our Jersey heifer mistakenly pushed through the boundary fence and was standing near the front gate on the wrong side looking forlorn. No grass on the neighbour's side and she didn't want to be there but couldn't work out how to return. Warren was whinging because she wasn't with him. And even Hector was moaning. It's rare to get any sound out of him.

The remaining two wires on the fence were cut and she came straight through. All but two of the 5 wires are useful. The others must be 50 years old and so rusted they break as soon as touched. When Jean returns from Benalla we will replace the rusted strands. The posts are fine and will do for another 20 years. It will be a chance to electrify some strands as well making the place a little more secure.

The owner of next door hasn't lived there for close to 10 years. Apparently he is working on the Central Coast. The land is leased out to the neighbour on the other side. The cost of the fence repairs will be insignificant and we have enough wire in stock to complete the job. No big deal.

I went out last night to lock up the chooks and walked past a number of the Golden Orb spiders still manning their webs in the drizzle. It's getting cold for them and they'll be gone in a few weeks. A bit sad and I'll miss their presence. They are lovely creatures and learn to spin their webs in an orientation which minimises damage during the day. That is to say if you don't want the web across a regularly used path just knock it down and they'll rebuild it facing another way. They're very shy and run away if disturbed despite looking fearsome.

Autumn!

Autumn Gardening

Last month time was taken to clean out the garden beds of their finished Summer crops. Those were the things that had gone to seed or finished fruiting. Seed was harvested, the plants and any weeds mulched, chipped and composted. Slowly new vegetable seeds and seedlings have begun to fill the vacancies.

A few Broccoli plants into an unprotected bed. Well, the two garden chickens are getting on in years and can't jump high enough to reach the raised beds. After a week the Broccoli looked tatty and leafless. This went on for a while and then it dawned that the Peacock was an agile young bloke. The mesh protectors soon proved that to be the case.

Peacock damage

Recovery

Some other members of the brassica family went into other sections of the garden. A few Cabbage, but not many as we still have a goodly store of Kim Chi and Sauerkraut. Kohl Rabi is a delicious vegetable and a few seeds sprouted and were transplanted and a variety of Asian Brassica found a home.

Asian Greens

Onions are cheap to buy and we use heaps but provenance is critical and space is found to plant some bought seedlings. There is a secret to sprouting Onion seeds and growing seedlings and as soon as that mystery is solved it will be a topic of this blog. In the interim any good quality items found in punnets are snapped up and planted. This way the only other challenge is how to stop them bolting and make them form bulbs. There's always an opportunity to learn something new in gardening.

Bunching Onions

Then of course these cooling periods of the year are perfect for Lettuce as well as Radicchio and other bitter greens. The more bitter and unpalatable the better. You can feel them doing you good as you masticate, adding as many different flavourings as possible to modify the taste. It helps to include a good mix of lettuce, rocket and some strong flavoured herbs including chopped or sliced Onion as well as a strongly mixed dressing. Another enhancement is seeds, nuts, Fetta and chopped boiled egg. All these dilute the bitterness to acceptable proportions. These monster salads form a great part of out evening diet as an adjunct to whatever main dish is created. No shortage of fibre I this diet.

Red Radicchio



Radicchio

Carrots, Beetroot and Radish are continually being planted and soon harvested. There never seems to be enough when you want some. The Parsley that seeded is now generating offspring and an ongoing supply is assured. Salsa Verde is in continuous production in this kitchen.

Parsley

There are still Summer leftovers floating around the garden. Lots of Hungarian Yellow Wax Capsicums, Climbing Beans and Shallots. Potatoes are still being harvested and of course the Pumpkins taste good. The last of the very late Watermelons is an Orangello grown for the first time. A small sized melon but deliciously sweet and an excellent partner to yogurt and the less sweet Dragon Fruit.

Snake Beans

Hungarian Yellow Wax

Eggplant resurgence

It's not possible to starve at HHF

Autumn on the way

There is something about Autumn (and Spring for that matter) that gladdens the heart.

With Autumn it is the prospect of the cooler days that make working outside more attractive and pleasant. Today after the rain it was reasonably pleasant outside. The weeding program continued with the weeds going straight into the almost complete NZ compost. By the end of the day it was brimming and a warm coat of mulch hay was placed over the top. The central hole was drilled clear and that is it for 6 weeks.

A couple of beds were prepared for planting. In this case we have Cabbage and Broccoli which need a rich base full of good compost. Jean will slip those into the ground tomorrow. We also have a punnet of early onions to plant. There is a nice section of the garden weeded recently that will not be too rich for these.

While typing this I'm looking out over the Williams Valley which is misted up and looking lovely. No wonder it is worth getting up early. A chance to write the blog in that early morning quiet with the scenery developing as the light starts to filter into the valley.

Over the river the irrigation is turned off, the grass has already leaped out of the ground although it will be a couple of weeks before we stop hand feeding. The cows are on Lucerne and some Oats. The boss wants to replace some fencing and suggested we find some one to get stuck into it. That someone is the youngest son of a family in a nearby village. He is just starting out and very keen. He was shown the extent of the section to be replaced and didn't seem daunted by the use of non standard recycled plastic posts and has some spare time right now to get started. It was left up to the boss to negotiate rates and initiate the work. Our role will be to supervise and keep up the material supply. This will suit us well as we would like to spend more time on HHF and transition gradually away from paid work.

Ramifications of Renovation, Newly Tiled Floors, Weeding and Planting for Autumn, Gordon's Birthday

Ramifications of Renovation

One of the bonuses of renovating is in packing up all the belongings in a room. It inevitably leads to review the need for each item. Our rationalisation saw a lot of books and unused bedding going to the Salvos. Nothing wrong with the books it was just that they were not of use to us e.g. Some Pritikin Diet cook books, many old history texts and technology books. The bedding was for a double bed which we no longer have since upsizing to a King size. The added space on the shelves will enable a better presentation of the many treasures we keep.

Newly tiled floors

The tiler was very quick only four days to completely finish the lounge room, hallway, dining room and laundry. Hardly any inconvenience other than to the dogs who had to be tied up all day and then kept out of the house while the adhesive dried. But what a spectacular change to the feel of the house. So much brighter and cleaner looking lines. Should have been done 20 years ago.

Of course the work only started when the tiler left. The grouting dried overnight and allowed the vacuuming and washing of the floors the next morning before starting the re-assembly of all the furniture. The hard work is in the cleaning of all the furniture to remove dust from crevices and rubbing the wood items with furniture polish. Another tedious task is to sort the books into some type of order on the shelving given their different heights and topics. After two 10 hour days for both of us the lounge and dining areas are complete and the the books are all back.

Gradually over the next couple of days the laundry came together and the skirting boards renovated and replaced. Still to come are the linen cupboards and the welsh dresser. Easily another few days work.

Weeding and Planting for Autumn

With all the effort devoted over the last 6 weeks to renovations the unused garden beds have become overgrown. Because we have been living off the produce from the Summer Tomato bed little attention has been given to anything else. Well now the time has come to clean up and commence planting for Autumn and Winter.

All the weeds and vegetables gone to seed are composted. Most of the area is covered in chicken litter and heavily mulched while a small amount is fertilised with compost and planted with a few cabbage and Kale seedlings. A few more lettuce are planted and a row or two of beetroot. A few weeks ago we sowed some Chinese vegetables to give us an interim crop of brassicae. The radish ready and they were under sown with carrot. The rocket is also large enough to be harvested. And so the transition starts.

Happy Birthday Gordon

Gordon turned 20 on the 1^st of March. Gordon is one of our cats, the last survivor of a litter of five found 20 years ago at the local produce store. Mum had disappeared after being dumped at the store with her babies.

Gordon Full Tummy Asleep on Food Dish

They were tiny back then only an eye dropper could be used to feed them as they fitted into your hand. We guessed them to be 3 days old. The workman at the store was glad to get rid of them. Gordon was very weak and he (the storeman) commented “He won’t last the night”. Well he was very wrong. Gordon outlived all his brothers and sisters. His brother Silva would look after him and play with him in those early days.

The original plan was to raise and then adopt them out. But that just never happened. They grew up with us and because of the early intervention were particularly bonded. Allowing all sorts of handling that cats normally don’t accept.

Gordon is a bit special. He was born with a withered leg which means he cannot hunt. If moving slowly he has to drag his withered paw awkwardly. If moving quickly he has a three legged hop. The nearest thing to hunting is chattering at a blowfly in the window. Sometimes he would use the withered poor as a club trying to beat something into submission (with no success).

When one of his siblings brought home a baby rabbit, Gordon quickly jumped on it smothering it with his body. He looked up with a glint in his eye “look mum I’m a big hunter”.

He is an undemanding little bloke. Always eats what is put in front of him, drinks his raw milk afterwards and loves to sleep on your lap. His favourite food is meat especially in the form of mince and consequently for his birthday he was treated with top grade mince over a number of days. At his age he has a limit to how much he can digest in one sitting.

Now days he joins us for breakfast then sleeps all day until dinner time after which he sleeps again.