The rain keeps coming

Beginning to become annoying this rain. They say you should never complain but there is still some washing on the line and just as it begins to get dry another shower hits.

We moved the cattle on HHF into one of our front paddocks which now had some good growth. Just so they wouldn't pig out we fed them their sprouted grain and some Lucerne. They seem very happy with green grass even whinging Warren was quiet.

After knocking over the early morning chores of feeding whoever needed feeding and opening pens for chickens and ducks we performed another Yoga session which seems to make us both feel better. Being a fast day we got ourselves busy after a green tea to take the mind off food.

Jean went across the river to harrow some paddocks. I thought it would be too wet but surprisingly the RTV left no tracks on the river paddocks when I was feeding the cows earlier that morning. Nothing like good alluvial soil. She arrived home soaking wet. apparently a heavy shower caught her by surprise while she was negotiating some paddocks which needed gates opened and closed as the harrows were brought across from the other side of the property.

The last of the grapes needed pressing today. Three batches of Tannat. One grown on HHF and two purchased batches only being different by the yeasts used. The first batch was very powerful but drinkable straight out of the press as was our very small home grown batch. Should develop well. But the real standout was the batch using VR21 yeast. What an amazing difference. So good in fact that two glasses were put aside to have with tonight's meal. This process of leaving the wine on skins for a minimum of 22 days does amazing things. A 50/50 mix of American Oak and French Oak chips went into the demijohns. This should really round off the wine.

Our tiny harvest of 3.8 KG needed the baby press.

Working in the Cave with clean floors is pleasant. Very annoying whenever wine splashes on to it. We have even been taking off our boots whenever we enter. That's the trouble with tidiness.

Being a fast day and having done yoga in the morning we decided to really punish ourselves and finish the day in the pool with light workout. It turned out that light was all we could do. At 4pm the pool had a lot of activity of the 5 lanes 2 were taken up with swimming club training. A third had someone doing laps and that left us to share the remaining two with the Learn to Swim class. Still all was not lost we completed our High Intensity Training session first with 3 x 30 second sessions and then went on to Aquarobics. The only bit we skipped was the swimming. Back home to dinner pre and wine making. A good day.

And it Continues to Rain

Another day of rain. Not heavy just a steady drizzle from time to time, but it keeps coming back. Another 16 mm overnight. After a prolonged dry spell farmers say "We need 3 inches to give it a good soak". We have now just passed the 3" mark.

The plan was to wash the Cave floor gradually over the next week, but in the absence of something else to do in the wet it proceeded to get done today. Washed a section, then when it dried moved a bit of stuff about and washed another section. I've found that the scrubbing brush is adequate but that a big handful of steel wool is even better. Especially getting crushed grape berries off.

I'm only using a little cloudy Ammonia in the scrubbing water and just plain water and a rag to wipe up the mess. Slow and steady progress and by late afternoon it was all done. Not under any moveable objects close to the wall or too close to the edges where the visitors (termites) might be put off by the smell as I didn't want to disturb the little visitors at this time. Once they have left home I'll get in and do the remainder of the floor.

This is one of the Termite baits. You can see they have built a protective edge around the foil which means they are eating it. Lovely!

What is a bit of a shock is how dirty and discoloured the floor had been. Not that I managed to get it pristine this time round but it is so clean that when the light is turned on it is extremely bright in the room. The floor was originally painted with a pale yellow cement paint and now that the stains are removed there is a certain lightness.

So clean

Yesterday's writings mentioned Core Strength training. Well today just for something different we did Yoga. It's a DVD that we have been using for years by Gary Bromely. Just about the right level of difficulty for us, easy to follow and an excellent mix of stretches. We enjoyed it having not done a session for while and felt great afterward. Something special about doing Yoga first up in the morning before starting the day.

Things pottered on nicely all day. A batch of Fetta started and finished and another batch of chocolate using our newly created recipe of 3 Coconut Oil, 1 Honey and 7 Cocoa. Jean has taken a fancy to just plain chocolate that is moulded flat and quite thin i.e. less than 5 mm. It has a great texture and the thinness lets it melt nicely in the mouth. And the good bit is that it is full of Cocoa and a small piece is filling.

Rain

The forecast was for 5-10 mm but for the 24 hours to 9am Friday morning we had 30mm and then by 9 am Saturday morning another 32 mm and it drizzled all day. As usual we missed the opportunity to trim edges and mow lawns earlier in the week and now the grass has run away and the ground too soggy to navigate. By the time it is dry enough in a couple of days it should be a nice height. Just when we were getting used to it being excessively dry and getting out of the habit of maintaining the lawn. What little hand mowing we did perform went into making compost. No drama, this growth will produce some excellent mulch for the gardens and around the fruit trees. Always a bright side.

The milk collection was left until this morning. Jean said I should find two smiling dairy farmers. I had to remind them but they dutifully stood side by side and put on broad grins.

We ventured into Raymond Terrace to pick up a garden fork. We have one really good one made from high tensile steel which never bends and it is getting a bit tatty. The prongs have worn down and are needle sharp. There is a second one we recycled from my mother's estate but it is mild steel and any excessive force bends the prongs. The Aldi version said high tensile and a little testing in the shop looked promising and so at $9 it found a home.

Rather than go to the pool so late in the day we dusted off a book on Core Strength Training and followed the instructions. Five minutes of aerobic activity on the exercise bike. Stretches for about 20 minutes and then performed all the Core Strength exercises once just to get the hang of it. It didn't feel like we were doing much but by the end of an hour of grunting, groaning and laughing we were pretty sweaty. An hour later we were feeling a bit sore as well. Just as well we didn't perform the 6-8 repetitions. At least we made a start.

Why do this? Jean ran the tape measure over us this morning and we hopped onto scales. She has a beautiful BMI of 23 which is easy when you are 6'1". I on the other hand bowl up with a BMI of 29 - not good. Shorter and obviously fatter around the middle. One way to address this is work on the middle bit i.e. Core strength. Just clip a few inches off and the BMI starts to look a bit more respectable. Since she raised the issue we will now both suffer while I address my inadequacy.

Well the wine making moves along. The press needed dismantling and cleaning and the Beurre Bosc Perry had slowed to a trickling bubble and was ready for racking. No 15 litre demijohns remaining and so dipped into the stock of 5's filling three plus a 750 ml.

A wet day is a good day to address the cleaning of the Cave. And so it started with knee pads, a scrubbing brush and a bucket of ammonia water. Hands and knees just like in Upstairs Downstairs only I just did a small section. The plan is to do a little each day. It does look a lot better.

Rain, Pinot Noir

Some rain finally. A few scant millimetres in the past two days and then today a steady drizzle with a few heavier falls. The end result was 25 mm for the day. More than was forecast and a good start. This should kick off some grass growth for the cattle in the area. A bit early to say the dry spell is broken but the 28 day rain forecast indicates a few more showers on the way.

Ok to wander about outside briefly but not worth getting wet by staying out in the open creating a perfect day to get some tasks done under cover.

Firstly the Pinot Noir had reached its 22 days on skins and pressing commenced and plodded along slowly all day. Pinot Noir is renown for its lack of skin colour pigments. This batch was no different. Not as black as the Chambourcin of a few days ago but still pretty good for Pinot. At least the long soak has extracted everything it has to give. It was put in a demijohn with a 50/50 mix of American and French Oak chips. The taste was sensational. This will develop well.

In the kitchen a batch of Fetta was produced. A straight forward cheese easy and uncomplicated to make.

While that was underway some peanuts were roasted and a batch of chocolate made. The new recipe is so good that a little extra was mixed and some ported prunes in an ice cube tray received a dash of chocolate.

A loaf of bread mixed in the bread maker and then let rise most of the day before baking in the bread maker. After the mixing the paddle is removed and the mix is kept warm as the bread maker thinks it is going through the various punch down stages, With our own coarse grinding of flour it is best not to disturb the rising process.

Jean took the time take some watermelon to friends. With so much ripening at once we tend to distribute a large quantity other people.

Jean returned with Aldi's $50 E-reader. We have been talking about acquiring an E-reader for some time mainly because a large number of electronic agriculture and gardening  books have been accumulated.

It is possible to read them on the laptop as long as you are prepared to sit in the office and do so. The laptop's battery is long gone. We do most of our reading at night in bed and lying down with a laptop is not easy especially navigating a book with the touch pad.

A lot of research was conducted before we rushed in. It was a matter of not being caught in the spiral of accumulating gadgets which only keep the attention briefly before finding a spot in the bottom drawer.

After charging the E-reader it went through its paces that night with Edward  Faulkner's "Ploughman's Folly, A Second Look" The E-reader is very good and a real pleasure to use.

Rainy Days, Camembert, Peas

It has been raining off and on for the last week. Just enough to make everything under foot soggy. Too difficult to work in the garden and probably not a good idea anyway especially with any digging tasks which could lead to damaging the soil structure. Too wet to go fencing and earn some money. It pays to have prepared a reasonable supply of firewood in advance otherwise things could get really miserable.



10 mm Overnight

Footprints in the grass

So the first few days it was attending to those jobs that were put aside for a rainy day. Catch up on sewing i.e. repairing any work cloths that need patching, Into the workshop for some ride on mower repairs, Build an insert for the filing cabinet to hold the DVD collection. Sharpen a few tools ready for the next interesting job.

Food is not ignored as we have eaten or given away all our Camemberts. We always seem to make too many rounds and they all mature at once. The solution was to pass spares onto friends to repay favours sometimes in advance of expected favours. Today though we tried another approach i.e. using less milk and making fewer rounds. sometimes moderation is difficult. This batch is 7 litres of milk but has had the cream from the original 21 litres added back. This could be called a triple cream Camembert. Used B Flora starter from Cheeselinks  and added both varieties of penicillin i.e. Candidum and Geotrichum and just followed the recipe.

 

Camemberts ready for brining

 

The sauerkrauts made earlier are fermenting and will soon be refrigerated just in time to make some more batches. The cabbages have done well and there are another two almost bursting ready to be picked. Might think about trying some recipe variations for different flavours. There are still three small Wong Bok to be made into Kim Chi tomorrow.

 

Ready for the plucking

 

 

Sauerkraut bubbling gently

 

And something that has never been done before and that is start the tax return on day one of the new financial year. Always an onerous task continually put aside in favour of other more exciting work here we are within an hour of completion just waiting for the arrival of some bank statements. Hopefully the Tax Office will owe us money and make it all worth the early effort. It is nice not to have this task hanging over our heads for the next few months.

But things are looking up. The prediction is for many fine days ahead which means the July garden tasks can start. Artichokes need to be planted out, Bunching shallots need planting, Turmeric needs harvesting. And of course weeding has fallen behind.

 

Some things are really taking off with the rain such as the Citrus and the Peas. The Peas are the best we've grown for some years. The last time was when we made a bed with just old horse manure. This time we'd run out of compost and green manure options. Instead lots of Blood and Bone was churned into the soil. Also the watering system was changed i.e. took out the overhead watering nozzles and watered by hand. This is because the plants last year suffered quickly from mould on the leaves. Also only watered the seed once after planting until they had germinated. I think in previous times we may have over watered and rotted the seed.

 



Climbing Peas over 2 metres tall. A mix of podded Peas and Snow Peas

 

With all Citrus we have tried to plant early, mid and late ripening varieties to ensure the maximum availability. Most of these were planted in 1995 in shallow holes (hit bedrock) mounded up with soil. Windrows of grape marc were placed between trees which were 5 metres apart (wish it had been more for the tractor to pass through). Every few years several barrow loads of cow manure was put under each tree and covered with weed mat. The weed mat has now been removed. This Imperial in the picture always manages good sized fruit. Far too much for us to consume. The fallen fruit will be mulched and composted.



 



Imperial Mandarin. This one ripens during July and August. The sister to this although also an Imperial ripens May and June. Possible just a slight location variation makes all the difference.