Getting Ready for Summer (and Winter)

Most of today was spent cutting down (and up) the last of the trees that were too close to the house. When saying the last i.e. the last that had been marked for removal. It was more an exercise in thinning out the regrowth.

Safely on the ground

The thinning will allow the tractor through that area for slashing and reduce the fuel load around the house. Only one large tree was removed because it was right beside the water tanks and there was a risk of it cracking one of the concrete tanks or just as bad falling on the tanks in a bad southerly.

The first few metres of this one to be kept for some woodworking project with the ends painted to prevent cracking

There were some trees left behind. One in particular is a Spotted Gum that looks like it has been there for hundreds of years. The others left untouched seem to be favoured by the local Koalas.

A very old Spotted Gum with some damage after a limb came down

Making sure the trees didn't drop onto fences or water tanks involved ropes and straps tensioned to encourage the right direction for the fall. All went well without any damage to property.

Once everything was on the ground the thicker parts of the trunk were cut into firewood and the thinner limbs into longer pieces (just laziness). These will dry over this Summer and next and should be ready for use the following Winter.

The only chainsaw on hand (and working) is the big saw and after several hours of waving it about the arms and shoulders felt the effort. Looking forward to the swimming season commencing soon to build up the strength after a lazy Winter.

A very powerful chainsaw but not suitable to cutting smaller pieces for firewood

Tomorrow we will start stacking the firewood on pallets for drying and the foliage will be stacked ready to be run through the mulcher/chipper and used around the garden.

Getting Ready for Summer

A lot of things happened today but nothing worth recording as its just the usual cycle of watering, weeding etc.

Preparedness

With Summer on the way (yes it is only the second week of Spring) and conditions dry and hot the mind turns to getting ready.

Part of living in the country is the usual annual threat of fire. With that comes The Plan. After much discussion and review last year our plan is to evacuate. We looked at the possibility of staying and defending but it didn't look at all as if it would be successful without a major expenditure.

The first part of the plan was to decide which conditions would trigger an evacuation and to where. And of course the backup (survival) plan if we failed to leave early.

After the decision to leave was made we quickly adjusted mentally to losing all our possessions

Who will do what at the time of leaving is written in large letters on a checklist  to make sure that there is no confusion and we both complete our necessary tasks.

The escape route i.e. getting out of the property needed some work and will need to be reviewed again and some clean up work performed. Once off the property the escape route depends on the direction and proximity of the fire. We documented several scenarios.

Then we looked at what we could take with us. A backpack each with some essentials for a few days or week at an evacuation centre. A bag containing financial papers and computer backups. Another bag with photographs. And the cats and dogs.

Rather than get caught taking too much we would look at a treasured possession and say to ourselves "Can I acquire that thing again somewhere?"

All the insurance is up to date and the decision to rebuild or move to be made later. As well as our own costing's we worked with the insurance company to ensure we were adequately covered. Everything has been photographed. Each room and building from different angles, each wall and contents of cupboards. Digital cameras are so handy to build a collection of hundreds of photographs.

A post catastrophe plan is also in place i.e. where to live both short and medium term.

The clean up work around the house and sheds became an ongoing all year program with the only task now left was the felling of some regrowth trees near the house - next on the list after Spring plantings.

One of the strange observations we've made in our lives is that whenever we have prepared thoroughly for a particular circumstance we have never needed to implement that plan.

Getting ready for Spring

Moving into the last week of Winter means it's time to get ready for planting the Spring vegetables in the temporary Spring/Summer bed. Mainly this is Tomato but also includes Eggplant, Capsicum, Corn, Okra, Rockmelon, Watermelon, Pumpkins, Bitter melon and Cucumber.

This temporary bed is built in the paddock on the hill and enclosed in an electric fence. The cow manure collected and stockpiled in a concrete block compost bin near the hayshed will be the first layer and then covered in broken down chicken litter and sawdust from the chook pen.

The cow manure was collected from the paddocks each week and dumped in the bin until it was full a couple of months ago. It has now been broken down by the compost worms and will provide a sweet layer for the plants in our rocky hill.

The sawdust in the chook pen was put in a year ago. It was back then about 150-200 mm thick but has now compacted to much less. During the year the chooks have turned it over many times and occasionally if it formed a crust we would turn it manually with a garden fork. The material under the roosts is particularly rich in droppings and it is mixed with the less nutrient rich material from the run.

The final layer will be mulch hay biscuits in a thick layer that will keep weeds at bay until we finish with the bed in May - life span of 9 months. Depending on weather and luck we will start harvesting produce from late November or early December through to May. For the effort of about 3 days needed to build the bed which includes dismantling last years bed we will be rewarded with a harvest spanning 6 months.

Last years bed

This is a low maintenance bed with the only ongoing work being mowing around the outer edge to maintain access. The mulch is usually good enough to keep weeds down until the plants have matured and then they shade out any regrowth.

This section of the hill has been in use for three years with the beds being moved east to west each year onto a fresh piece of ground. This year the bed will be moved north to south 30 metres onto a fresh section. It takes about 12- 15 years to traverse the hill and so this is only the second time this patch of ground has been used for vegetables. In the intervening years the pasture is allowed to grow and the cattle have access to it in their cell grazing cycle.

Once the harvest is finished in May the electric fence is removed and the cattle clean up the vegetation. Because the bed is well water the growth is substantial. The by product of this method is that the top of our hill gets a good feed gradually which has greatly improved the pasture.

Today's job was to remove the tomato trellis and all the timber and tyres that were holding down the weed matting. The weed matting was laid in a grid leaving 500-600 mm gaps for the melon/pumpkin/cucumber mounds. The irrigation pipe was pegged with short pieces of star pickets and all these were lifted and put aside. All the material is reused in the subsequent year. The only tricky bit today was to make sure none of the tyres held any snakes. They seems to love over wintering in the warm tyres. Phew, all clear this year.

Rather than stake the tomatoes we use pig/dog netting with 100 mm openings laid horizontally to support the tomato plants as they grow. The netting is in three tiers about 300-400 mm layers. This greatly reduces the work load and only the tomato foliage that grows outside the 900 mm wide panels needs to be tucked in every now and then. Because we struggle to reduce the number of tomato varieties we grow the tomato section of the bed is about 20 metres long. The last section of this strip is 10 metres long and will be planted to Corn, Okra and Capsicum.

Summer is Coming, Working Worms, Cabbage Regrowth, Telephone Bills, Fish and Other Seafood, Drinking Less than A bottle of Wine

Summer is coming

The days are getting much warmer and the humidity less bearable. The best way to fight the desire to stay indoors and away from the many jobs that needed completion is to raise the level of fitness. Gradually over the last two and a half months we have been increasing the amount of work done in the pool. A few more laps for the lung capacity, a few more repetitions of the various exercises to strengthen the muscles and keep the joints flexible.

The hats are on earlier in the day, long sleeves even though they make you perspire more. Sunglasses just to have something fog up. Water bottles strategically placed to ensure a constant intake.

The kidneys process on average about 100 ml per hour. The average bladder holds 500 ml. So you should be peeing every 5 hours under normal conditions. When working in hot conditions you don't want to wait 5 hours to find out you have a problem. Moisture loss from perspiration is high and needs compensation. If your urine is a dark yellow you are not taking in enough water. Check this regularly when working hard in hot weather.

Be careful of lazy bladder syndrome. This is when you have the desire to urinate very often. This can have been created by urinating so frequently that the bladder trains itself to send the signals more frequently. This can be fixed easily by holding off and retraining the bladder. If this doesn't work then you may have a more serious problem.

There is growing satisfaction as your body gains some match fitness and the less than pleasant conditions don't feel all that bad. Don't push too hard. Regular breaks to cool down are critical. Building up stamina in these conditions is no different from athletic training. It takes time and a slow process is a good process. The worst outcome is to be hurt and lose all ground gained.

Conversely avoiding the confrontation is the worst thing for your body. It weakens the body and the mind and is unhealthy in the long term.

Working Worms

Sometimes there is spare space in the vegetable bed for which we don't have an immediate use. This is a rare occurrence for us as there always seems to be something that could be planted. When this space does arise, it is a good opportunity to perform some lazy gardening.

Mulching for Worms

A generous layer of chicken litter is put over whatever are there, weeds and all. This is then covered with thick biscuits of hay or straw and left alone. Within a very short time a miracle occurs. The mulch kills off any green growth and the worms feed off it and the chicken litter. They dredge through the soil making it loose, crumbly and very rich in nutrients. What is left of the mulch can be reused on another spot (with some additions). All this is performed with the minimum of effort.

Sometimes if time permits we even bury material due for composting in trenches in that bed. This really gives the worms something to work on. You will find the soil becomes filled with worms as large as miniature snakes.

Cabbage Regrowth

Cabbage Regrowth

When recently harvesting cabbage ie one every few days, the stump and a number of outer leaves were left in the ground to be attended to at a later time. Well the later time was long in coming and the cabbage decided to regrow. It shot out a number of fist sized clumps. When the worst of the outer leaves were removed there was a very nice little edible cabbage. Chopped and lightly fried in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, fish sauce and some chillies, it becomes a delicious treat.

Telephone Bills

Some time ago there was a big effort by us to reduce costs. One of the targets was the telephone account. A number of new practices went into place to trim its size. Eventually, we more than halved the monthly amount and put the savings to better use.

Step one was to get rid of unwanted services such as the rental on extra handsets, which were promptly returned to the post office. Rather than pay for an answering service we used our own answering machine. This has the benefit of allowing an opportunity to filter unwanted calls.

Step two involved returning calls after peak periods ie 7pm, avoiding initiation of useless calls. A useless call is one which conveys no useful and timely information which can be put off until a face to face meeting. Many return calls were relegated to email so that a lot of people could be contacted through one dial up transmission call (we as yet don't have Broadband). Care was taken with calls to mobile telephones (best avoided) and long distance calls, especially timed local calls. Some years ago what was a local fixed price call changed. Local calls now cover only a very small distance and timed local calls are in force for everything else.

Step three was to look at the makeup of our remaining calls. As it turned out, all our calls are of short duration, therefore a plan which gave unlimited time for a fixed price per call would have increased our costs. This is an important step. We simulated our call data through a number of offered plans. All the fancy offers increased our costs. Providers spend a lot of time finding offers which will increase your payments not decrease them.

There is always the danger of looking at a new offer by a supplier which offers all the calls you can make for a fixed monthly fee. Closer analysis usually shows the fixed fee is greater than the amount already spent.

The mobile telephone is a wonderful invention; it is also a revenue generator for someone else. A business person will find it difficult to operate without a mobile. For the average person who may really need to stay in touch with family or friends for a particular reason a mobile telephone with a prepaid card is more than adequate. Is it really necessary to peer mindlessly at a supermarket shelf and ask your partner who is elsewhere whether they wanted the 375gm or the 750 gm container? A little bit of planning can save time and interruption.

Working outdoors alongside others who carry a mobile telephone is an interesting experience. Productivity declines rapidly when one person is answering yet another call. Worse still if the task is a two person effort ,one is left standing uselessly while the other chats away.

One important point about mobile phones is their settings with the provider. Unless these settings are carefully made, the provider will chew up the balance of the prepaid card faster than you can refill it. Options such as a message service and automatic notifications are always at the user’s expense.

Fish and other Seafood

It is important to ensure your level of Omega 3 intake is balanced with Omega 6 intake. Omega 3 is predominately found in fish of the deep sea variety and some seafood. Omega 6 is predominately found in vegetable oils.

Catching your own fish can be the cheapest method of keeping a regular supply. The only down side is the limited species available in any one fishing area.

Buying frozen fish (whole or fillet) is reasonably cheap and just as nutritionally good.

Buying from the local fisherman's co-op is the next cheapest source and the variety of species is greater although a significant jump in cost over fishing and frozen. Sometimes two to three times dearer than buying frozen.

Shatter Pack of Hoki

The best buying for us has been to purchase frozen caterers packs of 5-10 kg. These are called “shatter packs”: the individual fillets are packed in a layer separated by sheets of plastic which you can later recycle. Individual fish fillets separate easily. The range of these is quite broad and in addition many are packed by fillet size. Some varieties such as Sole may need to be scaled and species such as Sardine also gutted before use, but on defrosted fish, this is an easy task. One of the best all round fish we have found is the deep cold water Hoki. It has a delicious white flesh and can be used in a whole host of different meals.

Don't forget to buy the skin on fillets; it’s cheaper and better for you.

New Zealand Green Lip Mussels are extremely cheap in one kilogram frozen packs minus their shells. They are recognised as an anti inflammatory and without a shell there is no struggling with your meal. They are naturally high in Omega 3 as well as Glucosamine and Chondroitin. The latter two are necessary for growth and maintenance of healthy cartilage.

Occasionally you may come across Australian frozen shelled prawns. These can be very well priced when you take into account you are not paying for the shell that will be discarded. We avoid imported prawns because of the poorer controls over them. Although not high in Omega 3 there is little else as pleasurable on a hot day as freshly caught cold prawns and a chilled glass of white wine.

Wine

There are occasions when we want only a glass of a particular wine. This means the remainder must be kept for another occasion. The problem being that the remainder oxidises and becomes undrinkable. A simple solution is to have a few different sized bottles handy. If you only want one glass then decant the contents into a 500 ml or a 375 ml and a 160 ml.

Wine Bottles

A marker pen will enable the appropriate writing to be made if you don't trust your memory.

We find screw top bottles the simplest but corks work just as well as long as all components of your chosen solution are sterilised after each use.