Feast or Famine

If there is one thing that gardening teaches you it’s how delicately poised we are between feast and famine. A season that started out looking like it would give us a bumper yield quickly turned to a not so great one.  The late winter and early spring rain that gave us some spectacular growth also brought killer mosquitoes and a fruit fly attack that hammered our tomatoes.  I did however with an intense program of baiting and trapping manage to save enough to get a few bottles of ketchup and enough pizza sauce to see us through the year. 

 Once the fruit fly had finished the mice attacked and clobbered the corn and the remaining tomatoes. The little devils where and still are eating everything in sight including the beans on the vine.  Again I did get enough in the freezer to see us ok for most of the year but the poor neighbors missed out on the overflow.

 Still it’s not all bad news, since the mice haven’t learned to dig yet we managed to get a decent crop of spuds. About 50 kgs from the new bed and I still have some to dig over at the neighbors in a patch that I commandeered while he wasn’t looking.

And as it seems the mice don’t like onions we ended up with a good supply of those as well. The plumcot I planted winter last has produced its first fruit which I saved from the fruit fly by bagging, so we got a taste of those.       

 

My new PV system is on site and will be up and running shortly and the drive is progressing at a slow but steady rate. It should be ready for operation well before winter arrives and should deal nicely with any amount of rain runoff we are likely to get.  I ended up fabricating another gutter form because casting one a day was just too slow. We have been sling them into place about every half dozen or so but boy are those great lumps of concrete heavy, definitely a two man and a boy job.    

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A flood of “Biblical” proportions

Pinched from a post at Watching the Deniers on the Queensland floods.
More than 4000 years ago, the Epic of Gilgamesh described a universal flood that shattered the world.

The... land shattered like a... pot.
All day long the South Wind blew ...,
blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water,
overwhelming the people like an attack.
No one could see his fellow,
they could not recognize each other in the torrent.
The gods were frightened by the Flood,
and retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu.
The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.
Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth,
the sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed:
'The olden days have alas turned to clay,
because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods!
How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods,
ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people!!
No sooner have I given birth to my dear people
than they fill the sea like so many fish!'
The gods--those of the Anunnaki--were weeping with her,
the gods humbly sat weeping, sobbing with grief(?),
their lips burning, parched with thirst.
Six days and seven nights
came the wind and flood, the storm flattening the land.
When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding,
the flood was a war--struggling with itself like a woman
writhing (in labor).
The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped up.
I looked around all day long--quiet had set in
and all the human beings had turned to clay!

Who will read our poetry in four thousand years?

Who indeed, the way we are trashing the place it'll be touch and go if there is a life form that is capable of reading.
Every once in a while you run into something that smacks you right between the eyes.

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A little video for Christmas

After years of using my little power-shot G7 for taking pic's for my web page and the blog I've finally got round to using the video feature.



This is a short clip of the flood that's presently flowing past my back boundary, laced with a few stills from my library. It was shot today and edited with a bit of software I downloaded off the net this afternoon. The song "Cowboy take me away" is sung by local girl Lyla Quinn and can be downloaded from here along with other songs by some of our local talent.

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Lakeside property

We now have a lake at the bottom of our block. Flood water moving down the Murrumbidgee is starting to spread out of the river proper and into all the little side creeks. We have one at the bottom of our property that flows through the reserve. 

 

This morning flood level at Hay town was 7.72 and rising with a predicted peak of around  8.5 metres by the 28th. The town is fairly well protected by a levee system and our Council think it unlikely that the Hay community will suffer any adverse flood effects from the predicted event. But it is causing a fair bit of excitement around town.

Our house is well above the predicted level so we are safe enough, but I will probably be able to cast a line from my deck. Or perhaps a yabby trap or two (Singapore chili prawns yabbies for Christmas lunch).

A bit of excitement and a nice view for Christmas, life's never dull out here in the boonies.

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Drive update

The bobcat came today to clear the spoil from my trenching. It's taken a few day to dry out enough but we can now get the car in and out without to much trouble. I have also started casting the gutter blocks that will make up the drain and garden edging. I had intended to box and free form the concrete but after an initial trial gave that up as a bad idea. I just couldn't get the shape I wanted with that method. 

After a bit of head scratching I decided to make up a steel form that I could use to mold the right shape. A quick trip to the local engineering shop and a half hour on their sheet folder and I had my form. The form is made of 16 gauge black steel sheet and will give me a gutter block 1200mm long. Laid end to end and bedded on hard-fill these will form the drive edge.

Each block is a full barrow of concrete and they weigh a bit so I will have to make up some sort of lifter to get them in place. Since I only have one form I can only make one a day so I've got plenty of time to work that one out. I need about sixty to complete the drive so that should keep me out of trouble for a while.

The form is coated with used cooking oil as a release agent and the ends are clamped in place to contain the concrete. With the end caps removed I can spring the mold a bit to release the finished block.

Form ready for filling

Fill with concrete and vibrate

The next day the concrete is strong enough to be turned out of the mould and the whole process starts again.

The first couple are a bit rough but we will have it under control soon enough.

 

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Just add water

The place is turning into a jungle. By the time the tomatoes are ready I'm going to need a tracker and machete to get in there.

Shade-house jungle.

And the corn is as high as an elephants eye, Yeeow! Aye-yip-aye-yo-ee-ay!

Garlic in plaits, well rough old plaits but I was pressed for time.

First lot of beetroot, second lot will be picked before they disappear under the bush tomatoes.

We normally share these with the birds as the vine is mainly grown as a shade for the office window.

Not far off.

We'll be eating Scarlet runners soon.

And my pumpkin patch looking tidy as usual. Mixed varieties in there along with some watermelon just to make it interesting.

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Frantic preparations, lucky escape.

A couple of days ago I started making preparations for the 100mm of rain and and wild weather that was predicted to pass through South Western NSW by BOM. Last night the worst of that event passed us by with only a couple of millimeters of rain falling on us. I had spent time clearing  and strengthening my guttering to cope with all the rain expected, redirecting storm-water systems and arranging a syphon set-up to drain the swales if required. Luckily for us none of this was needed this time but I will for future such events be making these improvements permanent.

Last week I was given a good example of what to expect from a heavy rainfall event with my drive being turned into a mud hole when we received about 27mm in a couple of hours.

Over the last couple of weeks with the completion of the shed I have been working on realigning and weather proofing my drive. This involved grading down about 75mm for road base and building guttering to deal with the run-off. This year was probably not the best time to pick for such a project being one of the wettest years for a long, long time. Still when done the new drive will be a great improvement. No more mud tracked onto the deck or into the the shed or carport, my fearless leader will be pleased with that.

On the bright side the garden is looking great, the best production we have had in years. Spuds, corn, beans and tomato are heading for a bumper crop. 

Garlic has been harvested and stored, along with the first crop of beetroot. The grape vines are looking like they will give us a good crop this year and I may even have enough for a couple of bottles of wine.

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