Short cuts

Make long delays... I was hoping to get a tow-bar and hitch, finally on the Blue Slug today. It's been a process that's been onging for about 6 months. I had found one on a wreck and with a lot of bad language and a hydraulic jack and a scissor jack and crowbar and a pipe extender, and a hacksaw blade in a gap too narrow for a hacksaw ripped it off its frozen bolts. Only it was too wide. No worries we will cut a section out of it, and Jamie will weld it together for me (my welding skills are of the porcupine variety, and his quite good. And I don't own a welder. One day... - a long way down the list.) Only... um somewhere down the line we lost 12 mm. I am innocent -although it could have normally been me, but I just cut on the marks. And now we need to put in 6mm each side, around the pipe that we're putting down the middle. And that needed a 'something else' welder to do well, and Jamie was out of gas. So the project is a bit further, but not there. Anyway, hopefully soon I will have a tow bar, get the electrics sorted, and the trailer I scavenged can go toward getting done. I found suitable 'mud-guards' - blue drum sections, I have LED lights, I have reflectors, I have to drill two holes in the tow hitch so I can put bolts and a safety chain onto it, then get the trailer registered and then all I need is a decent motor for the Zoo, and we're done with that project. It's been about 14 months, of scavenging and finding bits, and getting stuff done in spare moments. You can have cheap, or you can have fast, or you can have good... pick any two, but not three. The same is holding for the computer at the moment, where I have cheap and hopefully Okay if not good, but not fast. I'm not going to get my MS operating system bit from Tammex on Tuesday because they can't read. I did explain that Flinders Island has no to the door courier delivery, and asked them please to send Australia Post. Reading customer instructions is obviously too hard, so they sent me an e-mail - saying payment received as a header, same as the payment received one saying they need a street address. I didn't realize it wasn't the same e-mail and it took me a while to notice... and thus while I sent them the street address and a blistering rocket, I am sure they won't dispatch until Tuesday (Monday was a public holiday). Probably - because they don't seem too bright, by courier. Which means it will take longer.

We got three drops of rain today. I mean 3 drops. Shared equally across the island... the drought here is getting serious.

A morning that began badly...

Now, because Wednesday the black Labrador has a happy habit of barking at wallaby, wombats, rats, night birds, shadows, her own imagination (and will sleep cheerfully through people arriving. That's not at night when humans are asleep, so there is not much point) I shut them into my study at night, where they have a bed and sofa to quibble over, as well as do cushions. So for 6 or 7 hours a night they are confined. I am a deep sleeper... for around 2 hours, after which a mouse fart at 200 paces will wake me, which means I have got up to let them out often enough. Unfortunately one of them decided - after having had access to the shed it is in for ?6 months, to pull out the bag of blood-and-bone (a form of fertilizer) and eat some. No one let me know they were not sleeping the sleep of the plump elderly Labrador... The gastric effects that greeted me this morning were not pretty and smelled worse. Both of the rat-bags seemed OK which is more than I can say for the bouquet in my study. Fortunately no harm done to the floor.

I've been drying yet more prune-plums today. The drier is wearing a look of desperate exhaustion, and I have more gifted apples and more tomatoes to try and do before Wednesday. Listen I paid $50 for that dryer and I'm nothing if not mean... I want my pound of flesh, dried so that about 5 pounds wet... Seriously, this is harvest time for most folk, and we're very much part of the informal 'barter' - which is more a constant exchange of gifts of produce, or the products thereof, or a hand when you need one. No one keeps score, and in some cases it definitely flows more one way than the other. If this gets chronic - and there is no reason (if you're old, or sick or poor or new they cut a lot of slack) - then, well, the person quietly gets left out. So, as we're on the getting side of the fruit, I assume either people feel sorry for us or appreciate what we put in. We are on the 'weird' side as much of what we consider very special, is odd locally - Biltong, our olives, and boerwors. And, generally, we don't have a lot of garden spare that isn't being saved for winter, that everyone else doesn't have by the bucket (yes, some does go out - this year with water restrictions in Whitemark, I've given away zucchini that I've been asked for. Normally people run away if they see you with one.) Still, it does seem produce always has some flops (last year I had not many tomatoes, and very few carrots, feeble beets but loads of cucumbers and loads of eggs. This year, very few cucumbers (which as I need the little ones for gerkins for green sauce is serious - we have been given a bottle to my relief), eggs are right down, and I have lots of tomatoes, and good carrots (need to plant more) and wonderful beets, tons of spring onions, reasonable potatoes, feeble sweetcorn and almost no real onions. However fish, abalone and butchered out wallaby are generally something we have a bit extra of, and occasionally there's a crayfish to make someone's day.

We're not fanatical about it, but we try to live on what we grow and catch - and this is why the seasonality of things makes such a difference. What I don't preserve now, we won't be eating in Winter and Autumn.

It puts a whole new slant on life, and on getting on with people.

A few days

Life ran away with me for the last few days - not only has the book finally been trotting if not galloping, I'm off to Melbourne for a few days next week, to help a friend pack up, and that took some organizing, and the summer produce has started arriving en masse. I've dreied more apple, nectarines, prune-plums, and of course, tomato. The dryer has worked non-stop and I've got about 5kg more tomatoes to go in. Some will have to be preserved in other ways. And we had Scottish dancing on Thursday night, with more than 20 people - a bunch of cyclists over for a week's tour, and everyone had brought a friend or two. It turned into something of a romp, with strip the willow leaving quite a lot of people very dizzy.
Then we had board games evening last night. I tell you, we are wild to dissipation here on the island.
Barbs has re-mutated our Zimbabwe cold. I fed it chili instead, which has so far worked. Anyway I went to help her prepare the holiday house (one of her various jobs) and cleaned windows and did a lot of ironing. I didn't appreciate the the training the SA military gave me, but I do now.
And now to slice more tomato.

twice round my world, the conspiracy that wasn't

I had been volunteered to help to fix a leak in a caravan roof up at Palana today, so we went up there... well after a short detour into the grate metropolis of Whitemark. James needed me to do a stat. dec. telling the Australian Immigration authorities he was indeed my son, and I had known him from the very moment his little foot poked out into the world, and that yes, I know his wife, he really is married, and the relationship is genuine. Fair enough, I guess, but we needed a witness from a list of categories, and Whitemark was the nearest supply.

So after that, we went up to Palana, worked on the roof, and then went to NE river estuary - about as far North as the island goes.

On one of my surviving 'soft and oily' minnows - soft plastic fish, I caught one and then another of these silver trevally in 1 kg range - about twice the size I had caught before. I lost the first salmon, and the minnow. I then proceeded to lose 4 more salmon. So my vanity well patted by the trevally was put firmly in place. We met two Ukranian fishermen sitting waiting for their lift and took them back to Palana boat ramp, where their friend was anxiously waiting for the other half of the party to come back from sea - as he couldn't take the ute and fetch them, as it was needed for recovering the boat. All made much more entertaining by my friend the island copper, who was waiting to inspect the crays... and watching (convinced he was onto a great international conspiracy) the friend frantically trying to phone. He assumed the guy was trying to contact the bad people on the boat to warn them. Actually , as he gave up phoning and went to sit and chat with the other two while I talked to the cop (as I had gone to ask him to witness the stat dec), I think he had actually been trying to raise either the boat to find out if he had time to fetch his mates, or his mates to tell them that they hadn't been forgotten forever. Alas, another mystery doomed to pedestrian failure. I knew who was skippering the boat - and if he'd had his ute there (not using the one the Ukranian visitor was driving), the policeman would have known he is paranoidly careful about measuring and marking, and probably not waited...

So then we had muttonbirds for lunch (people are finishing their stocks) and drove home. I then went off to the South end of the island to take the RIB Norman - one of my dive partners, has been lent the use of, for a test drive with his partner and daughter - who have never done any boating. It was an easy exercise, because Norm has superior trailer reversing skillz. The little one just reveled in the trip.

So in one day we did the length of the island and the breadth twice. And then we came home and had grilled trevally fillets, marianated with some olive oil, garlic, tassie pepper and fennel, with garfen salad and home cured olives, and chips made with tatties out of the garden.

It's a good place to live.

roasting pig

I'm really tired and half-roasted and sore-footed at the end of the pig roast - not without epics of course. Anyway, all well that ends well, and we had a load of crackling that was truly wonderful. My camera ended up here, and the pig 2km away. Lots of pictures were taken but not by me. I'll eventually get some, and put them up.

Lessons in pig spit-roasting. Dry salting the skin - flavoring inside the pig works. Unlike lamb constant basting is not needed. Constant heat is and quite a lot of it for longer than the lamb - and you do not want the heat straight underneath - drip trays there. We need next time to spend a lot more time balancing the spit. Securing a relatively small - 25 kg pig - was not easy and not adequate. We used some mesh on the mid-section. This worked well until I covered mid-sections with foil as it was prone to over cook and burn. Unfortunately the foil, coated in fat, is prone to catch fire, and as the foil has a nice air-space with the wire netting under it... well, you can't put it out.

Our electric spit motor had an issue part way through the cooking - and that left me standing in the sun, turning the spit by hand for about 45 minutes. It's HOT work. Anyway, we had beautiful crackling, good tender pork, loads of new potatoes, and salads and fresh bread, and then sticky date pudding and cheesecake (yum) before Barbs Birthday cake and our tuneless singing.

Now we have about 10kg of pork left...

Of spacing, pigs, and veggies

One the deep joys of planting your own veg is watching your beloved kitty cat find this nice, almost clear piece of ground and not only ornament it, narrowly missing your carrot seedlings, and then methodically scratch out a quarter of a row of same seedlings to cover it while you yell at her and try to get fluffy-bumness's attention (it's a long way from a door, barring the kitty door) and the windows have fly-mesh. Then a little later, you see her Wednesdayness,in search of kitty tootsie rolls, in a garden dogs supposedly cannot enter, digging for buried 'treasure'. That I grow anything at all is a minor miracle. I do wonder if our 'healthy food' is merely all the antibodies.

The pig continues his excavations. I shall forget butchering him and sell him to Gina Rhinehart. He's getting still bigger, and decided to have a tentative taste of my trouser leg today, and got a wallop on the nose from which he retreated looking very contrite. I doubt his sincerity. He's starving pig, or so he tells me. Pigs have a purpose. They make Labradors look like fussy delicate eaters. Mind you I was glad not to have my camera with me this morning. I gave him about a liter and a half of milk that had separated after being frozen. I literally thought he might drown, he had his piggy snout right underwater while he was trying to get it in as fast as possible. He then looked at me, black snout with a milky ring and milky whiskers and did his desperate 'more?' grunt. The Labradors were NOT amused. Spare milk is theirs. They used to get quite a lot back SA. Here, not so much, as we are not getting a fixed amount from the dairy, and it costs a lot more. Roll on the cow.

Talking of planting I really have to get this spacing thing right My potatoes - which started as 5 rows, are now knee high, and a solid impenetrable mass. The boiled turkey poo or something has worked to some extent I think. Whether I now get any potatoes as hilling is a real challenge, is another matter.

The sheep dance and the coming of the pig.

Okay... the adventures. We're in the throes of buying a very elderly Camry which Barbs drives to work - a lot cheaper than driving the Ute. Unfortunately it has some kind of issue with starting. If it doesn't start every day... you have a circus, flat battery with trying, and, if you have the patience, you can get going by putting jump leads on another vehicle... and trying. Sometimes that alone has not been enough, and it has needed taking out the battery (which is new) and charging it and then trying. Which is very trying if you're in a hurry. Baileys say they have identified the problem and ordered the part...

But if you start it every day... it's fine. Unfortunately we somehow skipped a day. And when we tried to take it to Scottish dancing it would not go. And Barbs specifically wanted it the next day... So we got back from dancing, and the sheep were in our long paddock. Norm had kindly put a big mob in to flatten it quickly and well, which with fire season coming is good... It is actually a paddock, not just a driveway -sort of L-shaped with the shearing shed on the short end of the L, and us at the bottom of the L and the gate at the top. For a day or two we have to put up with really stupid sheep who if they're in the long bit of the L want to be in the short bit when you come out... or, if they're in short bit want to be in the long bit and then as you get to the gate decide they want to be in short bit after all. Sheep are not bright, or original thinkers. What one does the rest will, even if it made sense when the one did it, and none when the rest follow. Eat more mutton, you're actually helping the world's IQ.

So there under a full moon we were romantically... trying to start the car. Jump start did not work. So... we thought we'd try pull starting (as push involved... well pushing. And this is the flats, except where oddly it is uphill. There are no downhills. None. Really.Ask any vehicle pusher here). So we found a rope and minor misadventures failed to start it in the garden. The only real option now was the long paddock (which is 200 meters long), or the main road.

Imagine dear reader, the moonlit scene with too short a tow rope for comfort and 300 sheep deciding to do the L paddock Zig-zag... because the first 30 had gone in front of the ute...

And did I mention power-assisted brakes?

No sheep were killed in this production.

No vehicles damaged.

My nerves may recover in time.

The car got going fine.

I won't forget to start it for a while!

Yesterday we had the day of lightning. Not-sadly- much rain. Today was the Lions Fair, and I simply weakened and bought yet another plant, a sweet potato.

I cooked wallaby steaks (as tender as fillet, but tastier), our first tender little courgette for the season, baked potato and a green salad, and then we had fresh strawberries and cream for our tea tonight... we did buy the cream. I wonder what the rich people have for their tea?

Tomorrow we're due to receive Percy pig - a temporary resident, who will have 23 days of getting bigger before finding himself as the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. I am not so sure how this will go. I prefer my livestock en masse.

We're also having 7 people around for dinner. And I can barely eat one, so there will some left for Percy ;-)

Flinders Island settling, part 2

One of the single biggest difficulties with the island is getting stuff here. If you're moving your house here or furniture for a new holiday place, get a quote from various moving companies. Before you open any of them, sit down, pour yourself a strong drink. Drink it. Open the quotes. No, you're not seeing double. We got ripped seriously by our movers - Elliot International, coming across here. Their story was that it was twice the price of moving to Melbourne from South Africa because they had send a moving truck over on the ferry, and pay for the crew, and the truck to go back by the ferry, and the crew to fly off (because otherwise they had to wait a week etc etc.)

In the end they subcontracted to an Australian mover (you can search earlier posts if you want the name) - who left the family rock behind. And they put the stuff into a container and 1/3 of a second (so all that stuff we had to sell/give away before we left... could have come. And if we'd known, what we know know now, we could have filled that container. Then those rock-losers... subcontracted to Bowmans who were rather dismayed to be told we'd paid for it to be unloaded. Including the rock. Which Michael Bowman (not the dear people at the Melbourne movers) found and got brought over in triumph. Bowman's did a better job than most moving companies, although they're just general carters. So: get your things into a container, get the container shipped to Bridport, get the Ferry company to ship it over to Lady Barron, and get Bowman's Transport (bowtrans@bigpond.com) to deliver it. I suspect you will have achieved exactly the same thing, but at a lot less cost, and most of that money will come to the island or island related business, instead of elsewhere. You can try LD shipping, and that may get your container to island from Melbourne or Lonnie cheaper, but our experience says getting hold of them can be difficult, and sailing times variable.

If you need anything once you're here that you don't want to get (or can't get) on island... know that most so-called courier companies are not reliable delivery methods. That 'to your door' delivery the seller insists on your paying for does not happen. That 'more trustworthy than Australia Post' concept that some sellers have is definitely nonsense. Australia Post is the best and cheapest bet to Flinders Island. And on island, very reliable. You can address things to c/o the Whitemark Post Office, and you will get them.

The other thing you need to know, as some sellers will insist on sending stuff courier, is that it could end up 1)At the Post Office (if it is Australian Air Express). 2)At Roberts (if it has come from Joe Lyons or through Flinders Island Aviation. 3)At the Airport. 4)At the warf in Lady Barron. The PO will put a slip in your box, if you have one. Sometimes someone may ring you from the airport (but, get this straight, they have nothing to do with your delivery. They may just be being kind. They don't have to do this, and if they don't know you, won't.) With the others you have to go there and ask.

Joe Lyons (03 63491122) - on Tassie will take stuff to the ferry or to Flinders Island Aviation who actually do the post and most of the courier deliveries. You can also move things across from Victoria (and Northern Tassie) with Bass Strait Aviation My friend Peter has used them, and I trust his judgement. I haven't dealt with any of the others so can't comment, but if you look in the Island News there are other charter services. This is an island. It's not easy or cheap to get stuff here, although it can be quite quick. Factor that into your calculations.

I went for a dive this morning, just snorkelling and collecting abs and shooting (or rather missing) fish. It is a a lovely experience anyway, although today was neither so calm or so clear as some days. I'm looking forward to giving you some fish pictures to look at. I spotted 6 more scallops, but they are really not very thick there. We probably spent about 2 and half hours in the water, and poor me, my muscles feel like jelly now.Yes, self-inflicted injury, insufficient exercise. Norman was getting into his wetsuit easier after shearing, me, harder. Then their cruiser had to get stuck leaving the beach and we had to go and borrow a rope and pull it out, because the rope we did have snapped like an elderly carrot. It popped out of the smelly mud with audible pop, so maybe there is lurking monster...

In theory I was going to try drying these Abs, but as the process starts from live, to cook, to dry and our dryer has not yet arrived, I will hold off on this batch and do it with the next. Anyway, we will have two for our tea.

Kippin etc.

Hmm. Any Japanese readers out there? or readers with Japanese friends? What is kippin, and what is Monpao and what is the difference? (Yes, I am trying to gather information about drying abalone. It's a very secretive process).

Today Barbs and I went to the school to talk about what being migrants meant. I think we shattered a few illusions, and hopefully got them to grips with a little bit of just how different the various types of migrants are, and, no, that all people coming to Australia are not boat-people or refugees from natural disasters. Maybe I should have said we lived in a mud hut and ate our neighbours, and they should be careful if invited for lunch.

I've net-covered the strawberries, and got a much appreciated huge bag of bits for the drip irrigation system. We're still moderately wet on this side of the island, but elsewhere it is drying out a lot. It's something -having grown up with summer rainfall - that I always find odd. Anyway, more plants have gone out today, willy-nilly because something was eating them in the seed trays. So King, Golden, and Healthy capsicum are now planted in the garlic bed (Garlic will have to come out in midsummer, and I hope that I can completely cover that tank in winter, making it into a little greenhouse.) The first of my grown from seed tomatoes (Stupice) is just starting to flower, but I do have a a tiny fruit on the dwarf yellow I bought in flower. Gah. I really must slug bait in the morning, as the lettuce (first iceberg, very sweet) was just full of tiny little slugs. They are in hte same bed as strawberries, and slugs love strawberries. I might have to beer trap the slugs as Wednesday the Labrador cannot come along and drink the beer under the net, like she did last time I tried this.

I'm hoiking out plants going to seed (lettuce, broccoli, silverbeet, and parsley). The silverbeet replacements are in, lettuce probably not worth putting in until Feb, broccoli even later, but I need more parsley. I have a lot of seed, but mostly moss-curled and we use italian in cooking and moss-curled for pretty, so I might have to let one plant finish. But they are a nuisance (taste lousy at this stage), and are huge.

Flinders Island - settling advice part 1

The island is a wonderful place, but getting settled here is... different. I said I was going to write a few posts on what I wish I known before we migrated here. Much of it is stuff locals know, and assume you do. In three years we have barely started to learn but I gather this blog is the starting point for so many people who have come here... so as a background...

Flinders Island is in a way, its own little world. Yes, it's part of Australia, and its people have served, and died for Australia. But it is a small, rural, extremely isolated community. And it really is a community. Everyone knows everyone, or at least of them. When there is trouble they pull together like superglue. When there isn't... hmm. You might think they didn't. But when it comes down a choice between an islander and outsider, no matter how nice the outsider, the islander gets their support. Some people say you have be born here (and that qualifies) or live here for 30 or 50 years to be one. That depends on who you talk to. If you get deeply stuck into the community activities and do not try to take over, but come and help with the heavy lifting, you'll find yourself accepted probably more easily than in any large place. They need you. They don't need a South African or Melbourne or Hobart or Ulan Bator's way of doing things, and honestly, if you're coming to island to escape that and because of this place and its people... bringing it along strikes me as taking what you're trying to leave behind with you. The islanders need more people for the island way, and actually want their own culture and ways respected. Oddly enough - it would seem the best way of getting them to want to try your foreign ways is not to offer them, as we now find ourselves asked to cook 'real South African food' often. It's quite funny because I never did much of the traditional cookery back in SA.

Your first stop on the Island, if you're even thinking about a holiday home, let alone living here, has to be to get the Island News. As a backstop, and because it is available online, you might want to try Island Views (island_views@bigpond.com ) as well. That's a private newsletter-advertorial for the Broken Arrow Lowline stud, but it has quite a lot of local politics, and a lot of local history. The Island News, however has several really important parts to it. The first is the Council News, which could make the island a fortune if they bottled it and sold it as a soporific. Unfortunately it's got important stuff about water, property and dogs hidden it. The second is the police report, which if you have a left crime-ridden spot will make you smile. The third is of course the real reason we can't do without it:In the Island News you will find all the relevant times things are open and what is happening, from the Church services to the tip, from the supermarkets and servos, to the museum. And the garage sales, and adverts for all those things (like plumbers) you can't track down elsewhere. And so I don't do the usual Flinders assume-you-know - PO Box 1 Whitemark Flinders Island Tas 7255 islandnews@hotmail.com to order your copy. It's 80 cents well spent. I'd subscribe, or go into Bowman's (thereby increasing the traffic in another important Island place) and collect your copy.

But one of the most important things you can do with the Island News is show up every second Thursday and help collate it (it is put together by hand, by volunteers) - if for no other reason than an aching back and sore hips should remind you what hard work a community newspaper is. Besides that, it's a good way of meeting some of the people who put a lot of under-appreciated work into it, and it's usually good for a fair bit of chatter and a few laughs too.

Cauliflower

Barring any mysterious eaters-in-the-night we ought to have one ripe strawberry tomorrow. I did cut one Cauliflower today,

and it is a beauty. I shall see if I can find enough size beetroot to make the infamous 'pink Arthur' (Many years ago my Sister-in-law produced a dish of cauliflower cheese. On being asked 'What do you call this stuff, she replied without a second's hesitation: "Arthur" - and thus it has become Arthur ever since (with 'Alice in Wonderland' cries that we can't eat it now we've been introduced). Pink Arthur has boiled wedges of beetroot in among the florets of cauli, and a rich cheese (with a little Dijon mustard) sauce poured over it. It's slightly yellow-white as it comes to table - rapidly acquiring baby-pink swirls as it is served. The earthy sweetness of beet really goes very well in this combo - but the appearance!

The reality is I shall have to put my first pumpkin seedlings out into the the hard cold world tomorrow. The Blue Ballet Squash is just too big for the seedling pot.

Barbs and I were just saying it would be nice (as it seems this Blog is what so many future islanders end up reading) if there were some posts on things you ought to know, but aren't obvious about coming here. As far as I can work out blogger doesn't give me a separate page option, so it will just have to be in among my ramblings about veggies, snakes and weather.

Mysterious death

Well, alack! This morning I had a dead chook in the chookabago. We were rushing to Church fair so I didn't have time for a full post-mortem. I called Ducky but he said his name wasn't Chicky, and I would have to deal with myself. By the time we got back burial was in order, and dissection wasn't. One of them was a bit off color and not taking tit-bits from the chook-bucket yesterday morning. And I did hear a hullaballoo yesterday afternoon, so either someone laid an egg or a passing snake came egg-hunting. I don't know which, or if she was sick. Anyway, we will just stick with 2 chooks for a while.

The highlight of the fair was Pippa's (my neighbor's daughter) pony, as Rosie was a major hit with the stream of kiddies. She apparently did fifty 'rides' - and this must average about 3 per child in our vast population, and was much loved and petted, and will doubtless be causing horse-shaped holes in many parents pockets soon. My sandwiches (yes, my role) will probably not kill too many people. And we got more milk. The bargains you get here! The cartons say 'permeate free', which I imagine is like free green stamps. We've drunk one carton and not found the permeate, so I shall write and complain. Actually the fair is another example of the island community. Perhaps a 1/4 of the people involved have anything to do with the church, but on the other hand the church does do one of the most important (sadly) island tasks, the funerals. So everyone chips in.

The rose garden at the Whitemark Multipurpose center (where the fair was) makes me feel piteously inadequate as a gardener. Not that I am very much of a flower grower (does cauliflower count?), but the volunteer tomato plants make mine look so feeble.

I found two pea-pods this evening. We feast!

For those readers who are interested, are American, and have Cable TV, Flinders was the venue for a show called - if I am correct - 72 hours. (there are episodes from all over). Their photography is bound to be better than mine.

To remind those of you facing snow and misery of what different hemispheres we live in (yes, you had glorious summer when it was the winter of our discontent.)

My Strawberries are just starting to turn and I am worrying about netting.

And this is our second set of peas for the year - I had sugar snaps all through winter.

mako point

Well, nurse-maiding the washing-machine along, I did three loads of washing successfully. You just have to switch off the water after the rinse. I can be terribly absent minded though, when absorbed in writing, or well, most of the time. I focus really hard, and that means other things sometimes do bypass me. The part is hopefully starting its journey and will get to me in time.

So are 5 mako points (screw on spear points with a flopper to stop fish escaping. For big fish, bigger than we see often. Need a spear with a thread on, which I don't have) that I bought on e-bay for $2.45 in a fit of profligate madness. heaven knows what I will do with them, Yeah. $2.45. My Scots grandmother would be turning in her grave. Come to think of it so would both parents and my Afrikaans grandmother. All things considered it's a miracle I ever spend anything. I was looking for new hand-spear heads as mine, even for a paint it blue and make it do bloke, are either completely gone or bent and beyond sharpening. I also want to make up a foldspear, as carrying a spear in kelp is a pain and a lot of the time there is nothing worth shooting anyway, but every now and again there is a wonderful fish, and I have talked crays into coming forward to inspect this possible dinner, too.

Other than that my blue ballet squash has germinated. None of the other pumpkins are up yet. The garden is showing signs of spring - and the grass is griz. I mowed it with the fiendish beast today, and tried my hand at reversing the trailer back in to the shed afterwards. I need a LOT more practice before I ready for boat-ramps (no I did not jack-knife it or hit anything. Just the clutch was starting to smell and I was running low on patience.).

And we had a beautiful evening this evening, dinner at sundown. This is the view from the dining table. Sorry about the reflection from the window.

If you click on the picture it gives it full size, and you can see the sheep.

Sheep, green fields, gum trees, distances.
Australia.

More Internet Hassles

Well, James spent 6 hours fighting bigpuddle - the world's worst internet provider - into doing 3 minute job last night. We're online again as a result. Sadly that - and telstra are what we have to have here. I just don't get this company - surely hiring half a dozen competent techs would be a lot cheaper than outsourcing to somewhere - where I suspect they pay peanuts - but the job takes 200 times as long as need be?

Pads and Clare flew back to the UK yesterday - should nearly be there by now. It was a close run thing as the plane was delayed in Lonnie, and they only had two and half hours... before the delay. Anyway, they scraped in, and all is well that ends well. We miss them already.

The wind is really roaring and howling and shrieking today (just as well they're not flying now) and we - Barbs and I fly tomorrow. Barbs is going to a Scottish Dancing workshop/course near Shepparton tomorrow, along with the wife of one of the local pilots. I'm going for the ride, and to keep the pilot company flying back... weather permitting. Right now, it isn't. This morning it REALLY wasn't. We had hail - enough to make a white shroud across the ground. It dropped the temperature by about 5 degrees in five minutes - I am very glad I wasn't fish farming any more, or keeping angora goats.

I've rigged an old infra-red light to try and warm the potting soil so I can get some melons and watermelon to germinate - with a short warm growing season here, getting them up, big and going fast is vital. I'll transplant them into my hot-boxes - via Jody-suggestion I have made some small portable 'cold-frames' which I can move very easily. I hope this way I can get them to a reasonable size before summer starts. I've also filled our next planting tank with old sheep manure and soil from the shearing yards. If the hot-system works the capsicums will be next.

Oh, we have had our first artichoke, and first few asparagus (I'm only cropping off our 3 year old crowns - but the rest are growing vigorously.

Oops. I just plain forgot to post yesterday. Maybe I need muttonbird oil. If nothing else it can frighten you into remembering (apparently it is good for cholesterol levels too so maybe I better try it. Besides something has to explain the vintage and mental acuity of the islanders. Our 98 year old Scottish dancing teacher has a better memory than most 30 year olds.)

Barbs has a cold and had to work, but loving her job, James is working his socks off too, but doing interesting stuff too. Me I am just muddling along writing. Made more boere wors, and some biltong. Found some dumped poles for wood-shed. However we have made some serious progress in the trailer department as we've been given a little one that was tossed into a shed here on the farm. All that is wrong with it is one flat wheel, but the tyre itself will need replacing. Jamie has offered to do some welding, Peter offered to help with the forms for the boat, and I have a new jockey wheel and a little hand winch to put onto it, so,hopefully for the cost of a new tyre and some lights and cable, we'll have a trailer, which means the Zoo can stay inflated and ready to launch and cut the epic of taking her to sea to a minor circus sideshow instead of the whole three rings, custard pie flinging clowns and runaway elephant.

Oh, I bought two little bits for screwing on the roof and hex inset screws today. I've been putting this off because 1)I'm mean and I hate spending money. 2)I'm mean and I hate spending money. 3)(repeat). And I will protest loudly that I'm no' mean, Ahm jist carefu' I hope you believe me. Seriously, I avoid shopping for tools for the same reason I don't keep games on my computer, because it would be too easy to lose control and buy half the place, and some degree of prudence is required. To my embarrassment they cost just on $5. I was expecting 5 times that.

Tea last night was slow cooked wallaby shanks with ginger jam roly-poly for dessert. When last did you have a roly-poly pudding?

A day with a hookah

I carefully ordered and stuck the new numbers on the Zoo.

And they have mostly peeled off. It was one of those sort of days. The poor ute was loaded to the gunnals and trundled to Patriarchs and blew up the Zoo (we have a trailer, just need a tire, so slowly we get organised, and soon she can be ready to go, not ready to unpack, inflate, load etc.)

We did have fun doing so, as the instruction were not with us. Anyway got there and back so no drama. Well, no drama except with the little motor (quite adequate for 350 - 450 meters offshore, and she pushed the boat through the waves well - better than expected, actually.) Which would not start... and we tried and tried and tried. Jamie and the other two, with the Hookah, launched and went out. We battled on - got it going after taking the plugs out, after a little adventure with the plug spanner. They do not swim at all well, really. We got out , taking a neat gap through the waves and out. Jamie's GPS was on strike, so we had to move a few times before finding some ground - not our usual bhommies but there were a quite a few small crays in the occasional crack. Nothing quite big enough - I caught 3 I had to throw back and Norm 2. We did find some enormous abalone, but not the best dive. We then came in - Jamie wanted to go to Babel and fish, and Russ and wanted in. We had a good run in but missed the mouth, and could not get the motor to tilt. So we put the motor in the boat - light enough and pulled it the 75 yards to the mouth. Only I tripped and my stormy cape - water sensitive life jacket... inflated. There goes another $25. On the bumpy near quicksand drive out two little struts for the Zoo's floor snapped. The ute battery was flat (from using the electric pump) and so I left the ute and came home Russ (who had to rush) to fetch the jumpers, have a cuppa and and a biccie, and went back. Backed up and waited. They'd had a slow afternoon - only 7 flathead, and got back in the dusk. I managed to get the ute stuck leaving the beach and had to get a tow (quick and easy but still) So... no disaster, but certainly LOTS of drama. Still, no lives were lost, no problems that were not overcome and Norm did get his chance to tell Barbs I have spent the day with a hookah. Maybe I should just have stayed in bed :-)

The wild social whirl of the island. Never a dull moment... We had a visit from the police this lunchtime. Yes, you all suspected it, didn't you. He's not really a dull sf/fantasy author cum self-sufficiency nutter. He's really a power mad cultist from Borneo/a power mad scientist from North Korea set on word domination/selling dangerous hallucigens/all of the above. Well, you're out of luck. He merely came to talk about going for a dive (and probably to check on the fusion reactor I'm building, to help with my power madness... nhaa haa ha... evil cackle). Anyway, we did what good country coppers do, talked about fish, and boats and diving and guns, for the purpose of shooting wallaby. I may have a lead on someone who can put scope grooves into my old Lithgow. Then a little later we cut some wood, and stoked up the fire and went off to the meet the doctor and family party. I think he'll do fine, and his wife and kids are sweeties. They're keen on the outdoor life, and fishing and diving, and we're glad to have them.

James has just been charging his mobile on the camera jack, which did not work too well for either, so tomorrow I must see if I can get it to transfer pictures.

The Eggs-box and the blackerry

I've derived a good new way of fire-lighting. In winter, here, that becomes a necessary skill. When your wood-burning heater is elderly and has its air flue rusted to one position (and no I am NOT trying to fix it until summer. I don't want to have to replace it if I bust it, and doing so could take a while as it has to come over on the ferry.) When my chooks started laying, we found ourselves without many egg-boxes, so whenever we gave anyone eggs it would be on the 'egg box comes back, please' condition. And people being what they are, they put the egg-boxes in dark places, alone, and you know what? They bred. Multiplied prodigiously. And of course the chooks slowed down for winter, but the flow of egg-boxes coming to us did not. The one thing you don't do on the island is to say 'no' when people want to give you things or take you places -- because they will never offer twice. (My poor Indian friends - from a culture where it is polite to refuse the first two offers, in case the host was trying to be polite but really could ill afford it... had a culture shock). And we WILL need egg-boxes again. Just right now they're Ott. The other issue I have is old cooking oil - with one son allergic to seafood, I have to be very cautious about re-using it. It is however, basically diesel - not easily ignited but long burning. So the perfect firelighter is some old cooking oil poured into 4 squares of egg-box. I like to play with my eggs-box. And I have a blackberry too. And some raspberries. Frozen. Who says we live in the past?

Tomorrow we're (Barbs - via her job at the Doctor's rooms) and James and I, via her, going in to a do to meet the new Island doctor. We're a little nervous about this - Barbs will have to work with him, but that is minor, compared to fact that he is going to be the island's doctor. We were spoiled with Sonia and Biren, and Tony who has been locum-ing is a treasure, who understand Islanders and island life. It's a bit different to a mainland practice. It's an island. You can't just go to a different practice. And the Doctor has to live with a tight-knit, quite inter-related community who will affect his quality of life far more than any mainland community... because they ARE a community, and there are very very few things happen here that everyone doesn't know by nightfall.