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.

food

Well, I have made two sublime meals with the artichokes either as side dishes or as part of the meal. Today I cooked a couple of small ones, took the hearts out, a did a dish of barley and fresh broad beans, with a bit of butter and chopped fresh parsley and mint - and chopped artichoke hearts - with wallaby meatballs. Eh, wonderful. The smell of the fresh herbs at the last minute on the barley was a feast in itself.

Yesterday we ate big artichokes as a starter - just pulling the scales off and dipping them in butter, before a pasta with calamari tentacles, clam-fritters and a little bacon and shredded silverbeet and a little fresh sage. The effect of the artichokes was to make the calamari taste almost exactly like crayfish.

Not bad for meals for two for under a dollar each - which is what I try to keep us to (these two were probably WAY under. Only the pasta, the barley and single piece of bacon got bought). A friend of mine back in South Africa - who also earns US dollars was saying how they were battling to survive and feed their kids properly. Other things here are very expensive, but at least we have cut food costs and still eat quite well.

Bees, chickens and Artichokes (artichooks?)

Met the island beekeeper today, and it turns out he's an ex-zoologist. We chatted about the important secret things zoologists talk about - the sex life of invertebrates, just in case you want to know (the details of which are only for those initates into the inner circle who survived second year Zoology. Don't ask. I might tell you, and brain-floss is hard to get through your ears). Anyway, he grows berries (and honey) - might get a boysenberry cane or two from him. I said my dad had kept bees and I'd always thought I'd like to try it. He was really encouraging, said the Island needed more beekeepers, and he'd help me with a hive if I liked. We looked at Sue's chooks together, and I soon realised the core secret of chook-keepers. Every single one of them SWEARS by his or her breed. All others are inferior ;-). Honestly it's like AFL team rivalry. I want a bird which is OK for eggs and meat occassionally. Not for for being the best... well, not yet.

Artichokes are possibly my favourite veggie. So my delight today at getting some - all at the stage of take them now or they'll flower, was very great. I did manage to grow them with difficulty back in South Africa, but I've never had anything LIKE enough (enough in Dave's book too many to eat, and enough to pickle) I got some seeds too (from some that had already gone past the eating point), so hopefully will get some plants going. I wonder if they can be grown as a field crop :-)

First bell peppers (capsicums, sweet peppers) went out today and first cucumbers (the gerkin source) too.

Anyway, we got home from the chook-yard tour to discover the back door hadn't latched properly and our dear dogs (brought at great expense and heartache from South Africa) had emptied the garbage pail onto the kitchen floor, and transported the salt outside and eaten a carton of 2 minute noodles.

They were NOT popular.