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.

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 ;-)

to Mince or to Mince

I cut and Barbs minced - I remember all too well the days of the hand mincer. Not everything from the days of yesteryear was better. We did cats fish (wrasse, Aus salmon, and leatherjacket) for the next 2 months, and then last night I went out shooting wallaby with Norman and 'big wed'(ATV) and the new spotlight he has fitted to it, and shot 6 wallaby. I have cut and minced 2 so far, and another one and we'll have stocks of dog food past Past James's Harare re-affirmation of vows. My shooting must be getting better as I only shot at and missed completely 1 wallaby. My gutting and skinning is definitely getting better. I wasn't still at it at 2 AM.

The strawberries have given us our first two Strawbs and cream

I collected some turkey poo yesterday - it's a hard solid 10 litre bucket full - rock hard. Any bright ideas how I should use this supposedly wondeful nitrogen source appreciated. My carrot show some signs of very variable nutrients...

It's a lovely looking day so hopefully will get a chance to try dive flag mk1 later. But now, to work.

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?

Ok, yesterday we went diving, and now my freezer has its quota of Abalone, all vac-packed and sorted, and also 3 wallaby. We have a new stock of mince for making wors and possibly dried wors. Today we made 8kg's of coarse mince - Wallaby are supposed to be lean meat, but my word these are fat. I seemed to spend forever washing up (OK, it's partly me. I can't handle greasy dishwater, so as soon as it's even discolored I tend to start again. And it needs to be white-hot. I am a bit of a waster of water, but it's at least rainwater off the shed roof, not something that is scarce right now.) James got off on the injured finger. I think I'll injure mine. I'd scrub toilets or change nappies (diapers) rather than wash dishes, and trust me there is no form of housework I haven't done. I don't object to housework, really disgusting jobs tend to be my share (the women in my family do not handle blood or poo easily. I just tune it out. It's like fish slime)I just don't like greasy water. If I was to end up a widower (unlikely, barring the unforeseen, which I hope never happens), a dishwasher I would have to have, or I'd starve avoiding dirtying anything (I actually don't like a grubby environment. I cannot imagine living like so many young guys - and women too, seem to. Up to a point a degree of clutter (especially at the end of a book) is OK, but it bothers me and suddenly I have to clear it. Whenever Barbs goes away the house gets radical putting away of stuff. Not being able to find things is her penance for leaving me behind.

I'm being far too absent-headed at the moment. I just did a batch of rolls without yeast. Had to add yeast and let them rise, put the oven on, forgot to put rolls in. spotted it an hour later and put rolls in... and nearly burned them, forgetting about them.

mad rabbits

Have you ever had a song go feral in your mind, and get stuck there? I've had an old Gordon Lightfoot track turn itself into something that keeps repeating like over-greasy chili sauce. So I thought I'd inflict it on you. "Look here child, your father's pride was his means to provide everybody around with mad rabbits."

Yes it's been rainy and miserable. I spent 2 hours on the 'phone to Immigration about James's Fiance and am no wiser. After my experiences with New Zealand's Emigration (we wanted Flinders, but we were not sure we'd get into Australia, but if we got NZ permanent residence we could also come to Australia after 4 years - the process of applying and acceptance took nearly 3 so, same ball park.) dept. I concluded there was a certain level of pure beurocratic inertia that mere logic doesn't penetrate (NZ - Yes, you have the points to come here as a migrant and bring your wife, if you work in your field. Yes, your wife has the points to come here and bring you, if she works in her field (and there is a large demand). Yes you could come here and write, but only if you are published by a NZ publisher - which would not pay you enough to live on. You could come and be sponsored by a peer organization of sf/fantasy writers, but we don't have one. They would have to put a smallish amount of money to guarantee you would not be a drain on the state. No you can't put it up and in trust so you can't spend it. Gah. Basically, we could have got on an 'plane - as friends of ours did, and -as they had the points, applied from inside the country, and got temporary status fast, and to permanent residence in 2 years. But despite the fact that their own rules said we'd be very desirable citizens, they tossed us about from pillar to post, and the Australian visa came through. And in fact if it hadn't we'd have taken 2 years of Barbs working at radiography job, and got permanent residence, and all they would have gained would be 2 years they'd quite possibly have got anyway. This is much the same, the girl has the points to get a visa - she's a very desirable graduate, in a field which Australia doesn't have enough of, her husband to be is a permanent resident, she's over 21, short of some major impediment (like another husband or criminal record - which she doesn't have) she has two ways into the country. Why then make it complex? Why make her spend 7-12 months of uncertainty -- apart from her partner, thereby making it more likely they'll go there instead of coming here? Yes, I could see the sense, perhaps, if she was 17 year old illiterate coming for an arranged marriage, of trying to slow it down. It's futile anyway, because the people who might take it as an impediment, you want. But seriously, if you're eligible for a working visa, have desirable skills, have a permanent resident partner with desirable skills and a job... why does it need a year? There are no time advantages to doing it right, to doing it from outside the country.

Sigh. Mad rabbits.

I think the wallaby are close enough for me to supply everybody around with.

Dismembering 'roo and the great salt disaster

Well, I am getting better at deboning a wallaby. Still not good but better than my first inept fumbling where I rather expected to find fingers in the meat.

The salt-making experiment due to my impatience ended in disaster - the level wasn't dropping (due to laziness on my part, not carrying it into the sun and too fine a weave cover.) So I transferred it into a couple of large pots and reduced the water on the combustion heater. Unfortunately it picked up a metallic taste from the pot. So we start again. There goes a lot of effort and getting wet. Oh well, we learn.

I've put out some more tomato plants and the Siberian watermelon, and a pumpkin. I'm having variable results with plant outs. My zucchini still are not thriving. I know. Suddenly they'll all grow.

I've made some home-made blue bait - with salted mullet and fish oil. Still have to test it.

sinking, sinking, black ink over the nose...

Or something like that. Anyone recognising the quote have 10 brownie points. Anyway, in this case I merely refer to my attempts to make ball sinkers (or egg sinkers as Quilly would call them). Lesson 1. heat the mould. lesson 2 - do not forget to pull out the wire. Lesson 3 - put on gloves. Lesson 4 - try for lots of patience. If I recall correctly doing this with my dad, he had a blowtorch and a pouring ladle - which could make life easier. The darn lead kept setting in the pouring hole (ergo, heat the mould). Anyway, I managed 8 sinkers in about 8 tries. Mr Efficiency, that's me (the mould makes 4 per time). It's a learning curve and it did use up some bigger damaged sinkers.

We took the dogs down to long point - Wednesday and Roly. Poor Puggles had to stay behind and he cried. I did some thrownetting and caught a goby. Go me. We also collected some of the little ribbed mussels (which are small) and grow in huge beds on the sand. Taste Okay, just a lot of them to very little meat. I also turned over rocks and collected little crabs (and I mean little - 2-3 inches across) which i have made into a crab bisque, with some fennel, leeks, garlic, onions, tomato, parsley and thyme and a carrot (did I use everything that was available and pretend I planned it that way? Hmm. You're close. But I didn't put in broad beans, snow peas, brocolli, beets silverbeet, or lettuce. Or sage or marjoram. Or Rhubarb.)

I took Puggles (and his cruciate) for a very short walk on the nearby beach. Poor boy, He did so enjoy it, and he was OK on the leash. It's easier when the others aren't there.

Our dog-tucker roo supplier brought us more roo (wallaby) and showed me how to debone them. It'll take me a bit of practice... at the moment there is way too much meat left on the bones for me to approve.

Oh and I managed 1000 words worth of a short story, which may even be saleable one day for our writers group. So there is the black ink.

They say if you get high up enough, you can see tomorrow (they also say it helps if you get high up enough really close to the international date-line). Today was a rather mundane sort of day, with a lot of work and not much wild excitement, unless you count killing a few caterpillars on my brocolli. So as the weather is supposed to turn vile again tomorrow, and the writing had gone reasonably well, we took a drive out, up to the highest point you can drive to on the Island - It's only about 8 km away and only 1300 feet. But sea-level is 8km away from Walker's lookout too, and it's in a little bio-island of its own of windswept montaine grassland, just above the montain heath. Sadly we'd left it a little late and the weather was already on the change. You can see the east and west coast, the South, across to Cape Barren and maybe on a clear day the North East River... pretty nearly the island. Only stayed about 3 minutes because it's COLD and WINDY up there.



On the way I saw a wombat and two wallaby (one of each species) and dismally failed to get pictures of both. The wombat looked rather like a sumo koala bear having a bad day. We saw more ring-neck pheasant, turkey, and peacocks too. Oddly very few indigeous wild birds but that could be that the others are bigger and look like dinner.

A walk around the block

Took myself for a constitutional stroll around the block the other night - it took me two hours and appears to be about 7 km (my 'block' in the old country was about 60 km). I saw wild turkey and Cape Barren geese, and a lot of other birdlife I still need to learn. The parroty things are an experience, but my current favourite is the blue wren - a tiny bird with a blue head and black mask a perky upright tail and an attitude that says... 'I am the avian Zorro!' met my first wallaby too - not sure which species yet... er. They do look overgrown shaggy unkempt rat that bounces. Who fed the rats Disney-tigger pills? I took some sunset pics of the sea-weedy sandflats and enjoyed the tranquility of soul. I didn't see one other person not driving, but I did find a large reel neatly stuck in the fork of a tree -obviously someone's roof-cargo didn't make it through the arch of wind-carved she-oaks. I'll advertise it's finding in the bi-weekly paper, I think. If anyone can tell me the make, and roughly where they lost it, they can have it back.

Our furniture is in Launceston. The local operator says he can see the containers (they split the load in two) from his office window. Oddly I can't eat off it there, and by the time it gets here it'll probably be too late for the boys to be here to help unload and sort and re-assemble computers for us. Ah well, maybe in a week or two or three they'll make the booking for the ferry. The local movers who our not too amazing Elliots have subcontracted have taken about as long to move the stuff from Melbourne to Lonnie - let alone here - as they took pack and move it from Finnegan's Wake to Melbourne. Is this the way it works in Australia? Normally in SA you pay part of the move on receipt, which seems a powerful incentive. Unfortunately international moves have to pay up front. Oh well. We have a house to live in, and my first seedlings are poking their heads up :-)