Wet feet...

One day I will learn not to open the pig's grain bucket lid so it doesn't shower my feet with cold water. I know. cold water banishes impure thoughts. It also makes for wet socks if you have been stupid enough to walk out there in a pair of crocs. Fairy is of course a spoiled pig (there is a huge pot of boiled pig tucker made for her every days and kept in the fridge) but fears that I will become so attached she won't be be bacon are not that likely. She doesn't have any interest in me except as food bringer, and possibly food (yes, she tried a few tastes, just to check. You have to watch her.). She's even less sociable than Percy, who would come and be scratched. She's less of a digger than he was, but otherwise not quite as friendly, and he was not really the local charmer.

New chooks are still not laying - although they will now take grain and sunflower seeds out of my hand. I should have held off doing the old ones in.

Barbs is away in Lonnie for Synod, and I am being a batchelor. This involves dirtying as few pots as possible, and being mobbed by the cats every time they see me. Not that they need people or anything. They're just... not used to the lack of room service and lap space.

Peter's container arrived along with a lot of my stuff yestyerday, so it and I spent some time getting re-aquainted. That's what you call being stuck in tight corners and lifting heavy things isn't it? Anyway, it is a huge saving on many things, as well as getting us more bits towards being truly self-sufficient and independent. There is a second-hand spear-gun I can't wait to try (but the rubber has died, have ordered more). It's a bit like Aladin's cave only with more dust from the insulation. You never know what treasure is next to emerge...

Still harvesting a few tomatoes, and really really must uproot them... fennl seedlings are coming up furiouso, and so is the garlic.

Taking the cats for a walk

Now when anyone mentions the idea of taking a cat for a walk, I immediately think of Garfield and the genuine naugahide collar and lead. It did not end well. But Barbs is doing her 10 000 steps a day challenge, and I usually shut the dogs in, and open the gate so she can drive in from work... and the last few days she's gone for a quick walk over to the shearing shed to get her steps up, on coming home. Sans dogs (as we ALWAYS drive them to walk anywhere. Therefore break-outs are not nearly as obvious or tempting to dogs. Ours are old now, but we live on stock farm. Dogs do not roam.) I go along to hear about the day, and for company. We've noticed on the last two that we have even more company... three cats. Of course not doing anything lowering like walking with us. No, never! They just happened to be going the same direction, and if a sheep suddenly bleats... very close to us, in the same direction.

Both Barbs and I had severe insomnia on Monday night. It was weird - both still awake at three. I'm a fairly rotten sleeper, but Barbs is usually good at it. We got up at midnight, and found the supply of sardines and condensed milk was rather low. I am convinced that is why i couldn't get back to sleep.

Quizz kid

Well, bravely (because spending money takes courage... for me), I have put in the order for some cheese culture and rennet, and the mould for the crust. So... hopefully Camenbert- style cheese.

We went to a charity fundraiser quizz last night - before you start laughting I am absolutlely useless at this sort of quizz, as it restes quite a lot a knowledge of TV, Movies, media and sport, and recognising music (without words - eek) and Australian and Flinders facts... yeah. Colour me a loser, but it was still fun simply because to paraphrase Charis's veiws in Fredrica - it's nicer at a country ball where you know everyone (or nearly). I really need to read some Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson. But I draw the line at learning about tennis. It's a racket...

say cheese, please.

Hmm. Well, perhaps the great cheese making experiment is going to start soon. We have some new semi-neighbours, from WA, and they at great expense and difficulty imported their housecow, a Jersey (there is a disease that makes importing cows to the island very expensive. WA doesn't have it). And they gave us about 10 litres of milk today, with an offer of more at some future date. So Dave is frantically looking for his Yogurt culture, and his cheese-making book. Found the book. The little bottle of yogurt culture is somewhere in one of 3 freezers. I've done a search through the smallest (which was also the likeliest, but also small.) and discovered many many secrets of the orient... and other things besides fortune cookies, some of which I was pleased to see, and some of which I have NO idea what are (and yes, we do try to label stuff, and yes, there is a method of sorts.).

I'd be really pleased if we could make at least a fetta and camenbert/brie. (I've never been a huge fan of cream/cottage/soft cheese - will eat it but it's less useful than the rest). Hard cheeses (cheddar etc.)require lots more milk of the same batch, and are more complex, and need a long cool maturation. Blue, while I'm fond of it, will probably also have to wait...

But it's a start.

Weekend weather

So it's the weekend coming, and my two regular dive partners are available. And the weather looks like... weekend weather. Blowing a gale. I did go and dive for some Abalone today - but even being lazy and using an aqualung that only took 70 bars out of the tank. I worked harder carring the dratted thing and weightbelt to my spot than I did diving, which is wonderful, but then my concience said, get out and go and do some work. I am getting a bit stir crazy with too much writing, not enought sunlight :-). It is I am afraid creeping into the winter of discontent. The water in September is pure murder (It's at its coldest then, HURTS), but at least it means spring is coming. We have rather weird seasons, because of the Warm current that comes down the Australian coast. It takes a few months to get from warm parts to us, cooling as it comes, but still means everything is delayed as we're getting 2 months ago's warmth (or cold) into the big radiator (the sea) that surrounds us.

My garden is suffering neglect and winter - I left getting in the winter veg a bit late so we have carrots, parsnips, salsify and silverbeet, and still lots of spring onions, and no brassicas (I've got some struggling up). Beet seedling are still growing but very slowly. Have still been getting tomatoes, which is why the rest were late. There are a few capsicums and tomatoes in the makeshift greenhouse.

Of course we do have pumpkins, potatoes still, and quite a lot of frozen and dried stuff.

Garlic in meanwhile is desperate to get planted.

I'm going hammer and tongs at the current book ATM, and trying to do a lot on that, work on two others, fiddle with with the self-publishing stuff (yes there is more coming, provided it kind of pays for itself and makes a little trickle, Thanks to those who bought THE FORLORN, A MANKIND WITCH, and SAVE THE DRAGONS (off the davefreer website) and the various BOLG PI and other stories. It all helps.)and trying to get more wood in to the store before rain makes driving close to the trees impossible (we don't have a 4x4 and it can get very boggy. There are thousands of dead trees - no shortage, but some are a long way from a decent track)

We've had some rain, but we're still a long way down on normal.

The pig got very upset at the cattle noises from the lane-way. Upset enough not to eat the apple I gave her, which if you knew Fairy you'd realize is very serious indeed. She knocked the food bowl out of my hand yesterday in her desperate haste to get to the goodies (she has plenty of grain, but I make her a boiled mash of pumpkin, apple lentils and a little wallaby, thickened with maize meal). However she has recovered her timbre of mind and is one again a food obsessed pig, growing fast.

The new chooks are settling... but not laying. The old ones were easier, but these will get there.

I went for a really anoying dive today - my friend had seen his erstwhile son-in-law dive the spot very successfully for greenlip Abs. All I could find were small blacklip -lots of those, but undersize. I did seem some very good fish - trvally and sweep, but hadn't taken a spear with me. Oh well. You learn.

The town writer and the country writer

What's the difference between an urban writer and a remote rural one on Flinders Island? Well the urban one will get up at a civilized hour, have coffee, maybe put the cat out, have breakfast, go to their desk and start work. Maybe sometime between 8.30 and 9.00. He might answer post, or twitter knowledgably about the Great Gatsby. Later he might take a break and go shopping or be one these really odd people who can write on a laptop in a coffee shop. They exist. Really. I didn't believe it myself.

Back on Flinders island the extremely un-urban writer shivers out of bed at pitch-dark-o-thirty. He fumbles on his clothes gets his rifle and goes off to look for a wallaby. On his return, he will skin and gut the same, then go feed the pig, and then deal with the chickens (in this case that means a quick humane execution. The time had come. New egg-layers arrived last night, and I don't want any chicken-fights, and only one of the older ones was still laying. There were only two of them which is not happy for chooks.) Drawing and plucking followed. Then we got to coffee and putting the cats out. Making porrige and then to work - at about the same time as the Urban writer. All I can say about the Great Gatsby was I hated it as a set-book, and I have no intention of seeing the film, should it, in a few years, find its way to Flinders or DVD. Today we were actually going out to lunch, but I did not take a laptop. I need quiet and my environment to write. I did our shopping in garden, and with a knife and a rifle. And at the end of the day I have to earn a lot less than my urban friend did, which is just as well, because I don't seem very good at it:-).