One man went to mow...

The mowing beastie has been less than well the last while. It turns out(as James and I diagnosed - but where told it was the choke)that it's not firing on both cylinders. It has been seen to... and now does it sometimes. It went from very feeble to its old self while I was using it today, and I managed to cut all sorts of areas it just gave up on before (the garden was a total jungle and needed to slashed with a tractor to get the initial area cut. Since then, with a brush cutter and the mower, I've pushed it back and back. We're now down to about 10% of jungle, part of which is trees. It's probably close to half an acre in total - a lot of grass. Anyway, one man went to mow...

And spent 3 hours at it. And then one man worked, and then cleared a bed and planted some Dutch creams (a kind of potato). I still have purple Congo and some 'elephant' to go in. My germination of capsicums has been utterly dismal, and tomorrow I must contrive some kind of mini-greenhouse for them.

And that's about all that happened today.

Idyllic fish-clubbing

I took myself for dive today before my writer's group meeting. The water was still, clear, and the tide low, and the temperatures are coming up slowly. It was an idyllic dive, a lot of it not more than 5-6 feet of water. I have put an extra weight on the weightbelt (I am always nervy about this, but it worked perfectly, I am JUST postively buoyant.) At this rate I'm going to need a golf cart to get the weights into the water, because walking with it on my waist kills my hips. I was just sorry to be there alone (Yes, I know. I was, as a result paranoid careful). Having got quota, I went to look for some fish to spear - with 3 prongs left on the spear. That didn't last past the first fish, a zebra perch. I then shot a beardie, and lost it and the next two prongs (not in the fish on the rock) and with the last, another zebra perch, and then broke that prong on a rock. So as I now had a club, I swam out, and barely got to my meeting in time. I should have tried clubbing. I believe it's all the rage.

Shearing

The shearing is in full swing - actually started this morning and the forklift on the front of the tractor has been busy lugging bales of wool to the container, and sheep looking like poor boys on their first day at school (with that sort of haircut and hangdog look) have been bleating their way past... all day. I had a suicidal Jack Russel come visiting this morning from the shearers, and Puggles did not eat him. In the meanwhile between writing and the thunder of sheepish feet, I have fenced off the new potato patch. I still need to sort out a pumpkin area. I still need some pumpkins to germinate... I have watermelon and rock melon to go out, and normally these are much harder to get growing than pumpkins. I am trying a few new varieties, that I think just lost the selection battle. Back to Queensland blue. Actually, germination over the last few days has been dismal (I have as usual, a lot of plants in seed trays. A LOT. I am a scattergun gardener with black thumbs. I throw the kitchen sink at it and hope something will grow. Some of it really is mystery. And some sheer incompetence. I planted 4 rows of carrots. Same time, same conditions, different varieties. One put up about 5 carrots. One about 12... and the other about 200... and the last maybe 500. Um I know what the final carrots are supposed to be like (different, see)... but until they're harvest ready I really don't know which is which.

As to the future. We don't know, but nothing is likely to happen until after sheering, if at all. Right now I am simply going to carry on.

gah. Nearly out of cap again, and we still have 19 days to go before it resets. I love my kid, but I wish he'd be less profligate with it. Well, interesting times. The Shearing starts tomorrow... and one of the staff just quit - but in such a way his house may not be un-occupied. So if it works out that the farm needs another house for staff... we'll be looking at moving again. NOT happy with that idea. We really like it here, moving is hard and expensive. Oh well. No use panicking. Let's see. I do so hate uncertainty.

Dipsomania

Or sheep dip tasting...

All the drinking water on the island is off our roofs, as we have about the last untreated town piped supply in Australia (and here on whoop whoop, we don't even have that, just roof-rain tanks and a bore, which is pretty full of iron and sulphur and heaven knows what else. It's not nice.) We're spoiled in that we have the water off our roof (potentially) and the sheering shed, which is a huge roof area (to the extent that our tank was actually not in the system at the moment - being filled still, just not used.

Only somehow, in the prep for sheering next week, the pipe used to fill the dip-tank got put on the very elderly top to the water tank at the sheds, and... dripped some dip in the tank. It is very dilute - probably a cup (already diluted) at most in 15 000 litres. Probably not going to effectively treat us for parasites. It still stinks (made us rapidly aware of it), and I wouldn't want anyone to drink it. It will have to drained, rinsed, drained and then refilled. Rather a waste, unless we can sell it as a health treatment for people with intestinal lice.

Fortunately we have the spare water - 20 000 litres I'd guess. Unfortunately - on a Saturday not plumbed in and sans pressure pump. So I have spent the afternoon adapting fittings (as nothing you need can be bought on Saturday afternoon) and getting a Davy pump to work, and fitted - into plumbing that has been repeatedly fixed and altered and patched for 60 years. Needless to say... it wasn't simple. The farm has loads of pipe fittings. Just not for 3/4 inch pipe. The end result involved some threaded irrigation standpipe, a heat gun and modifying the sealing ring with a crosscut saw. Oh and a lot of swearing. It's sort of working now, but I will have to pull it apart and do a better job in the morning, as the tap on the pipe from the sheering shed leaks, meaning a little of that water is still coming through. So that will have to come off completely tomorrow (I don't think it can all be run out until after sheering, as they need wash-down water).

I think I need a strong drink. I am heading for dipsomania.

Mince and the show

Well, we now have about 25 pound of mince in the freezer, a load of strips for biltong and a couple of big joints in the freezer, a load of shanks I have to de-foot tomorrow, and too many tails (they make a very good soup, good, but not as good as oxtail stew - very very rich. I have about 5 pounds of stewed to rags meat from the carcasses, which makes great pies, and is not bad with pasta. I gave 2 wallaby away, and I still have 3 or 4 to process (in the fridge). I'll do some steaks and some stew chunks too. Dog tucker bag is full. Bottles of stock for them too. I do remember in early days missing meat. These days we could (almost) use more fish (I would love some more variety - trevally are great, yellowtail kingfish, King George whiting, snapper, even mackeral are all available, just catching in other than minor quantities a problem (ignorance, not rarity, causes this), squid and shellfish. There are also the deeper water species - stripy trumpeter blue eye trevalla, and dories, and giant crab out there - too far for the small boat, but not out of the question to organise). Scallops... they're here. The shells are all over. I just have to find them, legal size at the right season. It WILL happen, as will the octopus long-line (they are very very common in the fish tummies). We could definitely use more crays (spiny lobsters) as they are a prime trading article. Of course, they are gifts given, but you do know people understand that what is given, comes back around when they have surplus, and not many people have surplus crays, so they're much appreciated. It's a nice way to live. Anyone who thinks it a one-way traffic - to them, quietly finds they're left out. I suppose it takes a small community, and probably wouldn't work that well in town, where all people have to 'give' is what they do for a living or have bought. Mind you I've blessed a few friends who gave me what they'd bought. Peter was high up my gratitude list today when mincing all that wallaby. I ought to make more sausages with some of it.

Tomorrow is show day (the Flinders Island annual show). It seems a very Australian thing: it's a public holiday, and to not go is very bad form. It takes a long time because you will see 200 hundred people you know, and they will be offended if you don't exchange a few words with each and every one, and greet the other 150 you recognise but don't know well enough to chat to. The weather, of course, is typically rotten. Tomorrow looks like it might be an exception though.

A friend of ours has planted oats this year... and hurt his hand. He's very conservationist (being involved in most of the 'greener' projects around. He's a good man) but the reality is he's disappearing under a tide of wallaby (being against the forest margin they have lots of hiding places and lots of lovely grazing). He's put in heroic efforts at fencing - within weeks the wombats dig holes and the wallaby follow. So it's shoot or poison - and a normal year involves more than 1000 - (I gather he's been doing this for half a century, and the numbers just get bigger, it seems.) He can't shoot right now, as his hand is injured, so I went up there last night. The rain got me after an hour - maybe 3/4 of an hour of dark - and I had to bring the rifle out of it. But I had shot 16 wallaby. Here I have to shoot at 70-100 yards, there it was 30. Even I can hit things at thirty yards. So last night I worked until 2 turning 11 of them into food (couldn't in the dark find the others, they were found and buried this morning). Ah. Self-sufficiency. Easy, isn't it? I will say the gutting and skinning are a lot better than before the night started. Nothing like 10 in a row to get even the dumbest practiced. Anyway, tired day, and now I am for bed.