We took a trip over to friend's house to do some gutter mending today. It's amazing how the island has come into flower, the ti-tree particularly. I really need to move on the bees! Spring is well on the way and the roadkill is sprouting flies :-(. The downside of the island and its high animal population.

On the veggie front, the one variety of zucchini (romanesco - not much use, except it is early) is getting going like a train. The other I grow (black) won't even germinate yet. The summer squash is growing fine too. We're getting reasonable amounts of lettuce and silverbeet, and the first cauliflower is almost ready. Tomatoes, sadly are still barely one true leaf stage. I really need to set out the rock melons and watermelons (or we'll run out of summer) that I managed to germinate but the ground needs to be prepared and they need little individual hothouses.

Anyway, I need to go and get a wallaby. Dogs are nearly out of tucker, and we could use some too. For some, hunting is fun... for me, it's part of living.

beach launches

Having done not particularly well the last 3 times we went off to sea, it was about due that we had a bit of luck, and we did, getting 54 flathead, mostly big fish too including a real mammoth tiger flathead. Having given some to Norm, and had a fish and chips tea, we're still 16 fish up in the freezer. It was quite an adventure coming in the new mouth of the patriarchs estuary as it has moved. Imagine sitting at sea - all you can see is the dunes, and the back of the waves - and you have to decide exactly where to run in, and there will be no real chance to change your mind. From the beach side the color and where the waves break tells you the deeper bits... from the sea, not so easy. You have to come in on the plane, but on the back of a wave. you're thus moving fairly fast. If you stop, it will be sudden, and dead stop. Then the crew has to hastily jump overboard turn the nose into the waves, or if it is back or side on you will swamp and possibly lose the boat, and certainly get into one hell of a mess... then wading, push/pull the boat either back into water deep enough to run the motors, or into a sea gutter (sheltered by a sand-bar) or the mouth of the estuary so the recovery vehicle and trailer can get there - hopefully the sand is hard enough. The ute nearly bogged in a patch of rotten sea-weed buried in the sand today. Beach launch/recovery ranges from mildly exciting to terrifying.

We've had an outbreak of harlequin bugs - sap-suckers in red and black with pale blue innards. Toxic apparently - with those aposematic colors I expect them to be. It does make them easy to catch though. Advice on getting rid of them appreciated.

Oddly enough, having mentioned mushrooms a few days back... we were given some yesterday (and not by a reader) Field mushrooms big ones.

The Steam Mole's proofs are in. I'm tempted to offer the print-out on e-bay to cover the ink cost! (no, not until its release date)

My friend's partner gave me two cuttlebones (there are hundreds of millions on the beaches here) assuring me her chooks loved them. I've tried them before. My chooks asked 'where is the porridge? Where is the fish? Where are veg scraps? not even a bit of bread or a bit of cooked potato? What is this rubbish? We don't eat polystyrene...' last time so I hadn't got around to trying again. The two were lying on the net box... and blow me if a Green Rosella didn't grab it and go and pick at it on the lawn.

And you thought it was just budgies.

Proof reading is a royal pain in the nether regions - especially on a glorious still day when every bit of the monkey boy said 'get in the water!' Still, it must be done. I did another job I had no desire to do today -roundup on my fence-line. I'm not much of a spraying person, but it's a long long line of square-mesh. You can't cut it with a wipper-snipper, or a steel-head brush cutter, and it is just too big to do by hand.
On the germinating front, I have some sugar snap peas up, more carrots, beets, scorzonera, salsify, fennel, and parsnips. I've even put out the first tomato seedlings. Tomorrow (in between finishing the proof read, and sending the corrections off) I need to put the capsicum and eggplant seeds in to warm germinating. I'm planning to hot-house eggplant throughout, after Jody's information about the flowering-fruiting and temperature.
My friend Norm has put in avocado and tree tomato plants - I hate the idea of investing a lot in trees right now, but I am envious.
I'm behind on getting potatoes in. I just am not sure where to put them! I think I'll do a few tire-tower ones, but I need a huge bed.
Oh, and I have been offered a mushroom farm (which I gather is a bag-size farm). Sounds good to me, as this autumn brought very few field mushrooms.

I sometimes feel vaguely guilty because there really is no exciting new news to add - a lot of country living, self sufficiency - hell even writing is just keeping it all going down the same track. Doing something new just means you haven't quite got time for the ongoing projects! It's also a case of balancing late payments against minimal spending does tend to make some ingenuity - but also a dead stop on some projects. Hell, we paint it blue and make it do, but for example I can't buy an outboard with no money and I hate spending down reserves.

Yesterday's fishing was much the usual spots but quite rough and a lot of drift, and not a lot of fish, 12 flathead in all and I think I got 8 of them. My day I guess. Jamie got another mackeral in the same spot - I must take some feathers and try there, as I like grilled and smoked

The garden is starting to seriously take off for spring, and so are the swallows/ ?swifts. Well, the ones that aren't stunned and inside my study are... I 've just take one out. It flew off happily. I see I have parsnips up.

I have the proofs for THE STEAM MOLE to do.
cheerio.

coming home

Home from the air

Nangetty from the air

And Deal island from the air