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The Postman Delivers To The Wrong Address
12 August 2008
Last Monday one of our stops on the way back from the Warkworth orchard was at Topuni timber to order 50 fenceposts and a roll of sheep netting.
As I waited in the car while Aaron went inside the sales office, an old car pulled up at right angles to me. Quite startlingly one side of the bonnet appeared to be covered in blood and then a scruffy young male got out and he appeared drenched in blood from the waist down. My mind was spinning. Had he hit someone?! Had he been hit? He went inside the office and I found myself staring at the bloody bonnet wondering what the hell to do, if anything!?
Then he emerged from the office again with an older male and they walked to the boot, which when opened released 3 excited, happy looking dogs. One of them had a nasty gash to the thigh. Surely he hadn’t hit a dog?
Suddenly it occurred to me - I have seriously been watching way too much of the Crime & Investigation channel!
One of the dogs ran over to our car to say hello to Whisky and Coppa. I bet they thought the smell on that pig dog was just wonderful.
As we left I could see the trussed up wild pig in the boot of his car. My mouth started watering at the thought of how good that wild pork was probably going to taste.
Wednesday the fencing was delivered. Aaron waited all day to get the call so he could show the delivery man where to drop the fenceposts. Eventually he gave up and rang the yard and was told they were delivered. No they weren’t. Yes they were. No they weren’t. And then at some stage during the conversation it all became clear. They were delivered alright but not to us. They were in fact sitting at the top of our next door neighbour Gary’s drive. Crap!
And so, over the next couple of days Aaron walked posts across Gary’s lawn and through the bush to our place. The posts are sodden and weigh 10 - 15kg each. The path through the bush is muddy and slippery. It wasn’t easy going. On one journey Aaron strained his back.
On Saturday I carried 2 posts through and quite frankly that was as many as I wanted to carry. There were now 16 in a pile in the bush, 34 still on Gary’s drive and I was concerned about the mess we were starting to make of Gary’s lawn.
Cleaning Out
Early Saturday morning I massaged Aaron’s back for him. The pulled muscle made it difficult for him to sleep. We also had a stack load of work to do so he needed to be able to move around.
After everyone had been fed we headed down to the pig paddocks to clean out. I told Aaron he could scrub the troughs this time. It needs a lot of elbow grease and I wanted to clean the housing instead.
So Aaron scrubbed the troughs and Spotty and Stanley kept him company, tasting his cleaning water, trying to eat the bucket and sticking their snouts in his face and grunting piggy conversation at him.
I swept out the boys van and scraped the dried mud off the floor. As per usual the old straw got put either side of the doorway to try soak up the mud so the piggies don’t get their trotters too muddy before retiring for the night.
Contrary to popular belief, piggies do not like a dirty home. The drier and cleaner the better.I fluffed up the new hay into a big pile. There’s no point spreading it out too much as the piggies will always rearrange it to their liking.
Next we went down to the girl’s paddock. Joy and Phyllis were straight out of the shed and grunting madly at Aaron and his bucket.
I went inside the shed and Belle was sleeping. Hmmm. I woke her up as gently as possible and then had to persuade her to get up. It took a few minutes. She was warm and comfortable and in no rush to get up. I started clearing out the hay around her, putting it at the entrance to the shed – another mud collection point. I heard Aaron swearing at one of the girls. Phyllis was standing next to Aaron with her head inside a tipped over bucket. Aaron took the bucket off her and so she and Joy decided to come into the shed with me.
It’s not the easiest trying to sweeping out with trotters and bodies in the way. I tried pulling the hay out from under Belle’s 250kg frame. It wasn’t budging. She got the hint, stood up and shook her head. I leapt backwards.
If there’s one thing to avoid it’s being ear slapped by a pig! If a pig’s just woken up it will shake its head quite vigorously and those big, heavy ears go flying.
A few times in the morning I’ve been half asleep and had either Joy or Phyllis ear slap me as I’m feeding out. It actually hurts quite a bit. People keep warning us to watch out we don’t get bitten by the pigs. Trust me, a little nip is nothing compared to an ear slap.
With Belle moving out of the way I continued sweeping.
Joy and Belle started having a bit of an argument. I don’t know what those too argue about, just petty little things probably but Joy usually starts it. They’ll grunt aggressively, bash snouts, ear slap each other and then move on off in different directions. Joy came back over to me and started her usual trick of trying to eat the broom. So I stopped and started scraping the dried mud off the floor with the trowel. Phyllis didn’t much like the noise and kept trying to get in the way.
Eventually the house was clean and the new hay went down. This is always a great source of entertainment for the girls. Joy and Phyllis automatically start eating it and Belle tries to rearrange it mouthful by mouthful.
With the girls happy we went back up to the house.
A Prickly Situation
It had started to rain.
Aaron started turning the compost and I went into the chicken coop to start scraping out all the willow mulch.
Then Aaron realised we needed to put the vege waste through the chipper before he could finish turning the compost.
We went to the carport and I stood watching Aaron for a couple of minutes as he lopped willow branches to put through the chipper. We hadn’t dragged much willow up the drive so I went and got some large cut branches of totara from down the bank behind the house that had been sitting there since last spring. I gave these to Aaron and then suddenly remembered we were going to cut out the gorse on Naniwha Hill for mulching.
I wanted the loppers. Aaron handed me the hedgeclippers. No, I’d wait for the loppers thanks. Aaron insisted I take the hedgeclippers as standing waiting for the loppers was wasting time.
We argued, he won as per usual and I stormed off down the drive with the dogs behind. The hedgeclippers weren’t going to work unless I chopped off individual branches. I wanted to lop the plants off at the base.
So I stood there telling Baby Red exactly what I thought of men and Whisky and Coppa what I thought of their father and then trudged back up the hill with the hedgeclippers and no gorse. Aaron had finished lopping and was chipping. He was not pleased to see me empty handed.
He decided he was going to take the hedgeclippers down the hill and prove a point. He went off to get his Swanni so I grabbed the loppers and took off down the hill again.
Both thoroughly pissed off with each other, Aaron carried on chipping and I cut gorse.
As per usual, when I did return we had neither the energy or time to continue being pissed off at each other.
The gorse proved to be a nightmare as far as chipping goes. It’s too fibrous or bendy or something. It just didn’t want to go through and when it eventually did it didn’t chip all that well. It’s a shame because it’s so high in nitrogen it would be excellent for composting. Perhaps next time we should cut it, leave it to dry and then chip it.
Some Nesting Boxes Are Better Than Others
Once everything was chipped we carried on with composting and chicken coop cleaning.
As I cleaned the coop one of the hens sat in her nesting box. (Late morning seems to be the time for laying at our place.)
She sat and laid her egg but before she could finish another hen decided she also needed to lay an egg. Now, as I’ve previously explained, we have 2 nesting boxes. One was being used as a chicken toilet so I moved it next to the other one and the pooping stopped. However, the hens don’t want to use it for laying yet. So there we had 2 hens, one who’d just laid an egg and wanted to sit on it for a while and the other wanting to start laying.
So the 2 hens jostled for space, eventually ending up topping and tailing in the box. They were clearly both uncomfortable but neither was willing to relinquish her spot.
I carried on cleaning out the old mulch and left them too it. At some point the girls both came out of the house and the 3rd one went in. By the time I had started spreading new mulch on the pathway we had 3 warm eggs in the nesting box.
We stopped for lunch…We had lots of eggs in the fridge. We now get at least 2 eggs a day and quite often 3. Aaron suggested we have scrambled eggs. What the hell, suddenly it’s a luxury we can afford.
I scrambled them up with a sprinkling of salt and pepper and added a teaspoon of butter just before serving. What can I say? We both noticed the flavour. The eggs tasted absolutely lovely and it sure as heck wasn’t the butter. Clearly the chickens’ diet is having a positive effect on the taste of the eggs.
I have to say it’s wonderfully gratifying to know that all this hard work is paying off in terms of food quality and flavour.
How to Outsmart a Sparrow
The dogs have discovered a wonderful new game. It seems a family of sparrows have discovered not only that the chickens have convenient pellets of food to eat but also how to get into the chicken coop and get those pellets. The dogs in turn have discovered that sparrows flying around in the coop equals captive entertainment.
The dogs see the sparrows and launch themselves into the air at the walls of the coop. The sparrow panics and flies across to the opposite wall, where invariably another dog is waiting to launch an attack. This carries on until either we figure out what is happening and yell at the boys to stop or the sparrow escapes.
Initially it completely freaked out the chickens but they quickly learnt that the dogs were not actually trying to attack them and now barely seem to notice. Except of course if one of the dogs tries to attack a sparrow sitting on top the henhouse and there’s a hen inside laying. I suspect it is a bit like an earthquake and quite unnerving for an unsuspecting hen.
I’ve been trying to figure out where the sparrows get in and out from. There’s a few small gaps in the windnet roof but I couldn’t believe they were flying in through there. And then on Monday, as I stood at the kitchen bench I looked out the window, and there on top of the hen house were half a dozen sparrows. I watched as they each hopped up to the wire and suddenly they were inside flying around. Aha!
I went outside and checked and sure enough there was a perfect little doorway between roof and wire. I adjusted the wire and went back inside to watch. 
Sure enough the sparrows flew back to the roof. They were mightily confused. Each sparrow tried to find the doorway without success. Eventually they got frustrated and flew off. Although it may have actually been my standing on the verandah shouting out “Got you ya bastards!”that made them leave.
Of course they’ll find another way in. Sparrows are so annoyingly persistent that I wouldn’t put it past them to dig a tunnel if they had to.
A Rare Journey South
We fed out early on Saturday. We had to go to Auckland for Wattie’s 50th so needed to leave by 4.
We headed to Whangaparaoa first where we dropped off some beef off to one of Aaron’s mates and then we dropped in to see Jeff for 5 minutes.
We went straight to mum’s after that. Jo, Phil and Blake turned up and mum made us all dinner.
We were there for about an hour and as always it was good to catch up. Blake was certainly more alert than the first time I met him. He was absolutely fascinated by the tv and the pictures on the walls but quite frankly not the slightest bit interested in me when I tried to engage him in polite conversation. It is only because he is 2 months old that I shall forgive such rude behaviour.
Okay, I admit it, I was slightly offended. But then his mum made it all better. Apparently Jo sings songs to him and one of them is “Aunty Lisa has a Farm”.This is flattering beyond belief. Growing up I had always imagined I would become the eccentric, child-hating aunt that was rarely talked about and usually avoided but now I’m Aunty Lisa who has a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Just after 7 we headed off to the party. Phil joined us but Jo decided to go home with Blake.
Phil left soon after he arrived. Turns out he had the house keys with him.
When we arrived the guests were all deathly quiet in the livingroom watching The Warriors.
Okay, so I’m not a sports fan but I wasn’t coming all the way to Auckland just to watch tv. Mum and I stood in the dining room chatting. I caught up with Donna and then Wattie and eventually others wandered out and the party got going. We ended up having a really good time but as I was driving home we left by 11:30.
The drive home was long and slow. I absolutely loathe driving in the dark when I’m tired. It’s all I can do just to keep the car on the road. Aaron literally passed out in the passenger seat before we’d even left Glenfield. He was slouched forward and I could tell the strain on his neck wasn’t going to do any favours for his back. Try as I did, I couldn’t wake him.
When we did get home he could barely stand and literally fell into bed straight away. He didn’t even manage to undress.
I let the dogs out as they were worked up and in need of exercise. It was one hell of a cold night. I stayed up until 2am letting them run around as I tried to snuggle up on the couch under a duvet. However, they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be in or out and I swear I must have got up about 20 times just to open the door for them.They were still hyped up at 2 so I put them in their run lest they start fighting. I then climbed into bed myself. It was a rough sleep. The dogs barked frequently and I was constantly waking up.
Winter Wonderland
I woke up at 6 and Aaron was in a lot of pain. I massaged his back again and then got up and got dressed. While I was feeding the dogs I could hear Aaron throwing up in the bathroom. It looked like I would be feeding out the animals by myself.
The world was a wonderful frosty white outside. It was damn cold too. The ice in the dogs’ and chickens’ water bowls was frozen over.
While I was feeding out the chickens I noticed a disturbing sight. There appeared to be broken egg shell under one of the nesting boxes. Sure enough, one of the hens had randomly laid an egg during the night and a rat had found it, taken it and broken it open. All that was left was sticky pieces of shell and rat poo. I cleaned it up and shoved a rat trap underneath the box.
I started chopping up the pig’s breakfasts but my hands became so numb I couldn’t feel anything. I filled a bowl with hot water and frequently immersed my hands as I prepared the pig breakfasts.
As I walked down to feed the pigs my hands became so cold they hurt. It was that awful, awful cold pain that brings tears to the eyes.
By the time I got to the girls paddock I’d lost all feeling in my hands and was unable to scrape the feta off the inside of the buckets.
Back up at the house I thrust my hands back in the bowl of warm water. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. The pain was so unbearable I had to take them out again. God knows how people cope with frostbite. This was quite literally the coldest my hands have ever been.
I went back inside for my own breakfast and lit the fire.
Aaron was not well. At one stage he emerged from the bedroom to advise he was in so much pain he needed his back massaged. The day outside was turning out to be quite lovely.
Troubles With IT
I needed to email my CV off to a mining company that day. I had to attach a cover letter but then I realized my template was on the external hard drive and it had crashed just over a week ago. I plugged it in and the laptop froze. I had to unplug everything and remove the battery to get it going again. It did it 3 times in a row and my blood was beginning to boil.
The 4th time nothing crashed but the drive wouldn’t display any folders. I played around with it for about an hour, trying different things and finally I got all the folders and their contents to display.
I transferred everything back on to the laptop before the external drive could crash again. It took over an hour and a lot of my patience but at least our seemingly lost files were once again active.
Of course the laptop has now run out of space… Ah well, brother Matt is going to find another external drive for us.
The sun outside beckoned. When I went for a walk all the animals were sunbathing. Not surprising really as I am sure they have all been getting heartily sick of the rain.
Aaron did eventually manage to get from the bed to the sofa. He needed Panadol. We wanted hot chocolate. He felt like he was dying so I offered to get things for him.
Post Collection
Aaron suggested it would probably be a good idea if I went nextdoor and got the rest of the posts. He suggested I take the car and unload them down by the pond.
So the dogs and I drove nextdoor and while I loaded the posts into the back of the stationwagon they ran around looking for rabbits.
It was hard going but eventually all the posts were in, as well as the netting.The car was incredibly low so we drove very slowly back. Unfortunately the car came to a grinding halt part way along the drive so I had to unload half the posts before the car was high enough to move forward. I unloaded the rest of the posts further along and then we drove back up to the house. 
Aaron suggested that we need to think seriously about getting a 2nd hand ATV next year. His back is just not coping with the heavy lifting and carrying we are constantly doing up and down the drive.
While I agree that some of the carrying we do is virtually beyond my physical abilities, we do cope, even if it is in a stop-start manner. On the plus side I’m fit and my biceps are getting bigger. On the downside, we use up a lot of our time and energy carrying things that an ATV could do for us in minutes.
In the end it’s Aaron’s back versus the cost. We’d be spending around $2000 and that’s money we then can’t spend on fencing or a coolstore.
Far out this is an expensive life we’re living!
Cutting The Grass
As the day wore on I decided I needed to do something outside. Our plans for the day had been sidelined due to Aaron’s unwellness and I felt frustrated that we had lost a day.
I took the scrubcutter out to the back garden and cleared a large patch of ground ready for weedmatting and mulching. The area will eventually be the site of our permaculture garden.
We planted the orchard trees there last week and now we have to get the garden beds prepared.
The dogs joined me and played chasey. Despite their sensitive hearing the dogs want to hang around while we’re using noisy machinery. I worry about the long-term effect on their hearing but I’m not sure if you can get earmuffs for dogs. I had to keep a constant watch out for them as the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally chop a paw off. A few times I had to jam the blade into the ground as one of them streaked past me.
Fortunately I managed to finish without casualty in the end.
I chopped up the rest of the fruit and veg for the pigs (3 meals worth) and then we went and fed out.
Aaron was at last feeling better. Not that there was much day left. We had dinner and then he went to bed.
My Day Is Planned
Monday arrived and with it another frost. However, it didn’t seem quite so cold and in fact the day ended up quite spring-like. It gave me a chance to air out the house and the dogs were more than happy to be outside all day. The other animals continued to sunbathe as well.
I wrote my To Do list for the day and steadily made my way through it.
First things first I needed to set up the flooring for the new pig love shack next to the pond. Then I dug the holes for the posts.
At 11 I headed over to Koanga to by some stuff for a work colleague. Elaine was there and although I stayed to chat the phone wouldn’t stop ringing so in the end I had to leave.
I hadn’t done any baking all weekend so that needed to be done. I also needed to run the still.
I set the still up and switched it on and then I cleaned the kitchen and washed the dishes.
I had lunch and then made the dough for the sticky sugar buns and put it outside in the sun to rise.
Then I made our toasted muesli. 
I make a big batch at least once a fortnight and it’s a great way of making sure we eat healthily at least once a day. I’ve combined 2 recipes, one from mum and one from sister Sarah and it’s quite frankly better than any store bought muesli we’ve had.
With dough rising I took the opportunity to sit down and start writing my weekly newsletter.
At 2 O’clock Aaron phoned. He wasn’t feeling well and was going to leave work early.
Aaron arrived home and I was in the flow of writing and the still was ¾ done.
There were 3 crates of fruit and vege to sort through and food to chop up for the pigs for Tuesday’s meals.
Aaron said he’d feed out and look at doing some work on the love shack.
My Plans Change
I stayed up at the house and sorted the fruit and veg and then started chopping.
My phone started ringing. It was Aaron. Apparently Belle had been standing by the gate so he seized the opportunity to open it and let her out. He wanted me to come down and help him finish setting up the new pig paddock.
I turned off the still and wandered down the drive.
I got down to the pond only to discover that the love shack still needed the walls to be finished, a roof put on, a plywood floor put down and fencing put up. It was about 2 hours work all up and not what I was expecting. Belle hung around the pond until Aaron took off up the driveway to get something from the shed. Belle decided she wanted to go too. It is not easy trying to make a big girl like Belle stay put. She kept trying to push past me and grunted her displeasure at me. Eventually she started getting really pissed off and I was relieved to see Aaron coming back down the drive. All he had to do was pat her on the back and gently push her back in the opposite direction and she happily trotted back with him.
She’s a very interesting pig, so gentle-natured and polite but she is also only interested in being friends with Aaron. 
She tolerates me but that’s about it. Her previous owner was a man and I have to wonder if she had a bad experience with a woman prior to her move here. I guess I’ll never know. I’ll continue to talk to her and give her hugs and maybe one day she’ll decide to be my friend.
The whole time this was going on a small Cessna-like plane kept flying very low overhead.
Initially Aaron thought it was going to crash into the house but fortunately it didn’t. However it did make numerous circuits over ours and Frank’s place. It was so obnoxiously loud and the plane so unstable looking that I actually wondered if someone was trying to harass Frank. 
The only thing I can think is that Frank’s paddocks were getting sprayed with something. Despite the low flying and the horrendous noise our animals seemed to cope okay. There was no panicked running fortunately except by Whisky and Coppa. The boys ran up and down the drive, barking furiously at this large, obnoxious bird. Although I guess it was a little stressful for them it was also excellent exercise.
Eventually the plane left and we carried on the building and setting up fencing.
The roof of the house was to be a double metal shed tilt-a-door door. It was leaning against the bank in the girl’s paddock. Unfortunately it had two large shed wall frames leaning on it. It took both of us a bit of effort to get them upright and then Aaron had to hold them upright while I pulled out the tilt-a-door.
What a mission. It must have taken me a good 10 minutes. Not only were Joy and Phyllis getting in the way checking everything out, I had to manouvre the door from the top of the bank. Two heavy iron arms connected to the door made it weigh a ton. By the time I had the door up on the bank I was absolutely exhausted and filthy. And then I realized I was still wearing my inside clothes. Bugger!
Once the roof was on the shed we went up to the carport to get the tarpaulin. The new shack had too many draughts so I wanted it covered.
We cut the tarp to size and then draped it over the house.
By then I’d truly had enough so we just temporarily secured the tarp for the night and went back up to the house.I turned the still back on and then made dinner while Aaron finished chopping up veges.
After dinner Aaron went to bed and I finished making the sticky sugar buns and looking after the still.
And that my friends, was the end of yet another weekend of fun on the block.
So the 2 hens jostled for space, eventually ending up topping and tailing in the box. They were clearly both uncomfortable but neither was willing to relinquish her spot.
I carried on cleaning out the old mulch and left them too it. At some point the girls both came out of the house and the 3rd one went in. By the time I had started spreading new mulch on the pathway we had 3 warm eggs in the nesting box.
We stopped for lunch…We had lots of eggs in the fridge. We now get at least 2 eggs a day and quite often 3. Aaron suggested we have scrambled eggs. What the hell, suddenly it’s a luxury we can afford.
I scrambled them up with a sprinkling of salt and pepper and added a teaspoon of butter just before serving. What can I say? We both noticed the flavour. The eggs tasted absolutely lovely and it sure as heck wasn’t the butter. Clearly the chickens’ diet is having a positive effect on the taste of the eggs.
I have to say it’s wonderfully gratifying to know that all this hard work is paying off in terms of food quality and flavour.
How to Outsmart a Sparrow
The dogs have discovered a wonderful new game. It seems a family of sparrows have discovered not only that the chickens have convenient pellets of food to eat but also how to get into the chicken coop and get those pellets. The dogs in turn have discovered that sparrows flying around in the coop equals captive entertainment.
The dogs see the sparrows and launch themselves into the air at the walls of the coop. The sparrow panics and flies across to the opposite wall, where invariably another dog is waiting to launch an attack. This carries on until either we figure out what is happening and yell at the boys to stop or the sparrow escapes.
Initially it completely freaked out the chickens but they quickly learnt that the dogs were not actually trying to attack them and now barely seem to notice. Except of course if one of the dogs tries to attack a sparrow sitting on top the henhouse and there’s a hen inside laying. I suspect it is a bit like an earthquake and quite unnerving for an unsuspecting hen.
I’ve been trying to figure out where the sparrows get in and out from. There’s a few small gaps in the windnet roof but I couldn’t believe they were flying in through there. And then on Monday, as I stood at the kitchen bench I looked out the window, and there on top of the hen house were half a dozen sparrows. I watched as they each hopped up to the wire and suddenly they were inside flying around. Aha!
I went outside and checked and sure enough there was a perfect little doorway between roof and wire. I adjusted the wire and went back inside to watch. 
Sure enough the sparrows flew back to the roof. They were mightily confused. Each sparrow tried to find the doorway without success. Eventually they got frustrated and flew off. Although it may have actually been my standing on the verandah shouting out “Got you ya bastards!”that made them leave.
Of course they’ll find another way in. Sparrows are so annoyingly persistent that I wouldn’t put it past them to dig a tunnel if they had to.
A Rare Journey South
We fed out early on Saturday. We had to go to Auckland for Wattie’s 50th so needed to leave by 4.
We headed to Whangaparaoa first where we dropped off some beef off to one of Aaron’s mates and then we dropped in to see Jeff for 5 minutes.
We went straight to mum’s after that. Jo, Phil and Blake turned up and mum made us all dinner.
We were there for about an hour and as always it was good to catch up. Blake was certainly more alert than the first time I met him. He was absolutely fascinated by the tv and the pictures on the walls but quite frankly not the slightest bit interested in me when I tried to engage him in polite conversation. It is only because he is 2 months old that I shall forgive such rude behaviour.
Okay, I admit it, I was slightly offended. But then his mum made it all better. Apparently Jo sings songs to him and one of them is “Aunty Lisa has a Farm”.This is flattering beyond belief. Growing up I had always imagined I would become the eccentric, child-hating aunt that was rarely talked about and usually avoided but now I’m Aunty Lisa who has a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Just after 7 we headed off to the party. Phil joined us but Jo decided to go home with Blake.
Phil left soon after he arrived. Turns out he had the house keys with him.
When we arrived the guests were all deathly quiet in the livingroom watching The Warriors.
Okay, so I’m not a sports fan but I wasn’t coming all the way to Auckland just to watch tv. Mum and I stood in the dining room chatting. I caught up with Donna and then Wattie and eventually others wandered out and the party got going. We ended up having a really good time but as I was driving home we left by 11:30.
The drive home was long and slow. I absolutely loathe driving in the dark when I’m tired. It’s all I can do just to keep the car on the road. Aaron literally passed out in the passenger seat before we’d even left Glenfield. He was slouched forward and I could tell the strain on his neck wasn’t going to do any favours for his back. Try as I did, I couldn’t wake him.
When we did get home he could barely stand and literally fell into bed straight away. He didn’t even manage to undress.
I let the dogs out as they were worked up and in need of exercise. It was one hell of a cold night. I stayed up until 2am letting them run around as I tried to snuggle up on the couch under a duvet. However, they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be in or out and I swear I must have got up about 20 times just to open the door for them.They were still hyped up at 2 so I put them in their run lest they start fighting. I then climbed into bed myself. It was a rough sleep. The dogs barked frequently and I was constantly waking up.
Winter Wonderland
I woke up at 6 and Aaron was in a lot of pain. I massaged his back again and then got up and got dressed. While I was feeding the dogs I could hear Aaron throwing up in the bathroom. It looked like I would be feeding out the animals by myself.
The world was a wonderful frosty white outside. It was damn cold too. The ice in the dogs’ and chickens’ water bowls was frozen over.
While I was feeding out the chickens I noticed a disturbing sight. There appeared to be broken egg shell under one of the nesting boxes. Sure enough, one of the hens had randomly laid an egg during the night and a rat had found it, taken it and broken it open. All that was left was sticky pieces of shell and rat poo. I cleaned it up and shoved a rat trap underneath the box.
I started chopping up the pig’s breakfasts but my hands became so numb I couldn’t feel anything. I filled a bowl with hot water and frequently immersed my hands as I prepared the pig breakfasts.
As I walked down to feed the pigs my hands became so cold they hurt. It was that awful, awful cold pain that brings tears to the eyes.
By the time I got to the girls paddock I’d lost all feeling in my hands and was unable to scrape the feta off the inside of the buckets.
Back up at the house I thrust my hands back in the bowl of warm water. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. The pain was so unbearable I had to take them out again. God knows how people cope with frostbite. This was quite literally the coldest my hands have ever been.
I went back inside for my own breakfast and lit the fire.
Aaron was not well. At one stage he emerged from the bedroom to advise he was in so much pain he needed his back massaged. The day outside was turning out to be quite lovely.
Troubles With IT
I needed to email my CV off to a mining company that day. I had to attach a cover letter but then I realized my template was on the external hard drive and it had crashed just over a week ago. I plugged it in and the laptop froze. I had to unplug everything and remove the battery to get it going again. It did it 3 times in a row and my blood was beginning to boil.
The 4th time nothing crashed but the drive wouldn’t display any folders. I played around with it for about an hour, trying different things and finally I got all the folders and their contents to display.
I transferred everything back on to the laptop before the external drive could crash again. It took over an hour and a lot of my patience but at least our seemingly lost files were once again active.
Of course the laptop has now run out of space… Ah well, brother Matt is going to find another external drive for us.
The sun outside beckoned. When I went for a walk all the animals were sunbathing. Not surprising really as I am sure they have all been getting heartily sick of the rain.
Aaron did eventually manage to get from the bed to the sofa. He needed Panadol. We wanted hot chocolate. He felt like he was dying so I offered to get things for him.
Post Collection
Aaron suggested it would probably be a good idea if I went nextdoor and got the rest of the posts. He suggested I take the car and unload them down by the pond.
So the dogs and I drove nextdoor and while I loaded the posts into the back of the stationwagon they ran around looking for rabbits.
It was hard going but eventually all the posts were in, as well as the netting.The car was incredibly low so we drove very slowly back. Unfortunately the car came to a grinding halt part way along the drive so I had to unload half the posts before the car was high enough to move forward. I unloaded the rest of the posts further along and then we drove back up to the house. 
Aaron suggested that we need to think seriously about getting a 2nd hand ATV next year. His back is just not coping with the heavy lifting and carrying we are constantly doing up and down the drive.
While I agree that some of the carrying we do is virtually beyond my physical abilities, we do cope, even if it is in a stop-start manner. On the plus side I’m fit and my biceps are getting bigger. On the downside, we use up a lot of our time and energy carrying things that an ATV could do for us in minutes.
In the end it’s Aaron’s back versus the cost. We’d be spending around $2000 and that’s money we then can’t spend on fencing or a coolstore.
Far out this is an expensive life we’re living!
Cutting The Grass
As the day wore on I decided I needed to do something outside. Our plans for the day had been sidelined due to Aaron’s unwellness and I felt frustrated that we had lost a day.
I took the scrubcutter out to the back garden and cleared a large patch of ground ready for weedmatting and mulching. The area will eventually be the site of our permaculture garden.
We planted the orchard trees there last week and now we have to get the garden beds prepared.
The dogs joined me and played chasey. Despite their sensitive hearing the dogs want to hang around while we’re using noisy machinery. I worry about the long-term effect on their hearing but I’m not sure if you can get earmuffs for dogs. I had to keep a constant watch out for them as the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally chop a paw off. A few times I had to jam the blade into the ground as one of them streaked past me.
Fortunately I managed to finish without casualty in the end.
I chopped up the rest of the fruit and veg for the pigs (3 meals worth) and then we went and fed out.
Aaron was at last feeling better. Not that there was much day left. We had dinner and then he went to bed.
My Day Is Planned
Monday arrived and with it another frost. However, it didn’t seem quite so cold and in fact the day ended up quite spring-like. It gave me a chance to air out the house and the dogs were more than happy to be outside all day. The other animals continued to sunbathe as well.
I wrote my To Do list for the day and steadily made my way through it.
First things first I needed to set up the flooring for the new pig love shack next to the pond. Then I dug the holes for the posts.
At 11 I headed over to Koanga to by some stuff for a work colleague. Elaine was there and although I stayed to chat the phone wouldn’t stop ringing so in the end I had to leave.
I hadn’t done any baking all weekend so that needed to be done. I also needed to run the still.
I set the still up and switched it on and then I cleaned the kitchen and washed the dishes.
I had lunch and then made the dough for the sticky sugar buns and put it outside in the sun to rise.
Then I made our toasted muesli. 
I make a big batch at least once a fortnight and it’s a great way of making sure we eat healthily at least once a day. I’ve combined 2 recipes, one from mum and one from sister Sarah and it’s quite frankly better than any store bought muesli we’ve had.
With dough rising I took the opportunity to sit down and start writing my weekly newsletter.
At 2 O’clock Aaron phoned. He wasn’t feeling well and was going to leave work early.
Aaron arrived home and I was in the flow of writing and the still was ¾ done.
There were 3 crates of fruit and vege to sort through and food to chop up for the pigs for Tuesday’s meals.
Aaron said he’d feed out and look at doing some work on the love shack.
My Plans Change
I stayed up at the house and sorted the fruit and veg and then started chopping.
My phone started ringing. It was Aaron. Apparently Belle had been standing by the gate so he seized the opportunity to open it and let her out. He wanted me to come down and help him finish setting up the new pig paddock.
I turned off the still and wandered down the drive.
I got down to the pond only to discover that the love shack still needed the walls to be finished, a roof put on, a plywood floor put down and fencing put up. It was about 2 hours work all up and not what I was expecting. Belle hung around the pond until Aaron took off up the driveway to get something from the shed. Belle decided she wanted to go too. It is not easy trying to make a big girl like Belle stay put. She kept trying to push past me and grunted her displeasure at me. Eventually she started getting really pissed off and I was relieved to see Aaron coming back down the drive. All he had to do was pat her on the back and gently push her back in the opposite direction and she happily trotted back with him.
She’s a very interesting pig, so gentle-natured and polite but she is also only interested in being friends with Aaron. 
She tolerates me but that’s about it. Her previous owner was a man and I have to wonder if she had a bad experience with a woman prior to her move here. I guess I’ll never know. I’ll continue to talk to her and give her hugs and maybe one day she’ll decide to be my friend.
The whole time this was going on a small Cessna-like plane kept flying very low overhead.
Initially Aaron thought it was going to crash into the house but fortunately it didn’t. However it did make numerous circuits over ours and Frank’s place. It was so obnoxiously loud and the plane so unstable looking that I actually wondered if someone was trying to harass Frank. 
The only thing I can think is that Frank’s paddocks were getting sprayed with something. Despite the low flying and the horrendous noise our animals seemed to cope okay. There was no panicked running fortunately except by Whisky and Coppa. The boys ran up and down the drive, barking furiously at this large, obnoxious bird. Although I guess it was a little stressful for them it was also excellent exercise.
Eventually the plane left and we carried on the building and setting up fencing.
The roof of the house was to be a double metal shed tilt-a-door door. It was leaning against the bank in the girl’s paddock. Unfortunately it had two large shed wall frames leaning on it. It took both of us a bit of effort to get them upright and then Aaron had to hold them upright while I pulled out the tilt-a-door.
What a mission. It must have taken me a good 10 minutes. Not only were Joy and Phyllis getting in the way checking everything out, I had to manouvre the door from the top of the bank. Two heavy iron arms connected to the door made it weigh a ton. By the time I had the door up on the bank I was absolutely exhausted and filthy. And then I realized I was still wearing my inside clothes. Bugger!
Once the roof was on the shed we went up to the carport to get the tarpaulin. The new shack had too many draughts so I wanted it covered.
We cut the tarp to size and then draped it over the house.
By then I’d truly had enough so we just temporarily secured the tarp for the night and went back up to the house.I turned the still back on and then made dinner while Aaron finished chopping up veges.
After dinner Aaron went to bed and I finished making the sticky sugar buns and looking after the still.
And that my friends, was the end of yet another weekend of fun on the block.
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