Or should that be good riddance?
Not that I actually believe it’s been any influence on the past year’s events but I really, really want to believe it has been.
Neighbour G seems to think so and I can only hope.
It’s been a particularly grim year, full of despair and frustration and a fatigue of the mind, body and soul.
If it could all be gone with the end of a Chinese New Year then I’m more than willing to accept it and bring on the year of the Rabbit I say!
The departure of the Tiger was also done in a most spectacular way, with 2 cyclones that have hammered the property.
Water, Water Everywhere
Saturday the 22nd of January we hadn’t looked at the weather forecast. The drought seemed to have us fully locked in its grip and so what was the point. What we didn’t realize was the forecast for Sunday was for up to a 100 ml of rain and gale force winds.
Saturday morning it was very still, overcast and drizzly. It was a perfect day to scrubcut and fertilise the bottom paddock. It took us 2 hours and was quite tiring but it felt great to have it done.
It started raining Saturday night, with 28 mls in the rain gauge by evening. It all seemd good until Aaron checked MetService and discovered we were about to be hit by a cyclone.
100ml meant flooding and so we waited.
Sunday we watched and counted the mls of incessant rain. We watched from the house as the stream rose in the DoC paddock, eventually overflowing the banks and seeping into the wetland area.
Several of our ducks went down to investigate and we watched then as they paddled their way through the flood waters.
With half the stream cleared we knew our bottom paddock would take a lot longer to flood but the rain didn’t seem to want to stop.
There had been none of the expected wind come through and so the heavy rain clouds had just sat above us, drenching us and tormenting us.
The flooding certainly started on the bottom paddock, taking out the end section of sheep netting across the bottom paddock, washed away a couple of buckets for the cow troughs and lapped at the corn plants.
I had to bite my tongue from saying “I told you so”. Several months prior Aaron had suggested planting a trial run of corn plants on the bottom paddock and I’d told him he was mad. Not only would we have to water them by hand with buckets filled from the stream but we also tempted flooding and wind damage.
So as the water swirled around the edge of the corn plants and scarily close to the mulched weeds and all that organic fertilizer from the day before, all I could think was “Fucking typical!”
Amazingly the rain decided to stop just then and I was stunned as I watched the waters recede over the next hour.
We’d had 76ml in the gauge by the end of Sunday.
That wasn’t the end of it though.
As soon as the rain stopped the wind started. Or maybe it was the other way around?
Whatever, the wind hit us pretty full on. Bending trees mercilessly and flinging jandals and buckets off the verandah onto the patio.
It was like some cruel joke. All that tension released as the flood waters dropped now suddenly returned. Aaron was convinced we’d lose a gum or 2 but in the end what we lost was the main branch off our peach tree, the main branch off our fig out the back, my carefully vertically trained tomatoes were now all on a 45° angle and our bumper crop of nectarines all swelled up with excess water, split and then rotted over the next week.
Still, the losses were minimal so we were grateful for that.
And then a week later, Cyclone Wilma hit. She arrived on the 28th, a Friday evening, and raged through the night.
Why do storms insist on hitting us at night when it is so difficult to monitor them?
Aaron kept vigil on the sofa all night. Regularly emptying the rain gauge and walking down the drive with headlamp until the driveway was so submerged it was unable to be crossed anymore.
At 230mls, it was the biggest flood we have had so far. Not only did it reach bridge level it went at least a metre over it. Our lower fences were covered in debris. The 2 pig houses on the bottom paddock were full of mud. The picnic table on the bottom paddock had been moved from one side of the paddock to the other.
The corn was now completely horizontal.
There was mud and debris everywhere.
Funny really, but I was more impressed about the loss of the front fence and the driveway than upset. Yes it’s all money but wow(!) that’s some seriously strong water flow. And in the end it’s only wood and rock isn’t it?
In fact Thyme even managed to pop out a couple of lambs only hours before it all hit.
In the end the logs on the bridge didn’t prove to be too much of a drama. There was a big mud slip on the highway right outside our place and when the digger came to clear it Aaron asked if before they left they could clear the bridge for us. They did and then a couple of days ago Neighbour K offered to chainsaw them up into firewood for us.
To top it off, while K’s mate was scraping his and G’s driveway he offered to scrape the start of ours as well and so really we haven’t done too badly.
The only bastard is that the woodchip is now all too wet to go in pig housing and the bottom 3rd of the piles are absolutely caked with mud. It is now destined to be mostly compost and mulch. Ah well, at least we got some of the housing done before then.
And at least this isn’t Queensland. Poor bastards!
Icky Sticky
Is there anything more draining than humidity?
This week has been absolutely diabolical. It’s drizzled most mornings, which is then followed quickly by blue skies, a blazing sun and soaring temperatures. Add to that the 230mls we received last weekend and I feel like I’m trapped in a sauna 24/7.
It’s been my week at home and I feel I’ve failed miserably at achieving anything much.
Despite the layers of sunburn to prove I’ve been outside, there seems very little else to show for it.
When my energy is being sapped it seems my enthusiasm drains away with it.
My previous week at home I was pumping through the work, ending the week on a high. Today I feel flat. I have struggled every day this week. Even vacuuming the house at 4am had me sweating profusely.
But of course during daylight hours I’m trying to get a full 8 hours work done outside each day and it’s been damn near impossible. After only an hour I’m chugging back chilled water and collapsing on the sofa struggling to summon up the energy for the next hour’s effort.
Once again I’ve been trying to get more of the back orchard weeded, weedmatted and mulched. I’ve managed to finish creating the 5th vege garden and the path around it but I had hoped for more. Perhaps if the woodchip wasn’t so waterlogged and heavy…
I have managed to scrubcut most of the duck paddock though and that’s made a huge difference to the ducks. They are now separating off into their own groups again and getting some space. Unfortunately the egg hunt has become a major again. It takes a good 5 – 10 minutes to do the hunt and my yield is currently never more than 2 eggs.
There’s 2 reasons I think for this. The first one is that we appear to have far more than the 3 drakes we assumed we had. In fact of our 18 ducks I’m thinking 6 or 7 are drakes; which means another cull sometime soon. And the 2nd reason is because I think they’ve gone back to laying outside the paddock again.
I’ve been finding random eggs or bits of eggshell in the pig paddock so that kind of gives it away.
We did of course do all that expensive refencing of the duck paddock only a few months ago but I have since discovered that Arthur has made himself busy on his side of the fence pulling it all off so he can get to the grass on the other side.
Honestly, sometimes even the simplest things turn into the biggest of battles. How many times have I fenced that sodding duck paddock??!
I have orders for duck eggs coming out of my ears but no eggs to fill the orders. It makes me want to cry when I think how much money I could be getting for them.
A Cheap Drunk
So anyway, this year is about extreme budgeting.
The past 5 years have been about hard budgeting, and I’ll be honest, it’s been a bit tough at times. But this year we’re cranking it up another level.
Going part-time and forking out $10K (and then some) on our UK trip means doing hard-time financially.
The impulse buying has to stop. My impulse buys at the supermarket and Aaron’s impulse buys at the liquor store cannot happen this year if we are to survive it financially.
The last 3 months of last year we indulged our need to relax after work with a stubbie or 2 of cider or beer. Isaacs for me and Steinlager for Aaron, but that has ceased.
An alcohol free year wasn’t going to happen for me and let’s be honest, Aaron would struggle with an alcohol free week. So an alternative cheaper option had to be found.
Just before Christmas I finally tested the River Cottage recipe for Stinging Nettle Ale. The stinging nettles are running rampant in the garden and there’s only so much I can put in the liquid compost so the next best thing was to try make use of it in a more appealing liquid concoction.
I brewed it up on the stove as per the recipe and then stuck it in a lidded pail with an airlock and left it for 5 days.
The first bottle I opened was light, crisp, fizzy and stunningly refreshing. It seemed to be a cross between cider, beer and wine and it took me a couple of glasses to get used to the taste. Of course by then I was completely smashed with the alcohol content. It must have been 6-7%. But here’s the great thing, not only was I delightfully tipsy after only 2 glasses of the stuff but I didn’t feel nauseated and sick like I do after only 3 RTD ciders.
It was most definitely a winner and it only took about 3 weeks to knock back the remaining bottles. So then I brewed a 2nd batch. It’s nice but not as nice as the first and there are possibly 2 reasons for this. 1) I didn’t stick to collecting just the tips of growth as I had been weeding out some of the nettles and was a little short of tips and 2) I let it brew for 7 or 8 days and the recipe suggests brewing for only 2 or 3 days.
As far as cost goes, I get about 20 stubbie bottles of ale out of a brew.
Stinging Nettles (free)
1 cider yeast sachet = $4.00
750g caster sugar = $2.00
1 orange = $.40c
1 lemon (free)
A bit of cream of tartar.
So what’s that? Just over 30c a bottle.
I’ve been paying $2.50 for an Isaacs cider.
Aaron needed a beer replacement so he’s bought himself a CpperTun Beer brewing kit. He’s trialling the different Muntons and Mangrove Jacks brews. The first he tried was a stout but his brewing technique needed some refining. We got the brewing technique right with the 2nd batch (a lager) but my capping technique with the first 2 brews resulted in tasty but flat brews so we had to recarbonate and recap. The 3rd brew is a Yorkshire Bitter and it brewed well and capped perfectly. I have to admit that when we bottled it it smelt divine. It’s a couple of weeks away from drinking but I think I may be tempted to take a sip.
As for cost,
Beer Kit = $22.00
60 Carbonating drops = $5.60
30 bottle caps = $1.00
Beer finings sachet = $1.90
No Rinse Steriliser = $2.00
He gets 30 quart bottles from a batch.
This works out between $1.00 and $1.15 per quart bottle, depending on the brew he makes.
It’s about $2.20 for a Steinlager stubbie.
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