03-04-04

My dear husband, Brian, has done it again!   He has bought a jersey cross heifer calf, dark brown.  He has named "Mo" that because Mo has a mohawk.  She is still bellowing occasionally after the separation from her mother, and this is Friday night and we bought her Wednesday!  Poor thing!  She's only just coming out of the watered paddock into the big paddock.  And looking very confused. But she only cost $70, and will be bred with Muppet and the proceeds sold.  She's worth a minimum of $250 we guesstimate.

 

The mice here are driving us bonkers, despite the bait we have put out.  They seem to insist on multiplying faster than the bait can knock them off, traps seem to be useless, and then they drag themselves off and die within the walls.  There is currently the most dreadful stench near the computer in the study.

 

Porgy has had a house removal.  His pig palace was blown over by a gale yesterday.  Despite that, according to Brian, he lifted his head briefly, and then lay back down again.  He lifted up a corner of it, and burrowed underneath.  Today, I saw that he had decided to sleep exactly where it used to be.  Brian, unfortunately, has to work all weekend at the Port Fairy Folk Festival, where he is a bouncer (security).  So Porgy and Bess will have to do without shelter, but the weather is so mild, and they have so much fat, I don't think it will bother them hugely to sleep under the stars.  Brian will be getting time off soon, so he will be able to fix up a new pig palace.

 

The chooks are laying gangbusters at the moment, and the ducks are starting to join them in ovoid pursuits.  Needless to say, breakfast is a very happy time for us.  I am supplementing the chooks normal diet by going to a pet stockist and sweeping up spare seed dropped by staff and pets.  The chooks really love this of course!  It's on the way to wherever from Alice's school, so that at least is a saving on fuel in any case.  And I have managed to help the owners a bit, which gives me a great feeling.

 

We have not only had a mouse problem, but flea and fly plagues.  I tried talcum powder with the daschies, and then realised I was wasting my time, because the daschies are so close to the ground that the powder rubs off and the fleas get back on.  Tomorrow, they get a new kennel, complete with wormwood branches.  Brian went to a Clearing Sale today and paid $2 for a 44 gallon drum on legs.  The front has a safe lip which is the door.  It is sited underneath the climbing rose, so that it is always under shelter.

 

As to the fly plague, I have seldom been so grateful to spiders!  I caught thirty flies in a quarter of an hour today, and my turtles had a pig-out.  There will be more tomorrow.  Talk about a renewable resource!

 

We made the mistake of leaving a fishing reel, complete with line, out where the geese could get at it.  I think this is what is responsible for a couple of lameness incidents.  I ended up storing the reel away.  The geese are too curious.

 

It has just hit the news that tests on three hundred corellas (one of our parrot species) found dead last month were poisoned.  Our problem is that the corellas breed like crazy because we keep on supplying them with food - the crops our farmers grow.  We have the same problem with kangaroos.  Getting permission to have them removed (and permission must be legally gained) is difficult, time consuming and costly.  And of course, it must be done humanely.  So someone has taken it into their heads to go around officialdom and poison the little darlings themselves.  This is not the first time in recorded history.  Naturally.  But it doesn't just happen with native creatures.  Our introduced beasties have the same licence.  We are in the unenviable position where we cannot kill foxes, no matter how much of our livestock they cart off.  We are within town limits, so no shooting is allowed, we cannot poison in case ours or a neighbour's dog gets a hold of the stuff and traps and baits (unless okayed by the relevant authorities, which is rare) are banned.

 

Apparently the perch are running in the Hopkins River at the moment.  Brian says you can tell because the crickets are everywhere.  He and Aaron were out at Deakin University the other day and when they stepped on leaves and then moved off them, the leaves moved with the amount of crickets underneath.  Quite spooky, according to Brian. 

 

Peter Cundall, writing in The Weekly Times of February the 18th, discusses the delights of weeds.  He says even when the summer is at its fullest and his lawn bone-dry and crunchy to walk on, the flatweeds are doing very well.  Pulling oxalis guarantees that the bulbils will continue to propagate the plant as they fall off with the tugging, and so the weeds continue to spread.  They love cultivated ground.  If you can convert the area to temporary lawn and mow for three years, the constant leaf removal causes the bulbs below to die through lack of light.

 

If you are not careful to get out all of the taproot, many are designed to break off and start growing again.  You have to be vigilant about easing all of the weed out.  Peter recommends that for a new vegetable bed, grow potatoes or pumpkins, as they block out all of the light with their leaves.

 

He continues: "The best solution of most of us is to pluck out competing weeds while still tiny and then mulch heavily straight on top of the less competitive weeds growing between rows.

"As the vegetable start to grow and become leafier, this mulch can be safely tucked in around them.

"That virtually puts an end to the problem for this season at least."

 

I'd like to make a few other suggestions:

 

Find out (but be certain) which ones are edible and make a meal of them.  That'll teach them! 

 

Use hot vinegar, hot water or dab petrol or kerosene on them.

 

Get in the ducks.

 

I've just been reading in the same issue about Neville Chapman, of South Gippsland, who has just planted 1000 oak trees innoculated with truffle spores on his farm.  At $40 a tree, it is an expensive gamble.

 

He says the worst case scenario is that his great-grandchildren will be able to mill the trees.  The best?  In 15 years he should be harvesting a minimum of 60kg per hectare and there are 4 hectares planted.  Premium truffles sell for $3000 a kilogram.  Nice get-rich-slow scheme.  He used to be a dairy cockie.  He became sick of it and was looking around for something else.

 

Impedimenta

 

I am surrounded, cave-like

by books.  Christian,

laughter, stories, self-sufficiency.

 

Reference, reverence,

rescue, remedies.

 

It's all so much fun!

 

I read somewhere (of course!)

that there are more books printed

in the English language alone

in one year than can be read,

full-time, in a life-time!

 

How amazing!  Think of all

that we are missing out!

 

Revel in what we have!