News Flash! Just to let you know we are , as of 6 minutes ago-The proud new owners of a Tulsa Solar cooker---made in India-- so the directions are--- interesting. Lets hope we get a sunny day tomorrow and we will let you know the results of our first cook!

How about these marigolds for colour! Today it was 9 degrees in the morning but these flowers just keep flowering. We want to show you particularly our old style potatoes, planted in a no-dig garden on the lawn. We planted 2 beds this way and one bed the traditional way , in troughs and hills. That was just before the big rain. Well, all the spuds in the troughs rotted---yuk! and THESE ones in the no-dig beds are just flying. We have to put mulch on every day to keep up with them. That has meant 2 trips to cane farmers to get the mulch. The first one, last Friday, was to Rodney's farm down near Coolum. It was a lovely trip and we got the bales loaded by Rodney and a road worker-- very friendly and nice. But the cane had just been cut and it is just big bits of cane and green leaf, and no good for the spuds. It will be good in about six months, after it has been rained on and rotted. So, on Monday we made an emergency trip to Neill's farm, as we know his mulch is so rotted we could eat it. He was busy, but his father, who, Neill says ,has reached his "use by"date heaved along with us and we got it loaded. ( these bales are VERY heavy). When we got home, and unhooked the trailer, we almost lost control of it up the hill beside the house, and nearly wiped out M and the car. Whew. Hopefully, no more compost for a while.
As you can see Dais is very inquisitive!

Many days since last post! That is because we had so much rain that we were washed down the drain and ended up out to sea on a raft. ( Or at least that's what it felt like). Lucky the chooks had luxury accomodation in the shed.
Happily, the rain abated and there are lovely fine hot days, so our next big project could begin; that is; the huge heap of garden rubbish we had accumulated, what with the mondo grass, all the cacti, fallen trees etc. that had sat beside the house in the alley, could now begin its journey in our brand new, shiney trailer to the dump. What excitement. Christening the trailer, and exploring the dump.
The trailer performed marvellously, and the dump is a queen among dumps. $6 per load of garden rubbish, and $15 for 2 trailer loads of chocolate grade compost ( on the way home). Yummy!
On the first trip, were lost the rings that hold the tailboard shut. ( we forgot to lock them), but the nice dump man chased after us and found them. Such attention.
Moving the heaps from the alley to trailer was in itself a challenge. Spiders, toads and a small snake had called the heap home. And worms! The butcher birds thought they had died and gone to heaven. In a couple of weeks we are off to a seminar on compost making, and then there will be no wasteful dump heaps, I guess!

Big worry. Gert does not seem well. We have no idea what the problem is. I think it is psychological ; she is ostracised by the others and I think she is suffering from rejection.
Nevertheless, we are going to put some condes crystals in their water. Lyall, the lovely farm supplies man, says it is good for their constitution.
So they will feel liberated with chook rights with this treatment.
Also, we bought dettol for the cane toads---not to keep them clean, but apparently it kills them. In the horrendous rain last week, when we were desperately making a new home and yard for the girls, I uncovered the biggest cane toad I have ever seen. Yuk! Cane toads are not desired residents of 33 Waerfall Road and their end is nigh!

Just a glimpse of the harvest already. We have only been here 14 weeks, and the garden was not planted for a few weeks and already this is the daily crop. This might be a mighty wet place but , boy do some things grow. It is fascinating to see what will "do" and what wont. the wormwood looks terrible, silver beet hates it, peanut butter bean loves it , as do many other things. We will eventually have a good idea about what to grow. The other interesting thing is that not much gets eaten, except the marigolds, which the grasshoppers love. We thought marigold would keep bugs away!
The Saturday flood has ebbed away, thank goodness. The garden just squelches now.

PS , The roof has been fixed

Well, our girls now have holiday accomodation, or alternative housing. This is a result of the 330m of rain that fell here, making their motel just a bit wet. So now they can recline in the motel, or move to the new dry houst and run under the mulberry. As you can see, they, and margaret, are very happy with it

BUGGERATION! We have had big rain and the roof leaks. Luckily we have not paid for it.