29 March 2011.Rainy day, grass growing, and weeds growing. Nothing new in that. We have had the wettest summer and the only vege that really seems to enjoy it here is the cucumber. The eggplants hate it, the egg laying chooks hate it, and even the mossies are leaving us alone. The passionfruit vine that did so well last year has had 1 flower! At least we have cracked fertilising the Granadilla , and have some fruit on that. And our chooks have been joined by a surrogate, a bush turkey babe that thinks she is a chook. So that's fun, even if she eats the chook food. I cannot believe the speed that the grass grows. Pity we dont eat grass---and ants! then we would be self sufficient.

We have sighted our first snake here, so at last we feel like true blue sub-tropicals! It was a little olive snake, apparently a whip snake, going from one rocky area to another. It was very pretty.
We have also wrestled with a rat plague since we got back--obviously--when the cat's away---.None left now, I hope.
The days go on being hot and shining, not a sign of a rain drop. And Tony Abbott and That mad Nick Minchin say there is no climate change. The locals cant believe how dry it is. In spite of that, the bananas look good. Amazing what a weekly bucket of water will do.
Our four baby butchies are growing up, very adolescent though. They can still put on a "Feed me Mummy squawk if an adult is silly enough to sit near them. Still they are learning to be lovely singers.

here we are--returned from our amazing time in Shanghai. What an experience! Such a different culture from ours, and so enjoyable. A number ofaspects stand out, --Shanghai is a modern, up-to-date city, with some of the tallest buildings in the world, and at the same time the dominant mode of transport is the bike, either push bike or motor scooter, where people do the most menial jobs, with dignity, and where much life is lived on the streets, and yet there is a completely efficient metro, which even I could use easily. I particularly loved the organic feel of life-- I could buy all my food on the street, get a bike tyre mended on the pavement ( if i had a bike!), buy an SD card for almost nothing from a hole-in- the -wall shop whose primary clientele consisted of workmen from building sites, looking for a fag and a drink. It was also incredibly cold, and yet the city was full of roadside gardens, some planted with petunias, which, James says, are replaced each week, and where Topiary was elevated to an art form. Buildings would be pulled down overnight, and new ones built almost as quickly. And everywhere street sweepers-- with fresh brooms made each day from aboo pole and some willow branches, or bamboo leaves. The enclosed pictures show a tiny glimpse of life there. One pic is taken from James lounge, looking over the Pu river, which has one of the world's big ports at its mouth.

We are off to China tomorrow. What excitement. I have set up the most complicated watering system, in the hope that , if we keep having this drought, everything does not die. If it does, well, thems the breaks, and we will start again.
I have old hoses, rejoined to newer ones, systems connected to the tanks, in the hope they will just dribble enough to keep it all alive.
I have also deep watered all the new trees. Last night we were promised storms and rain, but what we got was about six drops. Just to tantalise.
The butcher babies have finally left the nest, to inhabit our silky oak. They are the most delicious fat bundles, but oh so hungry. Poor Mums!

At last we have had some rain. The place does not look so sad and parched.
We are off to China on Saturday and now we are desperately trying to find ways to keep stuff alive. I am quite reconciled to losing veges, if we get those horrible burning days that we had in Oct and Nov, before the rain, but really hope we dont lose our little fruit trees. The one most at risk is the tamarillo, it is very soft. I think I will leave a dripping hose on it. Lucky we have 4 tanks and can set up some watering. The veges look good, tomatoes bearing more than we can eat, and cucs,coming on a treat. Eggs plants and okra flowering on small okra to eat already. Capsicum, not happy yet, rosellas, just coming on. Sad to lose those.
We have also been busy trying to set the chooks up witha run that will suit for the time away.I have never realised before how destructive they are. I am terrified they will escape and do the total destruct. In their new run we have a mandarin ,which they thought they would dig up, so we put a gravel mulch on it---quite big gravel-- well, that did not last overnight. I was quite amazed at that. Still they do produce one egg per day each, which is pretty amazing.---Eggs coming out our ears. Our butcher birds are feeding 4 BIG babies, IE we Are feeding our butchies AND 4 big babies. I hope they leave the nest before we go. They will be hungry otherwise.
Our JACARANDA is beautiful--it may be a pest, but it is a lovely one--and the perfume, floats in the loo window, and over the garden. And the concrete paving is paved with lavendar. The bees get quite drunk.

This is detail of Joe's painting

This painting was done in the garden by Joe, who is just 3. He kept mumbling that he was painting rain!

These are the views from our back verandah, into the Jacaranda and the Silky Oak, which are both in flower. I have just repainted the floor of the verandah, as you can see. The verandah is really like an extra room. We use it a great deal. On Wednasday, when we got a big storm, our little butcher birds sought shelter there. They were drenched and we were glad to offer them s
a haven. The other 2 pictures are of one of the pizzas I made for the Yandina Community garden lunch, and the oven we cooked them in. It was a lot of fun, even if we did not really know how to manipulate the heat of the oven. The fire would have cooked a storm 24 hours later.
We are feeling the relief of the storm on Wednesday. 3 of our 4 tanks are full, and the other one is in need of gutter clearing, which will happen next week. We couls catch an awful lot more water. Maybe we will get some overflow tanks.

This is our " Lying down" attempt.
TITLE " HENPECKED"!
All involved loved it.

Well, the pond is holding water! As yet---but I am ever pessimistic.
We now are faced with another problem. We have a proposed trip to Shanghia coming up in november, and we are faced with the issue of having our chooks minded. We had thought we had it all worked out, but that has collapsed, and we now need new arrangements.
Why do people not offer "chook minding"-- or chookeries--- like kennels? There must be lots of people who need this service. I am sure our chooks would love a change of scene.
We cannot really take them in our luggage--they would not get through the security screen, and what would we do with the eggs on the flights?
Perhaps we could get the scrub turkey to chook-sit.

The saga of the pool continues. First we have an emptied pool, very sad that and a lot of work. Then we need to dig our the supposed seal, get a plug, and an expensive new seal called Sikaflex, and a gun, to apply it, and off to work. These guns are VERY hard to work, ( at least for me), and it took ages. Now , as you can see, we have a grey mound of Sikaflex,and --- we shall see.
Meanwhile the poor water plants are in a tub. And, as you can see a nest of baby spiders has decided to hatch. WOW!

A whole month since we posted! How time flies. We have catapulted into spring and summer, all at once, it feel like. 32 o days and then back to high 20s.
Everything has started to move, and last there has been a bit of rain--not much but a few rungs on each tank. I even had to mow--first time for months.
We are having a lovely time with the scrub turkeys. The other night I heard a racket out in the back garden, just on dusk, and there in the silky oak, which is VERY tall was a scrub turkey, -half way up, being chahsed up from branch to branch, by our butcher babies. I cannot imagine how it got down. They cant really fly that well, maybe it hopped down the same way.
The other major excitement is around our (projected) pool. I have at last dug out the hole for the bathtub, in the creek bed. That, in itself was a killer, as the bed is nearly all stones.
Then ,the issue was to seal the plughole. Much consultation at Mitre 10 and I came home with a product that you have to knead until it blends, and the stick it in the hole.
So that was done, and thento my advisors next step, fill one third with dirt and worm castings, water and then plant water chestnuts etc.
Great. Then, the next step was to catch fish to eat the mossies, and Bobs you uncle!
All done except the fish-- much going to admire all this, when suddenly , no water.
Back to square one.
Lucky we had not caught the fish.
So today it has been,---out with all the dirt and plants, clean and dry, and wrestle with the hole AGAIN.
Will keep you posted.( if anyone has suggestions, they are welcome!!)
The other big job has been resiting the chook pen in preparation for our absence to Shanghai.
They now have 2 homes, home home, and holiday villa, with nesting boxes an all accomodation. What luxury. Edie has spent hours removing all the straw from the villa,no idea why.
They lay four fat eggs a day, and I am sure that is because of their adventurous lifestyle.

P.S. The baby butcher birds, who think they own our back verandah, have just knocked a whole lot of stuff off a shelf!

The chooks are ever helpful. When I am loading mulch into the barrow, Daisy seems to think it is there just for her, so up she hops and proceeds to toss it off as she goes through it again, looking for tidbits. I put the sugar cane mulch in their yard, because they break it up nicely , in readiness for the beds. ( The beds by the way are pretty well all done, ready for the planting. Just one to go, and it still has the garlic growing.) I had a big job, moving rocks from the big rock heap onto the bottom of some of the slopey beds, in hope that when the water pours accross the yard in the great downpours we seem to get, it will not just wash everything off these beds, into the creek. We will see. Although the locals say it will be dry for the rest of the year, so what we mainly have is a drought. At least the grass is not growing. I have not mown the front lawn for weeks. We are gradually getting through the huge pile of compost we got from the dump. It still looks quite yummy. I hope the plants think so.
I also made a fireplace with the very big rocks, in the spot where I found remnants of old fires. Joe thinks that is the business. he put the fire out with a lemonade bottle.
The other picture is of the chooks drinking diluted worm wee, which they seem to love. Lets hope it does not hurt them.
With a lots of the bed preparation finished, and the new benchtop installed, I can get back to painting the kitchen. It will be marvellous when that is done. Then there is the big job of all the ceilings.

Two of the prepared beds, good enough to eat!

At last I am recovered from the flu, and back to posting. These 2 pics ( confusing as they may appear), are our new bench top, and, because the light was bad, a sample of the actual colour. Now I just need to paint everything else!

I have also been working hard to prepare the garden beds for planting. My advisor says I need to dig, manure, fertilise, dolomite, compost, and mulch. You can imagine that this process is time and energy consuming. I have one bed left to do, but it is still occupied with garlic, etc, so it can wait. Apparently I needed to do all this a month before using them, so that has been the rush.One of the beds was very slopey, and so I built the lower side up with rocks. Luckily we have rocks a-plenty, ( having been a creek bed) but they are heavy! We had a good harvest of both potatoes, even after the didaster of the floods, so thats good.

The brush turkey has decided to be on our feeding list, fancying the chooks grain.He has yat to pay for this in eggs or chicks.

Today we got our first sight of a lovely fat blue tongue lizard, in the bed I am preparing. We are thrilled.