Bee'n Buzzy

Our new Bees in the tempary home

I've had a number of messages on the phone over the last couple of days - but none more welcoming then from the wonderful Duck Herder.  Somehow, karma had alerted her that I had managed to track down some second hand barely used bee boxes.  I don't know how she knew - but she did.  She rang me with the news that she had a swarm and I could have it if I wanted - hell yeah!

I thought there was a bee meeting on that night so I headed into town, I'd pick up the bees on the way home.  No meeting - I was a week early (I can hear the Cook sniggering from here)  Anyway Mrs D turned up at the designated spot, smoker and tape gun in hand and we rustled them all up and stuck them in the back of the truck.  I could here them buzzing about as I drove home and, to tell you the truth it was a little bit eary.  By the time I got home and puilled up at teh spot I was going to leave them in it well oast 9pm, I opened up the back door of the truck and was a little concerned by the number of bees - outside the box!  There wasn't alot I could do, I needed to get themn out of the truck so I decided I just had to suck it up and walk them over to their new home.  But luckily they were all well behaved and polite and stayed on the box for me.  It was a little bit concerning that I had to walk across the paddock in the dark carrying them.   

 I am constantly being stalked by the Bredbo Black Panther, he marches around the farm following the same track all day.  He meows at me as he goes past and will sit on the trailer whilst I do the pigs breads in the morning, happy just to watch.  He follows me everywhere in the evening so I don't forget to feed him and ends up on my lap most of the night.



We have had some new visitors the past few nights outside the kitchen window.  It's the first time we've seen possums here up close - I had seen one down the river last year but this is the first so close to the house.

I can't wait until everybody gets home, it's been three weeks and I'm ready for my own holiday now.  It takes me ages to feed up and water on my own each morning and night and add watering the garden, pumping, a few odd jobs that pop up and time really escapes from you.  I was planning on doing so much and really have managed to do so little, oh well hopefully the new loading ramp and yard will be finished before they get back. 

Now it rains

It was a little wet and windy today – just what we needed. The day started off slow but soon with kids galloping off to school and pigs to feed everything regained its momentum. The Cook had a well deserved lay in and I looked after the animals. We’ve recently reduced our numbers by about a dozen pigs and it’s made a big difference. Most of the ones that went were bigger pigs as well, so the feed is going a lot farther.

I spent the remainder of the morning after feeding dodging the Cook and her jobs – she was on the look out to put me to ‘gainful’ employment. As there is nothing to eat in the house until we can get to the shops again I headed up to the back 500 acres to have a look for weeds. Of course I found more than enough to be depressing. I haven’t been right up in the back corner adjacent to the railway line much, there’s a lot of tussock coming across the tracks onto our place, luckily it shouldn’t be too hard to get under control (famous last words). I was also trying to find any trace of our second Jersey Bull – no luck there, I’ll have to go see the neighbour and see if he’s seen him.

On the way back I came via the back of the hill behind the house, I ran into the Wedge Tail Eagles who were hunting rabbits in the grass ,I managed to get a couple of quick pics before they disappeared over the ridge. I also spotted a couple of new native flowers, I still can’t identify them – they weren’t flowering properly so I may go back on the weekend to have another look.

I don't know if there was something in the water here but some of the animals are a little odd today. The kitten thinks it's a lion and has been pouncing on anything that moves in the house from behind cover - and after seeing snakes it's not a pleasant feeling to have a kitten sink it's claws into your ankle. The fat dog has been doing that crazy dog thing running around with her tail between her legs all over the lawn. Fatso has been following me around all day - getting in my way when ever it is convenient for her and lastly George - he's joning in where ever he can and being a real dag.

When the boys arrived home they were put strait to work cleaning up the shearing shed, earlier in the day I’d found a blue birds egg on the grass up there and left it on a table. Anyway Ben found another couple and bought them back to the house. He’s quite the survivalist and pestered the cook to be able to break one of the eggs open and see what it look like inside. I was thinking it’d be a half grown chic or that it would be rotten. But low and behold it was just a normal egg, Ben asked if you could eat it, to which I responded that you could if it was a survival situation – so he wanted to try it. Out came the frying pan and Ben went to work cooking his egg, once finished he and Harry divided it and put it to the test – they both ate their share and decided it tasted just like ........chicken!

By torch light

The tap that couldn't be found

I’m no plumber, in fact, I have problems flushing the toilet – just ask the Cook. On Tuesday I had to repair the broken pipe on the side o the house, which was made harder by arriving home in the dark.

The Trench behind the Cooks Jongles

As I’ve said before our house is more of a ruin then accommodation, and finding things like pipes and buried taps is a real hit and miss affair. So after an hours worth of digging, some tool throwing and just a little swearing I managed to find the buried pipe and tap in the dark. I must have made a bit of mess because the kids came in the next morning and told me the pigs had been rooting around in the back yard and it was totally destroyed.

Anyway, by the time I found the tap and turned it off it was really dark and I still had to get the pipe fixed. It took me a while to work out how to get the broken bit of poly pipe out of the old fitting, luckily I remembered I had a gas torch I’d bought to fix the copper pipe. I went around to the shed and grabbed the torch and called out to the kids to bring some matches.

As usual in our house, mention matches and Ben is the first one there. He was busting to have a go with the torch so I let him have a small turn. He gets right into it – can’t wait until he’s big enough to weld. I was surprised that the torch actual worked and I had the pipe fixed in no time – I’ve even been back to check and it’s still not leaking. Of course I will have broken something else somewhere – plumbing has never gone that smoothly at our place……

I was out early this morning and noticed the Wedge Tails out soaring the heavens. One of them looked a little odd and when he landed I decided to have a look and see what he was up too. When I got to the place I saw him land, down the road embankment I almost walked right in to hi. He was sitting in a depression munching on road kill. He sprung up the side of the embankment where I could get a good look at him. I don’t know if he was malting but he had not a single tail feather, which is why he looked so strange flying.

The Eagle on top of the embankment

We have moved the pig with piglets and haven’t had anymore go missing thank goodness. But because of the small number of piglets feeding off the mum they are all rollie pollie fat and full of energy. I watched them this morning playing with a piece of cloth in the straw, they where having a great time. Rosie the mum is holding her condition well too and I think we've finally hit on the best way to look after the sows.

und out yesterday, from the local paper, that a fellow I knew down the road had died suddenly. He and his wife ran a small farm with a great orchard and winery, they grew the most delicious cherries and made some splendid wines. Peter was a very generous man and had been going to teach me to make sausages Hungarian style and was also going to do some smoking for us. Their farm is up for sale now and I’m not sure what his wife is going to do after it’s sold. It’s sad to see such great characters like the both of them go – I only wish I had been around longer to hear more of his stories and learn some of his sausage making secrets.
There’s a Bee Association meeting tonight – I’m off to that. There was also a NSF meeting but I had to skip that. Hopefully I’ll have something for the Blog tomorrow

Almost stuck at home

At the end of the day it’s how you feel inside that matters most. I was in the middle of Wednesday Morning Breakfast when I received a call from the Cook – she makes sure I take my phone everywhere, which I hate. And those that are familiar with the Blog will know the problems we’ve been having with the Jeep.

“The car won’t start” she says,
“That’s no good” I reply – she has to go to work and drop the kids off at the Bus, she’s always late, so this is important.
“You’ll need to find the air filter under the bonnet” I say,
“I found it” she says,
“Now get a bottle fill it with petrol and pour about 50ml into the small pipe”
“OK” She goes off and does what I’ve told her and comes back,
“What next?”
“Go around the back of the car and bang on the fuel tank a couple off times with something heavy” now, this doesn’t do anything except make her feel good.
“What now?” she asks
“Get in and drive”

She was so happy that she can now fix the car, a little more independence!

Todays picture is of the pig that was trapped under the trailer on Sunday – he was a big one, not one of the new piglets.

Eagle eye'd

Pretty hectic last night – the Cook was on a holiday, with a sleep over at a friends tossed in. Hopefully she’ll be back fresh and full of life ready to get stuck in! We floundered without her.

After getting home and having the traditional – “it’s over 35Deg C out there hour long nap” I jumped into feeding and watering. We had to catch a couple of small pigs a bloke had ordered out Bungendore way, then it was cooking dinner, bathing kids, making lunches, ironing uniforms and what ever else I had forgotten.

We did get about 2mm of rain – in a storm. The rain was cold as ice and, as you would expect, only lasted as long as it took us to feed the animals. Better then nothing!!

The two eagles are back and where flying low around the front of the property in the afternoon. I think they had an eye on the chooks, but ended up moving off to the north.

So I was up at day break to take the pigs into Fyshwick (BTW – I don’t make these names up, in case your wondering). There they were picked up and I went off to collect the bread.

Thanks for all the comments on the Blog every body!!

Pleasant surprise

So this morning, the dust was settled and the pigs were content to snore through the early hours. It was another early morning for me – I took a quick picture of the sunrise for the Cook. I know how she hates the fact that she misses this every morning.

In the end it did manage to rain – about 7mm all up. Not bad, and at the moment, anything is gratefully accepted. It’s nice to walk out to the fresh smell of overnight rain, much better then the dusty smell we’ve had lately.

After yesterday’s sheep debacle, the sheep all ended up walking into the top paddock on their own – except for the two we wanted kept close and a straggler. A very good out come considering the effort that went into the failed attempted move yesterday.

I still haven’t found the Cook a new oven. Soon I won’t be able to call her ‘the Cook’; I’ll have to find another suitable pseudonym.

The garden is still providing us bounty for the table. Last night it was carrots, spinach and potatoes freshly harvested for the table. There are some very strange things growing down there – I need to photograph some for the Blog – I’ll make that tonight’s mission.

The Cooks on fire

The council weed man is here today, I should’ve taken his photo for the Blog, but I thought that it might be a little confrontational.

It cooled down over night after reaching 33.9 Deg C during the day. The cattle have moved down to the pastures along the river where the poplars shade the grass – but I think they’ll be fighting the sheep for the shade.

The goats still hang around the house, they don’t seem to keen to wander off to anywhere. Sometimes they head up to the rocks and the boys have to rescue them, but other then that. The Wedge Tailed Eagles were around again last night. They came right down over the house and circled around only metres above the trees – looking for slow chickens I suppose. I also saw the pair of Red Rump Parrots yesterday on the pump and Yellow Crested Black Cockatoos this morning. I ‘m going down to the pump tonight to see if I can photograph the parrots – hopefully I’ll have a picture for the Blog tomorrow.

Everything is drying out again, the river has receded to a slow dribble and the ground is hard. Last night we had a huge dust storm that lasted about an hour, we came in for dinner feeling hot and gritty.

Yeah, the Cook put on another great meal last night; she did a fabulous stir fry chicken, what made it special was that all the veg came straight from the garden. She was down there picking vegies only minutes before they were cooked - and it tasted divine.

I just took a break for a minute and rang around for some fencing stuff I need for the weekend – there is more then $2 difference in the price of steel posts. They are all the made in China type, and range from $5.59 each to $7.20 - that’s outrageous!! And there is a difference of over $50 in a 1500m roll of 2.5mm wire – pays to shop around!

Todays picture is from last night at feed time - everybody wanted a bit of the action!

More to the story

I didn’t have a lot of time before and I missed out an important part of the story – Once I saw how high the river was I ran inside, remember it was about 6:15am, the poor cook was still asleep. I poked my head into the bedroom and asked her to give me a hand – thinking back on it now, I don’t think she was too impressed. We waddled down to the river, me dressed for town and her dressed for bed, I grabbed the end of the black pipe and gave it a yank to see if the pump was still attached – nope nothing there! Then we realised it was the irrigation pipe not the pipe to the house. So I rummaged around in the grass and finally located the house pipe, gave it a yank, and to my great relief felt a hint of resistance.

The Cook waded into the river, in her PJ’s - water well above her gumboots (it’s a child friendly Blog, I can’t write what she actually said at this point, but apparently the water was very cold!) and dragged the pump out of the water. What a morning.

She’s gone off to Cooma now, food shopping for tomorrow. At least she has something to tell her mates about if she runs into anyone.

Oh, yeah. The Eagles came back to the house yesterday. Luckily Ben was around and managed to lock up the Ducks and Chickens before they could grab a takeaway. I was talking to one of the knowledgeable guy’s her at work yesterday and he told me that the dark eagles are older birds, maybe hunting is getting hard for these birds.

I picked up my camera as well – very nice! This is my first picture – outside my window, a white faced heron (taken through a window so not 100%).