How To Stay Off The Grog Until Sunset

What another excellent day it was today. Woke up at 6.30am to the sound of three one week old chicks sitting on my 11 year old daughters arm. She brings her guinea pig in every morning to say hello and today the new additions to the family also.


It's middle of winter and there isn't a cloud in sight. Mornings are a bit warmer than last month and the morning mist sitting in the valley waiting for the morning sun to burn it off is clearly visible from my en-suite window.

The water pressure has dropped again and I can't have a shower just in case it goes altogether when I am covered in soap. We are not connected to the mains and rely on rain to keep the two 5000 gallon tanks holding enough water to keep us going until the next time it rains. Being in the middle of the longest drought in over 100 years doesn't help much so it's a good job that I have my own bore at the bottom of the hill. Alas, even that is dry this week as we eagerly await some more rainfall. It doesn't rain for weeks so we have to be careful how we use it. Anyway, I rang up the local rural plumber to come over and fix the drop in pressure. He said that he will come over tomorrow and take a look at it, in the meanwhile he gave me some instructions on how to prime the pump from scratch. It helped a little and will keep me going until he can fix the problem for good.

My mate Henrik who lives in London, was sitting up late last night as usual, so we chatted for an hour on Skype with the webcams. It's great to catch up with mates with the latest technology. I can hear and see him in real time and it is free, how many people take that for granted these days?

Had a few dramas on one of my jobs this morning. The bobcat that arrived to move my 3 cubic meters of 20mm gravel refused to go down the hill that I created for him so I had to send him home and arrange for one with tracks to go there tomorrow morning.
The hardware store wasn't too happy when I rang him to cancel the delivery of stones as the driver was just leaving the depot with my delivery. He called the driver back and told him to tip them out and deliver them again tomorrow at 7.30am. My labourer wasn't upset though, it's a public holiday here and everyone has the day off to visit the Ekka without having to ask the boss for permission. The Ekka is a big thing here and they get hundreds of thousands of visitors over the week or so that it runs for. I would compare it to a Royal Show in England with a fairground, it you have ever been to one..........

As I am not going to go to work today, then it's time to play catch-up in the garden.
Out came my new 18" chain saw and down came three 30m high slash pines. I cut them up ready to dispose of them when I can get my mates trailer back off him. Maybe I will let some of the logs dry out a bit and burn them, that is a sure fire way to piss off the invisible neighbour who writes nasty letters about my lovely fires and shoves them in my post box. One night I was laying down in the woods with 3 little fires going simultaneously, minding my own business whilst drinking my 4th stubby, when flashing lights woke me from my pleasant dream I was having under the full moon. It was the rural fire brigade on a training night, called out by the invisible neighbour who rang them with a warning that Dawsons Creek Rd was on fire.
Somebody doesn't like me and I can't imagine why.


Later on today I cleaned out the swimming pool and added some chemicals to kill the mustard algae. The roof temp was 36c today so I ran the solar heating for a couple of hours and planned to go for my first dip since Easter. Alas, I could only raise the temp from 16c to 18c and my nuts disappeared when they got wet.

Took the fork out and started digging to burn off some energy. It is something I do from time to time when the soil conditions are just right. When it is very wet the red soil sticks to my fork, when it is very dry I can't get the fork into the ground so today it is just right and I set to work getting rid of the weeds before they set seed and spread with the high winds that blow through the mountains every August.

As I watched the sun setting behind Mt. Glorious my body clock sounded an alarm and off I went into the kitchen for a nice cold beer.............. back to work tomorrow.