Living and learning

It’s been a while, sorry about that!  It’s been a mad few weeks – J was back from Amsterdam the weekend before last for one day and I had to go visit a sick mum last week (who is thankfully now on the mend) in Qld. We’ve just had a extra long weekend down at the farm which was really good – even if it did rain most of the time…

J arrived back in Aus and his priority was to transfer his bees from the nucleus hive to the permanent hive – which turned out to be quite interesting (and not at all as dangerous as I thought it might be) although we did get to see more than one bee – unlike myself and my non-eventful experience with the bees first time around.

So the bees moved across and seem quite happy in their new house – next thing we know J gets a call from the bee supply place on Wed last week saying a queen he had requested weeks earlier had arrived – trouble is he had no other bees to go with her.   He called another bloke down the road from the farm who keeps bees and as luck would have it he’d caught a swarm that had no queen.  It seemed like a match made in heaven so J hightailed it down to the farm again with his queen and picked up his swarm and now we have two bee hives.

I headed down on Friday night – it was a pretty miserable weekend weather wise – warm on the Saturday just gone and wet for the rest of the long weekend (was Melbourne Cup here).  So we actually got out and about in the local area to have a look around – which we don’t normally have the time to do, but we both had four days off so decided to make the most of it.

We went to the Mirboo North market – on the hunt for tarragon – which was never to be found – but a gourmet sausage was! And then off to Maria’s Recycling Emporium (aka Jacksons Bric a Brac, aka Woman of Steel) which was quite an experience…

Maria is a small woman in her mid 60’s I’d say –  who basically runs a junkyard in the middle of the bush –  she swears like a trouper – I’ve never heard anything quite like it except when in the company of sailors.   She drives a forklift and moves crap from one side of her junkyard to the other – swearing all the way and ordering around two weary looking blokes (who I fear might have been related to her…   I’d be more comfortable in thinking they were getting paid for the experience not getting screamed at like that for love or obligation).

J had warned me she was a character, but she didn’t waste any time in showing it – we get out of the car and she says or rather yells to J “Whaddya looking for lolly legs?!”  he doesn’t blink an eye as he’s dealt with her before,  “outdoor table…”

“Ahh go up round the back up past the caravans! Go right round! You’ll find what you’re after!” she told us.  We didn’t. But it was an experience just to look. Walking through junk to the dulcet tones of her screaming out F bombs to her two blokes and careening around in her forklift like a bat out of hell.

We tried to escape while she was on the forklift, but she was on to us and bailed us up as we got in the car and told us to come back every now and then and we’d find one.  She’s been on Postcards apparently and featured in the Herald Sun – you can see why – she’d make for a good story but they’d have to do a lot of editing and bleeping just to get the story to air.

After that we headed to Foster to take a look around – I’d never been there so we thought it might be worth dropping by – there wasn’t much going on so we grabbed pie at the local bakery and headed back towards the farm.  In a small town called Dumbalk (and I mean small – it has a post office a gravel supply and a bottle shop) we stumbled upon a auction going on at the local football oval so we dropped in.  Basically it was all the local farmers auctioning off pretty much anything you could think of, irrigation pipes, chooks, hay balers, saddles etc.  there was even an old 70’s Mercedes (although the owner had left the keys in Melbourne). They put everything around the outside of the footy field and the auctioneers go from one item to the next auctioning it off. Sotherby’s it is not but it was good fun to watch.  J had his eye on two quad bikes and four piglets, but it was cash only and we were miles from a town with an ATM so we just looked on at this one.

There’s not much to report on with the garden – we are living and learning – we put too much chook poo on and a lot of our  greens have overdosed on nitrogen and have gone to seed without providing us with veggies – seems they didn’t get the memo about that bit… Brussel sprouts were ripped out with no crop but a lot of leaves and flowers – and brocoli was a lot the same.   The herb section is going well, along with newly sprouted corn – some rainbow silverbeet and squash that I’ve germinated on my windowsill back in Melbourne.  I’ll get some seedlings this weekend to put in to fill in the holes where things have had to come out.

So to date the garden has done ok but not been a resounding success… but we’lll get there… I’ll be putting in more tomatos, basil, capsicum and chili this weekend which should take off fairly well in the warmer weather.

In other news – poopy birds eggs have hatched in the nest on the back verandah and she guards her babies like a hawk, not like a poopy bird (techincally I think she is a Swift).  I spent a lot of time watching them on the weekend and trying to get a shot of poopy bird flying in and the babies going crazy with their mouths open for food. It took me four whole days to get those shots so enjoy them. I ended up ninja like through a window with my camera on zoom which explains why they are a bit blurry.  Also poopy chicks are just like poopy mum I noticed… they get up and turn around and poop outside the nest and onto our verandah – I never knew that baby birds did that – so my stalking/lurking has at least educated me on birdly ways.

Here are the photos from this past weekend – including our stop at Maria’s and poopy bird and Co.    Mum click HERE