The rains are ‘ere…STILL!

Another fortnight has some how passed by, and its little things again that have been accomplished – the types of things you don’t really see – but that need to get done…like decluttering, or packing boxes, or moving things to the Farm.

We managed to score about 30m of drainage channels off a local sell/swap/buy site, which we got for super cheap.
Bringing them home in the back of the truck was a bit of an adventure – and probably not strictly legal. lol
We’re still watching the lay of the land – to determine where it will be best to lay them.

We finally gave in, and decided a few weeks ago that we needed to get the slasher back in to deal with the paddock.
With the old repeatedly-breaking-down mower, and full-on work, and the torrential downpours we’ve had – the paddock once again got away from us big time.

Frustratingly though – its now been over a month since that decision – and the paddock is still too wet to slash.
We get a few days of sun, the paddock starts to dry out (which is a feat all on its own with the grass so long!) then finally the slasher-guy gets time in his schedule to come out to us – and *boom* – down comes the torrential summer rains again, and we’re back to square one – only with longer grass each time…
If you ever needed proof that mulching retains water – just go for a wander through our bottom paddock!! 😐

We’ve been managing to keep the house yard looking decent – despite the mud.
Whipper-snipping the wettest parts, and mowing with the ride-on for the rest of it.
Because we’ve been managing to keep it at a decent length – once the sun comes out, its starts the drying-out process much faster than the paddock.

With the heat of a fortnight ago – we had a major bug invasion one evening – which wasn’t much fun.
The inside of the Farmhouse was just thick with the little blighters, and for hours after lights-out, we could feel them crawling over us.
Clean-up the next morning saw piles and piles of bug carcasses. Yick!

We’ve also had a night or two when we’ve had a few too many brown hard-shelled flying beetles inside to visit.
Thankfully – those haven’t been too prolific thus far – but their scratchy little feet walking around in your hair, or attaching to your leg – under the blankets, far too close to your nether regions, in the middle of the night – quickly drags you from the depths of sleep!

We both had a couple of very disorienting middle-of-the-night awakenings in the past week, when we have woken up (at separate times, and unknown to each other) and not known which house we were in….!
Just for those few split seconds – when you think you’re in one house, but then actually realising that you’re in a totally different one – is very unbalancing…!

In other news about the place:
The hip issue seems to be slowly resolving somewhat, but appears to have left behind some weird ‘muscle-wastage’ of sorts, and is still causing a significant amount of pain – particularly at night – so at some point more investigation will be needed to be done there…

Digby still hasn’t stopped growing, and is about 35kg now 😐
He’s only 7 and a 1/2 months – and still all puppy-silliness, and gangly legs, and truely has no idea of his size.

Thankfully though – for the most part he seems to have got a grip on his bladder.
Its rare these days that he has an ‘indiscretion’ inside, and when he does, its usually just to remind us that as far as he is concerned, we’ve been ‘neglecting’ him, and he’d just like to remind us what a brat he can be, if we don’t shape up pronto!

One of the times its most likely to happen is after a long day at work, if we decide to just sit on the couch together in exhausted silence…
Seriously – thinks Digby:- we could be rubbing his belly and chatting to him – what is wrong with us!!
Get up peoples!!!
No?
Ok….I bet I can get your butts off that couch pretty fast – listen to this….!!
[insert noise of a fire hose being released on a polished wood floor]
Watch as peoples clamber off the couch in all directions, trying to find something – anything – to sop up the torrent with.
Works everyyyy time!
Dog 1 – Peoples 0.
😐

We had a bit of a d&m the other night, and decided that we’re not really as far ‘ahead’ as we’d like to be – with one thing and another, and that part of an offshoot to that, is that its being detrimental to us financially as well.
(money – or lack there of – can be a marvellous motivator!)

So this week we had Marcus, an old friend of ours, come around to our house in town – so that we could work out a strategy for moving along with the fixing-up and getting-ready of the house, in preparation for selling.
We know it will still be a few months away before we are at that point – but it gives us a bit more structure to work with – and has mentally/emotionally lightened the load off of our shoulders quite a bit – and has also helped us to get back into the mind-set that we need to be in, to get this part of our Life sorted.
Time will tell! 🙂

We’ve also managed to score two IBC pods, which we will use for water collection from out-buildings, for the big vegie garden.

And speaking of the big veggie garden – its come to a bit of a halt again.
We eventually want to get a digger in, and put some drainage channels along the western fence line – which means that we need to move the proposed garden site about 2 metres to the east of where we have been currently building them.
This isn’t a difficult or stressful thing by any means, and is going to be quite simple to achieve – especially as we haven’t yet filled them with soil – but it does require both of us to do the job – because at 3m x 1m each, they are just too cumbersome (and heavy!) to be mobilised by only one person.

We’ve pulled out the tomatoes that fruited so prolifically over the last few months – a lot of which we have canned and frozen, as well as eating fresh of course(!) and have put in a fresh batch.
The beds under Horatio have been growing wildly with all the heat and rain – and last night we had a delicious pasta with onion, zucchini, tomato, and purple basil and amaranth from that garden.

The wannabe food-forest-hill is also growing madly.
Bananas have a pile of new leaves, comfrey is surging, corn has popped up – theres melons, zucchini and pumpkin growing; more tomatoes and more basil, some peas, radish, and beans.
Even the orange has a fruit on it!

We’ve had to give the sweet-potato a huge haircut, as it was just going berserk all over the place lol.
We did however lose our choko-vine, which we’re a bit sad about, as we’d been nurturing it in a bucket for about a year! lol
We’ll have to go to the markets and try and find another choko, and start from scratch again 🙂

The feature wall behind the bed only needs a coat of sealer and it will be finished and ready for reveal and photographing.
There was a slight delay in finishing it – after a wayward drill bit just happened to pierce not only a pvc pipe, but also the electrical wire contained therein – which then shut off the main switchboard – so we had to wait for the electrician to be able to make a quick fix-it visit 😏
(it was pretty funny in the scheme of things…)

So thats about it for this time around!
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Until next time – have a good one and look after YOU!