With considerable rainfall in the last month or two, it seems that we have had a good winter in the mid-North this year. If the look of our cars are anything to go by, you’d have to agree that we’ve had some decent rainfall.

July was above average, making up a little for a poor June, while August saw the average fall – around 81mm. See more at the BOM site. 

Living out of town with only dirt roads connecting us is enough to keep cars dirty, but the council have decided to run some full scale repairs on a large section of one of these roads and have been interrupted many times by heavy rainfall. Therefore the road is regularly a quagmire with six inch deep slosh to wade through. Sometimes I think I should wear a Captain’s hat as the Patrol steers like a boat!

I’m glad that Meg has a 4WD now as she’s had to use it a number of times just heading to and from work. It would have been touch and go in her old car. 

My car has seen even more of this, due to my work with farmers around the district. Some of the roads to the farms can be very waterlogged after heavy rain and I feel that I am justified in running a “proper” 4WD. Its funny watching clods of mud fly out the front of the vehicle, only to land back on the windscreen as you drive through them and I’m now used to keeping a finger on the wipers to wash away the muddy water that seems to jump out in front of me whenever there is a puddle about.

In talking with locals, it seems that this year is a return to Clare winters of old, where it rains regularly from June through to August. Some have been saying that we haven’t had a winter like this for ten years. 

The garden has definitely taken a turn for the better with longer days and sunshine triggering lush vegetation. We’re eating broccoli every day and have an occasional feed of potatoes, leeks, English spinach, spring onions, bok choi, radishes, parsley, coriander and Chinese cabbages. The broad beans are coming along, as are the peas and garlic.I’m busy planting as many spuds as I can to try and keep up with strong demand! Each meal I try to cut at least one eye from each spud and have been storing them in egg cartons until I get a moment to plant. Hopefully this will result in at least two plants to harvest all year around when things really get going and that will make us self sufficient in potatoes.  

One of the chores that has come back with the end of winter is mowing the weeds and grass around our living areas in preparation for snake season. I’ve mowed the last couple of weekends and the grass seems to be taking this as a challenge, jumping back out of the ground.

In tight spaces where the ride on mower has a bit of trouble, I mowed with the standard garden mower and collected a trailer load of clippings that went straight to the open compost area. The differed aspects of the garden are slowly taking shape, with the compost and soil creation area (dirt, manure, organic matter) at the top of the hill above the vegie garden as most of the ingredients are delivered by trailer and it is easier to carry things downhill with a wheelbarrow. The other advantage is that any nutrients that wash away will wash towards the vegie garden and not away from it.

There are always things to do, but I feel that the vegie garden is now supporting us to a fair degree and I get a great sense of accomplishment from that.

View the photo gallery for more pics.

We’ve had a few colds starts lately, but this morning we were up well before first light for a trip and really experienced the cold of winter.

The strange thing was that the shower didn’t really bother us. Showering outside can be cold, but with no wind blowing the warmth of the hot water stays around longer.

The shock came when I went to Meg’s car and the back door opened after significant force with a CRACK! The ice splintered and fell to the ground as I looked and saw ice covering the windows and thick on the windscreen.

Figuring that hot water was a bad idea, I got a bucket of tap water and poured it over just before we left. Unfortunately that froze as well and the ice on the windscreen was even thicker.

I reversed with the door open so that I would miss the tree and then drove forward, hoping that the windscreen would start to defrost with the friction of the motion. Obviously this was a stupid idea as I drove a little off of the driveway on the way to the gate and stopped before running into a tree.

We stopped at the main dirt road and I scratched off a porthole sized area of ice with my fingernails while the car idled, struggling to warm up and get the heater going.

With some warmth inside the car, sheets of ice moved across the windscreen as I cornered before it was all over and the ice was gone.

It is great to be reminded of the elements of the earth and I’m glad that we have technology of some sort to deal with them…

With recent rain over the last few months, the stock paddock has recovered to the extent that I’ve been looking for something to make use of it.

Over summer we had some Friesian calves to chew down the fire risk. They did a great job and provided plenty of entertainment as well.

Chatting with a neighbour the other week, I asked if he wanted to put some sheep in, thinking that maybe ten or a dozen would suit the eight or nine acres well for a few months.

Meg and I were in Adelaide when the sheep came and returned late at night, so we didn’t see how many were there, but today I had a quick look and stopped counting at 40. That sure is a lot of sheep in that paddock and I wonder how many weeks they’ll last before the feed is gone?

I suppose the good thing about having so many in is that the pasture will regenerate in the spring before summer and allow us to have something else in.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is runner a cultivator over the hillside where the rainwater just runs off. Ideally, I’d like to put in some swales and slow the runoff as well as directing it as it heads down the hill. Slower runoff means less erosion and more of it soaks in, so I am thinking of ways to maximise rainfall without costing a lot or opening up the soil to damage from sun or wind.

We could always plant a quick crop of something at the same time and provide some feed for the next group of animals to visit. I wonder what they will be?

It has always seemed strange to me that “experts” know (or can guess) how much or a certain resource we have in this finite world.

Maybe it is the combination of marketing and lobby groups hitting media deadlines and stressed out editors, but some of the claims in the same vein as “Australia has more than 100 years of coal left” make me wonder how these figures are determined. Are they fact or fiction? Science or marketing?

I stumbled over some video today that was published in 2002. That is a while ago considering the way in which video is produced and distributed today, but it brought out some very simple concepts relating to the way in which the world is run today and how the policy makers fail to understand the basics of their planning.

The modern world seems to be sold on the concept of growth, or sustainable growth as the newer version of the model works. But how can growth continue indefinitely in a finite system?

Rather than me rehash the story, why not watch them yourself? Please question the concepts as you should be questioning the numbers presented to you about the sustainable economic, resources and population growth in the world today.

(There are eight parts to the presentation.)

Winter is here in full force which gives me a great excuse to sit and tend a fire.

We have three regular fires; the combustion heater inside the shed, the cob oven that Meg built and the bonfire site. Occasionally we burn off the light pruning of gums that is mainly leaves to reduce the summer bushfire risk, but this isn’t very often.

Friends dropping in is a great excuse for a bonfire and camp oven, and the latest recipe turned out a treat. An incredibly simple recipe of sausages, potato, sweet potato, carrot, onion and a large tin of tomatoes transformed into a hearty meal by the fire.

Meg’s been cooking up a storm in the cob oven as well and has discovered the simplicity of chicken drumsticks with soy and honey. The smoky roast potatoes and garlic in local extra virgin olive oil are hard to resist and we plan to branch out with more roasts soon.

A daily ritual in winter is lighting the combustion heater in the shed, and while it is nice and warm with the insulation installed over summer we seem to be burning a reasonable stack of firewood.

On cold nights, it has been getting down below five degrees so far, with much cooler to come in the coming months and I find that Meg and I are filling a wheelbarrow full from the wood shed every two or three days. At this rate, we seem to be going through a trailer load of firewood every couple of weeks, which means that I must find dry days without anything else on to cut seasoned firewood from the property.

I find cutting firewood quite enjoyable if I have the time to spend – there is a bit of a Zen like quality to the monotony of the physical work and the sound of the Stihl on full throttle – but there are only so many easy to get to and well seasoned trees that are either still standing or have fallen so that they lay off of the ground. (The best firewood is old and dry and hasn’t been transformed by white ants.)

The plan last year was to cut green wood and stack it to season for this year to provide for out firewood needs, but the wood hasn’t seasoned as fast as I’d hoped and we are using much more than I’d prepared anyway.

I’m dealing with this in a few ways; I’ve cut a lot of green wood for future seasons and I’m travelling more of the property to find the “ready to burn” wood.

We’ll never be able to burn all of the dead wood on the property because I doubt we’ll be able to get to eighty percent of the available resource due to the steep hillsides and gullies and the groves of bluegum that block an available path. This means that there will always be habitat for natives and (unfortunately) introduced fauna and our property will slowly return to the original state.

In the meantime while we wait for the bush to return and watch the development of our land, I’ll still plan and react to our firewood needs as I can, driving the 4WD and trailer where I can, cutting, splitting and stacking firewood for warmth and comfort.

A few weeks ago when we were away interstate, South Australia broke the Australian record for heatwaves in a capital city, with 14 days over 35 degrees.

Luckily Meg and I missed 12 days of this with pleasant mid-twenties days on the East coast.

So here we are at the end of March, two weeks after days of 35 and nights around 20 degrees and the temperature has plummeted. Last night was just 1.4 degrees and the night before was only 4.4 degrees.

We’ve had to push forward our ideas of heating and have had a fire for the last two nights.

It is hard to believe the contrast when you consider the garden and its requirements. Two weeks ago, plants were struggling to survive, despite daily watering from the folks. (Thanks guys!)

Now I have stopped a bit of watering, greatly reducing the amount that I put on as the soil is still showing signs of moisture.

Considering these fast changes, how do you plan for winter planting? If I’d had seedling in a couple of weeks ago, they would have lasted about half a day. Now, will they germinate? Luckily I have a few broccoli seedlings in the folks shade house to plant in a few weeks time.

This post is turning into a bit of a rant, but I should at least point out that it rained earlier this week. The 2.5mm that we received was small, but better than nothing and took our yearly total to around 16mm.

Just looking at the Bureau of Meteorology site, on average we should have had about 75mm this year by now and they record the rainfall so far this year for Clare as only 5.2mm.

Here is the mean rainfall for Clare for 133 years, ending in 1994 as a comparison.

So while the title of this post is “The seasons are changing – fast!”, I should explain that I mean that the change from hot to cold, or summer to winter has happened quickly and I’m not providing an opinion on climate change.