annual unbalanced sheet

Around the farm in 80 minutes

2011-12-22T06:55:00.008+10:00

In my ongoing crusade to defeat the lorikeet bird menace around here I've launched the hawkbirdscarer again. This year I've purchased a 2 metre x 1 metre weather balloon and a cylinder of party gas to lift it 60 metres above the patch. According to the maker this will keep something like 30 acres free of pesky birds.
It likes calm conditions only so early mornings is good but once the breeze gets up it has to be retrieved. The balloon has a self destruct button built in so that if it escapes it can't cause an aviation hazard!
Check it out!

Lychee netting

2011-11-18T11:21:00.006+10:00

We managed to build some tunnels over the younger lychees and covered them with fruit fly netting. Mateus came up and was a great help and a willing off-sider.

With Ursula and the wwoofers Lisa and Felix helping too we got it done in a few hot mornings and cooler afternoons.

Mateus and I also managed to resurrect the big irrigation sprinkler in an archaeological dig worthy of Time Team (it had fallen over after standing for 20 years and was buried in legume and grass in the bottom papaw patch). The Deutz engine went like clockwork after 3 years, and the pipework took only an hour or two to re-connect.

OK

2011-10-28T10:43:00.003+10:00

Hello again, back from radio silence...

Bought a blu-ray of the film 'The Big Blue' and we watched it with the new Denon amp sound - fantastic!

Perth trip

2009-03-15T18:36:00.007+10:00

We flew over for 6 days to visit Eileen and Craig - we were looked after and didn't even have to build and paint rooms! thanks you two!

We had a beaut holiday, browsed around Fremantle and cruised up the Swan to Perth city.

Had a wonderful day looking at the majestic trees of the south west. Went to Pemberton to climb the huge Karri called The Gloucester Tree and on to Walpole-Nornalup National Park to the Valley of the Giants!

Walked the treetop walk through the whopping Red Tingle trees - a fantastic day! Well worth the 900km round trip - thanks to Craig for nearly all of the driving!

The house is coming along great, kitchen and bathroom all done. It'll be a winner when all finished.

Christmas 08

2009-03-15T17:48:00.004+10:00

My best Christmas present this year was a phone call and email from Cassandra!

Liz and Mateus helped with the mango crop which was greatly appreciated. Mum only dropped these two for the whole season...

That was our lychee crop in total, other than what the birds ate, which wasn't much this year as most others were small under-filled fruit.

And the wifi shirt from Mars and Kerstin is a beauty - lights up more bars as you get closer to the AP.

Mango van!

2008-08-28T06:40:00.004+10:00

We had a visit from Liz and Mateus in their van! Which powered up the mountain no worries at all! If the road was all intact we could easily have driven right up and round the mountain patch.

The mangoes are flowering happily here - and see the foggy morning yesterday!

Hobart visit

2008-07-04T11:46:00.003+10:00

We flew direct from Brisbane - that was great. Could see the familiar shape of Tassie (!) from the air as we approached the north east corner - from 11,000m the horizon is a long way off.
Stayed at the Old Woolstore Hotel - not bad - all built within the walls of the store with the huge old sliding hardwood doors still in place and the saw tooth roof line.
Standing around in the foyers are bails of merino wool, prize ribbons from woolclassing and even an olden day wood and steel woolpress or cleaning machine or something.

We did the on-foot Hobart - walked for miles over the few days.
There are starfish on the bottom of the boat harbour! Took the tourist bus to the top of Mt Wellington (we were the only passengers) and walked down for two hours via the stone tracks. That generated nicely noticeable calf muscles for the rest of the holiday! Its beaut on top at 1270m - there was frost in the shade on the ground even at midday. The shrouded tower is a transmitter protected from clumps of ice forming and breaking or crashing down.

The winter solstice festival was on if you looked for it. We liked the fact that there were not many signboards or billboards around at all. The Hobart connection with Antarctica was being celebrated and that was very interesting. We had to have a second visit to the museum to try to get through a bit more of it.
The penguin and albatross candle lit night parade was good.

We went looking for a bit of winter and we got some!

Goomeri Pumpkin Festival

2008-06-18T21:58:00.003+10:00

We had a stall at the Pumpkin Festival this year - our first time there. I don't know how much business we'll get from it but we enjoyed the day. A beaut country fair. Had to be there at 5am when it was pretty cold.

Canada trip

2007-12-16T13:32:00.000+10:00

In September we managed to zip over to northern BC to see Willow and all the family and the life they have over there. Had the biggest thrill since Lizabel was born to see the baby. Well done Kerstin and Mars, great job on getting this far and what a good job you're going to make of parenting by what we saw so far!
And thanks to the Sjodens for letting us stay in their motorhome - hope you can visit us as well so that we can return the favour!

New shed coming along

2007-04-06T17:05:00.000+10:00

Here's the shed now..

Like a steel Parthenon

2007-01-13T04:05:00.000+10:00

The framing for the shed after the first day of construction..

New Years Eve

2007-01-13T03:51:00.000+10:00

G&E&I did a hike up Mt Beerwah at the sunshine coast on 31st december - it was great. E could have made it all the way up with the right shoes on! But we got to the top at 564 metres - its the tallest of the Glasshouse mountains.

Shed slab poured

2006-12-22T05:27:00.000+10:00

The shed guys got the slab poured yesterday. it'll make a beaut skating rink for Christmas i thought... !

Biggenden trip!

2006-11-13T10:16:00.000+10:00

Finally got to go for a drive to Biggenden on Sunday! It was great - they've had some storm rain as well. (We ended up with over 5 inches from the storms)
The new dam on the Burnett River is finished now, known as Paradise Dam, see the pics.
It hasn't been full yet though. The central spillway is 310 metres long and 37 metres high.
Its a world leader in fish movement compatibility - fish and turtles can move upstream and down via a state of the art lifting system.

some rain

2006-11-04T09:58:00.000+10:00

Its been pretty dry here for a while.
It started to rain lightly last night and now became heavier this morning.
Insects, maybe flying ants began to hatch from the dead lawn - and look who came to get them!
Toads galore came tumbling down the rock wall behind the house to catch a feed.

pad dozing

2006-10-17T15:11:00.000+10:00

Brought Ward's dozer to the wild area south of the house driveway on Saturday and levelled a place for a shed/carport setup. We are thinking of putting a container in it as well. There was enough dirt amongst the rocks to make a 15 x 8 metre shed maybe.
See the pics..

from Home

2006-10-02T11:08:00.000+10:00

Ulla's back on Thursday!
Its not much different to be apart than it was 33 years ago. How brave L and Y are!

A couple of interesting things here coming up and going on.
http://www.heartofgold.com.au
http://www.titaniumcrafts.com

Papa

Two

2006-09-17T12:40:00.000+10:00

Gday, couldn't remember how to get into blog number one.