Old MacDonald's Farm.... in progress.

So as usual when we update our blog, lots has been happening.  However, to avoid boring you, there are two ways to read today’s blog.  Actually, there are always two ways to read it.  You can skim the pictures and get a general picture of what we have been up to and a recent day in our lives, or you can read the boring prose.  I know which one I would do if I were you…. but then maybe you haven’t had your monthly dose of “farming life” and need to top up!

So we have been busy fitting into Geeveston life.  We have had sushi at the famous Masaaki’s (who it turns out used to live in the house we are renting), we have made friends with our neighbours and the people behind the wonderful Geeveston Roadhouse, James and Samara, we went to a charity bingo night at the local services club (which I have joined) for young Will, watched a woodchopping championship, and went to the Cygnet release of Matthew Evan’s latest book.

Sadie and I submitted the egg petition to Parliament.  The response from the politicians was all very placatory, however the draft legislation that has since been released is nothing short of nonsense.  I guess it will take a pelting of rotten eggs to wake these pencil pushers up, so stay tuned for my next blog post from prison.

On the farm front when last we spoke we had 14 Wiltshire horn sheep.  Well Matthew put us in touch with a lady who was giving away 8 Wiltshires, including a ram.  Comedy ensued getting them in the trailer, however lucky for us there was no camera crew around.  They settled in quickly and we thought we were all done on the sheep front.  Until we spoke to our neighbour.  He has been grazing his 55 sheep in our orchard for the past few years and we thought that after we took it over he would simply send them to the saleyard and keep a few as “lawnmowers”.  Instead his response was to offer them all to us!  The price?  All he wants is for us to give him a couple lambs every Christmas.  Not a bad deal, but now we have 22 Wilties, 55 mixed breed sheep, and Bob, who probably can’t believe the amount of company he has now.  Do you like how I said that?  Almost as if we didn’t spend the morning with 5 people running about the orchard like idiots trying the herd the 55 into the same paddock as the Wilties, and failing.  The job is done now (with lots of pratfalls and swearing), we will have a few of them butchered this week so we will have a fully stocked freezer come Christmas.

In a vain effort to get our grass growth under control, we also got 5 cows.  Despite our hankering for hairy Highland cows, Matthew and Sadie had 5 pregnant “lowline” Angus cows that they wanted to move on as part of their ambition to move towards a more dairy-focused herd, and that made the decision-making process easy for us.  As an added bonus they are trained to electric wire for strip grazing and they now have settled into a routine of daily morning moves to a fresh salad bar.

One of the cows flew over the fence the first night, we still don't know how...

But the new animals don’t stop there!!  We have also agreed to be the retirement site of choice for a couple of Matthew and Sadie’s old Wessex Saddleback pigs, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.  We hope to get a litter or two from them while they spend their later years exploring and rooting up part of the old orchard.  They have already caught the imagination of both the neighbours and the local kids, as pigs are wont to do.

We also bought 5 Muscovy ducks from a friend up the highway, 4 girls and a drake.  They have settled on our dam and are coming up every morning for their grain breakfast.  To add to our little chick flock we also bought half a dozen Plymouth Rock chicks from Ross on Bruny Island, taking us up to 11 little cheepers who now running about a little fenced area at the farm.

And finally, we are now open for WWoOFers of our own!  We have joined WWoOF and are hoping to have an extra couple pairs of hands helping us out and sharing our great food as soon as we can.  Want to volunteer?  Your room is ready, step this way…

Luxury indeed!

OK, now that that is all over, here is a recent day in our life on Our Mates’ Farm.

Open up the chicken house

Walk the dog

Feed the pigs

Feed the ducks

Check on the vegetable garden

Top up the water for the cows

Hook up new electric fence

Move the ladies onto the new salad bar

Brushcut a line for sheep electric mesh

Move them in

 

Phew, time for a cuppa and morning tea

Some of Cor's home-baked treats

 

Back to work: fixing irrigation, cleaning off water shoots and thinning some apples

But we do get some time to go fishing occasionally!

Until you arrive to take possession of our guest room, stay tuned for more of the Good Life!

Pissed in Paradise

It is a beautiful day outside.  It must be rocking mid 20’s C in the middle of winter, blue skies, a real picture of paradise.  And I am very pissed off.

See?  Paradise!

Let me rewind a little….

As our regular readers know, our car accident a few years ago left me with a pretty smashed up nose, which has been giving me general grief for years (leaking, sinus headaches etc), and specific problems since a bout of sinusitis last year ruined our plan to climb Mt Kinabalu and threatened to scupper our dive trip of a lifetime (see this blog post).

What I haven’t told folks is that in December when I went to have the nose looked at it turned out that I also have a benign bone tumour in my left cheek.  It is something that will likely keep growing for the rest of my life, and which I will have to have shaved back periodically to prevent it putting pressure on my left eye.  In a way, the car accident which led us to re-evaluate our lives has also led to the discovery of this growth.

You can see the tumour - that white patch on the right

In December I went on the waiting list to have the sinuses drained and the cheek bone biopsied (to confirm the nature of the growth), and in March, I got the call up.  The only problem was that Cor and I were in Tasmania working with some wonderful people and looking for our new home.  So I gave up my March appointment on the understanding that they would reschedule me for when we returned to North Queensland in June.

And now I am pissed off.  It transpires that they did not actually reschedule me (apparently the people who told me that weren’t the people who make the ENT appointments), and now I won’t get seen by the doctor for at least 1-2 months.

So here we are.  In North Queensland, in paradise as it were, pissed off.  There are a few things we can do, sure.  We are spending some time with family, doing a spot of fishing, sorting out a few things to take with us, organising Cor’s Australian drivers licence (she has to do the test!), and doing some prepatory reading for our new life as farmers.  But would we much rather be in Tasmania, enjoying the cold days out working in the paddocks, the nights in front of a fire, and looking for our new property?  Absolutely.

I know I don't look pissed.... but it is hard to be angry when you are fishing.

So the plan for now is for Cor to do her driver’s test in the third week of July, and shortly thereafter head back down to Tassie via Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, seeing some good friends, picking up some of the stuff that has been stored for 12 years or more on the way.  When I get the call for the operation I can leave Cor with the truck and fly back north to get it all sorted.

It all sounds good, but for now I am still pissed in paradise.

Cor is certainly making the best of it.

On the road.... again!

A quickie to say we are off on the road again.  The last week has been a frenzy of packing and form-filling for the next 3 months, and now we are about to set off for Costa Rica and what will hopefully be an awesome 10 days of world-class diving. 

Despite all the prep and packing we still managed to get another day out on the boat squeezed in last week, and we were rewarded with breaching humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins playing around the boat, a mackerel (that I landed) and a tuna (that I lost).  North Queensland is a really special place in the winter.

We will put photos up here when we can, until then there are a few new ones in the Ingham folder to the right.

Palya!

A Lucinda life less ordinary

It has been a while since the last blog post, and for that I make no apologies.  Our two months here in Ingham has flown by, and it is now only a week before we jet off to Costa Rica, the USA and Micronesia for 3 months.

We have been surprisingly busy here in my home town, entertaining guests from out of town, going to birthday parties, getting our boat licences, sorting out our transition back to Australian life (driver's licences, Medicare cards, bank accounts, getting our house shipped over, that sort of thing), running on the beach, and of course, going fishing.

There have been quite a few fish caught, no real monsters, but it has been a cooler than normal winter, and we have had some busy days on the water nonetheless (by cooler than normal I mean we have occasionally had cause to wear jeans at night).  Cor has christened her fishing rod and is turning into a bit of a fishing demon.  It has been a real treat to be here, and it is now with some regret that our time at the beach house comes to an end.  If only it could go on for longer, but the next stage is coming and it promises to be exciting.

Thanks to everyone for the messages of support and good will over the last couple months.  It is great to know so many people care and get the whole carpe diem thing.

To give everyone an update I have had some further news on my sinus issue.  It would appear that while exacerbated by my broken nose, the sinusitis was also partially caused by what appears to an abnormal bone growth in my left cheek which has nearly closed my left cheek sinus.  The doc can't say for sure that this is what it is until he biopsies it, but as that test also needs a period of non-diving recovery this is going to have to wait until we get back from our next leg of travel.  He will drain the sinuses at the same time so for now we have our fingers crossed that we will get to Cocos Island in a couple of weeks and all will be OK.  The doc has said I am OK to dive but who knows what will happen when I get to 10 metres?

So that is where we are for now, stay tuned to see where we will be in a couple weeks!

In the beginning.....

Well, here is our first blog post.  So far we have been in Japan for a week and in North Queensland for a week.  Yet to come are trips to Malaysia (June, diving), Costa Rica (September, diving & surfing), the USA (October, climbing) and Micronesia (December, diving), with a couple months in North Queensland (from mid-July to mid-September) for some fishing.

So far Cor has been held at immigration twice in two countries, once due to her not having a visa for Japan (and needing one!) and once because the Aussie immigration department made a mistake with her visa 3 years ago.  This does not bode well given our travel plans above!

Japan was good, not as different as I was expecting.  All in all it was just as busy as London, with people who are far more polite and eager to help.  As always I did the navigation and Coreen speaks to the locals, the very definition of teamwork.  My tattoo went well, and we had an awesome time going out for beers and top sushi with the tattooist (Genko) after the two days of work.  All in all I can't wait to go back to Japan to explore further afield beyond Nagoya and Tokyo.

The last week with Mum and Dad in Ingham has been great, four days of camping and hiking on Hinchinbrook Island, and two days of fishing.  I haven't been as successful with the fishing as last time but Cor is right on it so we have had two good feeds of fish with more in the fridge.

Next to come is fun with Cor's family in Singapore and then onto Mabul in Malaysia for diving.

Until next time.... here are a few pics.

A temple in Japan

Paperbark swamp on Hinchinbrook

Sunset on Hinchinbrook

Cor and one of her fish