Potato Planting

The Girls

The girls have settled in nicely to their tennis court home. I let them out of their coop early each morning and Chris generally lets them out of the tennis court sometime in the late morning so they can free range around the farm. They love getting out and about, and I dare say the eggs they lay will be better for it. But they appear to have discovered the cat flap in the laundry door…or rather the hole left by the broken cat flap. Three times there was a suspicious clucking outside the study door, and I had to chase a chicken outside. I’m not certain, but I think it was the same one each time. Continue reading

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Garden Enclosure

After spending a week getting over a cold…or the flu…or some kind of bug…I finally got around to completing something on the farm. Yay!!  About time.

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Crikey! Chickens & Chainsaws

[UPDATED 24-07-2011] Have replaced canned pictures with real photos I took yesterday.

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My last post stated I was going to write an update every week.

EPIC FAIL!!   :(

Instead, it’s been over six MONTHS since I wrote anything. Just goes to show how lazy I am. Oh well, what is past is passed…or should that be the over way around?

Lots of things have happened on the farm, so let’s cut to the chase and give you all a long over due update on what’s happening down on the farm.

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New Year’s Resolution

As part of a New Year’s resolution, I’ve decided that I have to update Drypond at least every week. So hopefully, this begins a trend to bring you news about the farm and the people who live on it and visit it. Since it’s been so long since I posted anything here, the first task is to bring you up to speed with the news. Bear with me, this will probably be a little disjointed.

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So Sad….

Dead Tractor

Dead Tractor

My pretty red tractor is dead. :(

I managed to screw it up by leaving the diesel fuel in a container (44 gal/220 litre drum) outside in the weather, and naturally water got into the drum, and then I filled up the tractor. Tractors don’t run on water. They don’t even run on watery diesel. They especially don’t run on an algae-contaminated water/diesel mix (we took a sample from the fuel drum and it was about 25% water by volume…and green).

So the tractor is going back to the dealer to be fixed, at my expense since it’s my fault. It’s going to be one hell of an expensive lesson, but boy have I learned it!

The tractor’s engine has to be stripped back, the fuel system completely removed, flushed and cleaned. The fuel injectors need to be removed, stripped and cleaned…and perhaps replaced. The fuel filter certainly needs to be replaced. The engine oil probably needs to be dropped and replaced along with the oil filter, and perhaps even flushed. The fuel tank obviously needs to be removed, flushed and cleaned. And then it needs to be put back together again. All at diesel mechanic hourly rates. Oh boy, is this ever gonna cost me!

I tell you, my arse is still sore from the kicking I gave it. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

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The Product

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Cider-Making

The cider has brewed out, and so Anzac Day became Bottling Day. So I’m calling this Anzac Cider.

Of course, the first thing to do was to wash and sterilise the bottles. I bought a funky bottle tree to dry them overnight. Pretty cool, huh?

The Bottle Tree

The Bottle Tree

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Finishing The Press

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Cider-Making

Yesterday we managed to pick and sort all the apples, and wash, crush and press about 60% of the total. Today we finished off the last three trays. Here’s a picture of the setup, except for the press which is off to the left of the shot.

In Production

The Bench in Production

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Pressing Apples

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Cider-Making

Last post I showed you the apple tree we protected, and the apples we picked. This time I’ll show you the sweet setup I have for crushing the apples, and pressing the juice out of them. I bought an apple crusher and a wine press from a Melbourne company called Winequip (they were good and delivery was very quick, so I don’t mind giving them a free plug). I also bought a 60litre fermentation barrel.  I built a bench for an existing stainless steel bench top we found on the farm when we bought it, and I have to say, it’s working out very nicely. It’s not obvious from the picture but the bench has a hole in it where a tub or basin used to be, so fitting the crusher over top of that means we just have to capture the apple crushings as they fall through.

Bench

Apple Grinding Bench

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So It’s Cider Season

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Cider-Making

We inherited a lot of fruit and nut trees from previous owners of the farm which we now call Lavender Valley in beautiful downtown Burra. Unfortunately, most are dead and the rest are wildly (and I mean wildly) overgrown. And some of them actually bear fruit! This has been an excellent growing season, and I decided to try to protect my crop on the largest of the apple trees with bird netting (it looks somewhat like giant spiders had invaded).

The Apple Tree

The Apple Tree

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