Hmm, my frequency of posting has declined abruptly.

A bit of a catch-up needed.

We finally had rain, sun, rain and now the grass is growing. It got to the point of seeing bare dirt, something that hasn't happened here in the ten years we've been here. I was worried that we would end up with no feed for the sheep, and then end up scrabbling with everyone else for enough commercial feed. So we have sold off most our sheep. We've kept a few, to re-stock, but only a small flock. They are happy enough, and well-fed now with the rain arriving. However, despite things being green at the moment, local wisdom is its just surface green....the water-table is still low, and as soon as the hot weather kicks in it wall all dry up very dramatically. We probably would have been OK in the near future, but I think I made the right decision at the time.

While the stock agent was here he looked at our cattle, and suggested we should also sell a few of them. I will take him up on the idea, but it hasn't happened yet. Its odd, although we are past the worst of the feed shortage, my cattle are just starting to lose condition now. I am still feeding them extra, apart from the basic self-help grass diet, but they look a bit skinny to me. (I have bought some commercial pellets to run with for the next week or so and see if I can slow down the loss of condition. )

We had a steer put into the freezer this time last year, and it was a disappointing result. Which was doubly disappointing, in that we usually have spectacularly good beef. I was in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago and bought some steaks from the butcher I used to go to at the Preston Market. The steaks were fantastic. It reminded me how underwhelming our steaks have been. The meat we have been consuming for the last year was under-flavoured, and borderline tough to chew. It looked fine at the time and the butcher was surprised when I told him. A year of plugging our way through ordinary steaks has put me on the defensive, and I think I might sell the next steer we have ready rather than have it home-butchered.

We had so many snakes last summer I tried something new out: we took a delivery of guinea fowl, who are supposed to be good at chasing off snakes. I put them in a secure chicken yard, with a wire mesh ceiling over the yard. Its a good cage, dug into the ground, concreted in. A fox climbed into the yard next door, dug into that chicken house, then climbed up between the two chicken houses, got in that way and killed them all. They lasted two nights. I got a call two weeks ago to see if I wanted replacements. I didn't. It was too disheartening. But it turns out the person with the guinea fowl had way too many and needed to get rid of some. I asked them to give me a week and worked on the cages. I checked all the edges again, mesh in the ground and concreted in. I went over all the joins and with steel cable ties zipped up any possible gaps. I did the same to the ceiling. (Its a nice spot under a chestnut tree but the tree had dumped kilos of leave litter and chestnut cones(?), and it was sagging down with the weight of it all. I blasted it all clear with a leaf-blower, then put in additional columns of treated pine posts to keep the ceiling high and tight. And I did the same to the chook yard next door. (Which means we can have another go at chooks soon.)

We've had them now for three weeks and they are doing ok. I've kept them in the chook yard, rather than their preferred free-range. We have two additional dogs at the moment, minding them while their owners are away. Lovely dogs but killers, so the guinea fowl have been kept locked up for safety. But my sister-in-law took some the same time as us. After two weeks she let them loose....and they immediately took off, flew across the Ovens River, and live in the paddock there now. She can hear them calling, but they haven't been back. (Update: they came back after a few days and haven't left again, which is good news.)

My plan is to let half of them out into the bigger mega-chook yard, and hopefully the caged ones will hold them back...they are supposed to be very tribal. But realistically, the same thing might happen....they may just take off. Which is how goats take over national parks, so I don't want to be doing that!

And speaking of feral pests...for maybe the third time on ten years we have a deer visiting at night. Not good for olive trees, they can be very destructive. I only noticed when I was down by the river looking for self-sown wattle seedlings to transplant, and found the deer tracks in the foreshore mud.

When we first moved here there wasn't much in the way of trees that supplied firewood. But now we are almost self-sufficient. Last week in a big storm we had three large trees come down, and a redgum branch as big as an adult wattle tree. I cut the redgum into 30 cm logs and there were 60! The trees that came down were all best-in-show sized wattles. Some people scoff at the wattle firewood but we find it burns hot when its dried properly. It does leave more ash to clean out, but its free....except I have to cut, haul and stack it, and burn off the scraps. Of the three trees, two were snapped in half, the third pulled out of the ground. It was a big storm! There is more than one winter's worth of wood in that lot, but probably won't be ready next winter.

We got to go away for two weeks in July. My daughter and family minded the place for us, fed the livestock. It rained most of the time for them, was really cold and they all got sick. We had the first holiday together for a few years and it was lovely, but I am not sure my daughter would take it on again at that time of year.

And we have had builders here, repairing the front verandah. the job got bigger and bigger as a leak turned into rotten fascia boards, battens and roofing timber, requiring replacing the ceiling and guttering, then eventually resealing/painting the concrete-tiled roof. Beautiful finish on the work and it looks great. We also got some other repairs done, and we are currently in the process of removing the god-awful plaster features that litter the house. There are unmatched, anachronistic ceiling roses in every room. On the wall were some horrific cherubs and ....I won't go on. They are gone and the plaster is being repaired and repainted.

Recently we have been circled by the Dezi Freeman circus. Its all very close....I used to work two doors up from where he lived. I know people he has interacted with. I don't know him myself but have seen him in action. The police search command centre is just down the road from us, we have helicopters flying over multiple times a day. Porepunkah is a couple of minutes from here.

It will be good when that has been sorted out.