On the Friday before our trip to the farm the weather forecast for Sunday was "clearing showers". As the weekend progressed, the forecast changed to "showers". The problem is that there is no forecast for our farm and the nearest towns (Young and Yass) don't always accurately tell us the weather we will actually have at the farm. We took the risk!
Anyway, you can tell by the title of this post that it rained and then rained a bit more. As you'll see below, we still did lots of work !
We arrived at the farm at about 9:30am. Because of the wet ground, we had some trouble getting up the big hill at the entry to the property. The tyres on the Rodeo couldn't get enough grip and we kept sliding backwards. We ended up taking a bit of a detour. We didn't come all this way to stop 500 metres short!
The first job was to plant some trees that we had bought. Kath is clearly the gardener in the family, so she took charge. One of the trees is a cherry blossom, which we call Elvis (because the name looks a bit like Elvis). The other tree is a cherry tree, which of course is named Stella! Both are dormant now, but hopefully will bloom around spring.
Here's Kath with Stella in the ground. At this stage, the rain wasn't heavy but you needed a rain coat. Fonzi looks un-impressed and I could image he was thinking "when are we going home?".
Now it's Elvis' turn.
Here's Stella's view over the big dam.
Kath also planted some Iris bulbs in the ground. You'll have to wait until spring to see how they turn out. While the progress on the cabin has stalled :-( , the garden at the front is getting some attention. Here's the garden from the back of the cabin site. It looks plain now... but just you wait.
The grass is really green this time of year. It's a combination of lots of rain and the super phosphate that Kath spread around the cabin site about 3 weeks ago (I forgot to add that to the blog).
The next job on the agenda is working on the boundary fence. If fencing in the rain ever becomes an Olympic sport, its Gold Gold Gold! for Australia (and me). It seems every time I plan to work on the fence it rains. Anyway, there is no time for complaining and its down to business.
This is middle post of the fence which is where I left the project last time. Today's job is to put the stays in. Here's the first stay, which went in really easily.
I'm just about to start the concrete pour into the post hole.
To make the fence a bit prettier, Kath decided to do some decorative stone work on the concrete with the rocks I dug up. She knows that her art work will eventually be covered with dirt, but its good practice for the pathway she wants to build when we finish the cabin.
With one side of the fence completed, it was time to do the other side. I hadn't expected to hit a slab of slate when I dug the next hole and it took me about an hour to dig a 40 cm hole. After some blood, sweat and tears, here's the finished center post. All I need to do is add one more bag of concrete to that post as I didn't bring enough.
The middle post as complete! 2 down, 1 to go! The neigbour's property is on the other side of the post.
The next part of the fence is the end post and then I can start to connect the fencing wire. Assuming the posts hold the weight, that will be the end of my fencing adventures - until another neighbour wants their fence built.
The final job for this farm trip was to try to put together the garden shed that Kath purchased. The plan is that we can use it to store stuff in between trips and if the weather turns really nasty, we might be able to sleep in it. The shed is 3m x 3m, so it should fit a blow-up mattress.
The shed is in pieces at the moment, so it's a bit of a puzzle to get the right parts together. I was the one who took the shed apart, so I should remember how it went together - at least, that's the theory. I couldn't remember the numbering system I had used when I took the shed apart. It took about 10 minutes to work out my system. Unfortunately, the rain decided to start again and made the unpleasant job of solving a giant puzzle in a paddock more difficult.
After some swear words, we matched up all the pieces and we'll be ready to start putting it together when we go back next- which should be in a couple of weeks.
In my journey to find an accurate weather forecast for the farm, I found the weatherzone.com.au site, which has some interesting stats for surrounding area.
To give some idea about how much rain feel over June near the farm, there was 79.0 mm of rain for the month and it rained 22 days out of the month. By comparison, the wettest month on record was 1998 when 142.6mm of rain fell. So it could have been worse!
The average temperature near the farm for June was 13.4 (-0.6 down on the average).
Next trip to the farm (weather permitting) is 12 July.
Anyway, you can tell by the title of this post that it rained and then rained a bit more. As you'll see below, we still did lots of work !We arrived at the farm at about 9:30am. Because of the wet ground, we had some trouble getting up the big hill at the entry to the property. The tyres on the Rodeo couldn't get enough grip and we kept sliding backwards. We ended up taking a bit of a detour. We didn't come all this way to stop 500 metres short!
The first job was to plant some trees that we had bought. Kath is clearly the gardener in the family, so she took charge. One of the trees is a cherry blossom, which we call Elvis (because the name looks a bit like Elvis). The other tree is a cherry tree, which of course is named Stella! Both are dormant now, but hopefully will bloom around spring.
Here's Kath with Stella in the ground. At this stage, the rain wasn't heavy but you needed a rain coat. Fonzi looks un-impressed and I could image he was thinking "when are we going home?".
Now it's Elvis' turn.
Here's Stella's view over the big dam.
Kath also planted some Iris bulbs in the ground. You'll have to wait until spring to see how they turn out. While the progress on the cabin has stalled :-( , the garden at the front is getting some attention. Here's the garden from the back of the cabin site. It looks plain now... but just you wait.
The grass is really green this time of year. It's a combination of lots of rain and the super phosphate that Kath spread around the cabin site about 3 weeks ago (I forgot to add that to the blog).
The next job on the agenda is working on the boundary fence. If fencing in the rain ever becomes an Olympic sport, its Gold Gold Gold! for Australia (and me). It seems every time I plan to work on the fence it rains. Anyway, there is no time for complaining and its down to business.
This is middle post of the fence which is where I left the project last time. Today's job is to put the stays in. Here's the first stay, which went in really easily.
I'm just about to start the concrete pour into the post hole.
To make the fence a bit prettier, Kath decided to do some decorative stone work on the concrete with the rocks I dug up. She knows that her art work will eventually be covered with dirt, but its good practice for the pathway she wants to build when we finish the cabin.
With one side of the fence completed, it was time to do the other side. I hadn't expected to hit a slab of slate when I dug the next hole and it took me about an hour to dig a 40 cm hole. After some blood, sweat and tears, here's the finished center post. All I need to do is add one more bag of concrete to that post as I didn't bring enough.
The middle post as complete! 2 down, 1 to go! The neigbour's property is on the other side of the post.
The next part of the fence is the end post and then I can start to connect the fencing wire. Assuming the posts hold the weight, that will be the end of my fencing adventures - until another neighbour wants their fence built.
The final job for this farm trip was to try to put together the garden shed that Kath purchased. The plan is that we can use it to store stuff in between trips and if the weather turns really nasty, we might be able to sleep in it. The shed is 3m x 3m, so it should fit a blow-up mattress.
The shed is in pieces at the moment, so it's a bit of a puzzle to get the right parts together. I was the one who took the shed apart, so I should remember how it went together - at least, that's the theory. I couldn't remember the numbering system I had used when I took the shed apart. It took about 10 minutes to work out my system. Unfortunately, the rain decided to start again and made the unpleasant job of solving a giant puzzle in a paddock more difficult.
After some swear words, we matched up all the pieces and we'll be ready to start putting it together when we go back next- which should be in a couple of weeks.
In my journey to find an accurate weather forecast for the farm, I found the weatherzone.com.au site, which has some interesting stats for surrounding area. To give some idea about how much rain feel over June near the farm, there was 79.0 mm of rain for the month and it rained 22 days out of the month. By comparison, the wettest month on record was 1998 when 142.6mm of rain fell. So it could have been worse!
The average temperature near the farm for June was 13.4 (-0.6 down on the average).
Next trip to the farm (weather permitting) is 12 July.
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