I had been keeping a keen eye on the weather over the last week - especially the rainfall. The forecast was for clear sunny skies, but the 27th of November was forecast to be rainy with over 10mm of rain predicted. If accurate, this would break the previous month's worse records for rainfall all in one day.
On this trip, the plan was to sleep over at the farm but leave early in the morning on Sunday and be back in Sydney for a 40th birthday party.
On arrival at the farm on Saturday morning, I was curious to see if any of the predicted rain had fallen at the farm, and whether any made it into the tank.
Well, I was pleased to see a good amount of water in the tank. In fact, close to 300 litres. You can see the shadow in the tank which is the water level. The yellow tape is the marker where the water level was on the last visit. Now there was no chance of the tank moving with about 300kg of water!
My main job today was to make some progress on the shed floor, in preparation for laying the floor and making our Christmas stay as comfortable as possible. Here is the next joist in the floor done.
By noon, the temperature was a comfortable 27 degrees. The sun was out but the cloud cover meant that it didn't get too hot.
Here's the first plywood board down. I have to cut the top from the board so it's flush with the shed. The plywood is square, but the shed isn't!
In this photo, the floor joists are finished! Only took a few hours of work to get this done. Always takes so much longer without power tools. All ready to lay the boards now.
Here's the 2nd board down. You can see the gap between the 2nd board and the shed, which shows how out of square the shed still is. Anyway, it's still better than it was.
The work on the shed floor had taken a few hours to complete and I couldn't really advance the project without some black plastic sheeting, which I will lay under the plywood to protect it from the damp. So I used the rest of the time to spray some weeds on the property. It was also a good chance to have a look around the property - something I hadn't done for a while.
Unfortunately, the locality has a problem with Scotch Thistle, which is a horrible spiny weed that nothing (but hungry goats) will eat. It is also very pervasive and every plant releases thousands of seeds each season.
Here's just a small sample of the Scotch Thistle, which is about a 5 minute walk from the camp site. I mixed up about 20 litres of water and added some Glyphosate and got to work. I sprayed every plant I could see, although I might have missed some because I didn't use any marking dye.
Here's another big patch near the pig's dam. Hopefully our trip to the farm next week will show that the Glyphosate has done is job.
Here's a close up. I put a stake near this weed so I make sure I can find it next week and see whether the herbicide worked.
After a few hours of spraying, I spent the rest of the day to walk around the property. As the sun set, the kangaroos usually come out to feed. Here's a mob of kangaroos near the pig's dam with the closest kangaroo in mid-bound. While wandering around, I saw a few rabbits - but no pigs. There wasn't even any sign of them near the dam.
I had an uneventful night in the shed. The temperature dropped to a relatively warm 10 degrees at night and there was no wind. Perfect sleeping conditions.
I awoke at about 6:00am and packed up the car for the trip back. It's so much easier to drive back after a good night sleep. On the way back I was a bit wary of wildlife on the road because the sun and temperature was still low. About 5 minutes from the farm, I spotted a chital deer near the side of the road feeding. It was a bit startled to see me and I was equally surprised to see a deer in the area. I managed to get fairly close to the deer, but it got spooked and took off. A rare moment that I'll remember for years to come!
.
On this trip, the plan was to sleep over at the farm but leave early in the morning on Sunday and be back in Sydney for a 40th birthday party.
On arrival at the farm on Saturday morning, I was curious to see if any of the predicted rain had fallen at the farm, and whether any made it into the tank.
Well, I was pleased to see a good amount of water in the tank. In fact, close to 300 litres. You can see the shadow in the tank which is the water level. The yellow tape is the marker where the water level was on the last visit. Now there was no chance of the tank moving with about 300kg of water!
My main job today was to make some progress on the shed floor, in preparation for laying the floor and making our Christmas stay as comfortable as possible. Here is the next joist in the floor done.
By noon, the temperature was a comfortable 27 degrees. The sun was out but the cloud cover meant that it didn't get too hot.Here's the first plywood board down. I have to cut the top from the board so it's flush with the shed. The plywood is square, but the shed isn't!
In this photo, the floor joists are finished! Only took a few hours of work to get this done. Always takes so much longer without power tools. All ready to lay the boards now.
Here's the 2nd board down. You can see the gap between the 2nd board and the shed, which shows how out of square the shed still is. Anyway, it's still better than it was.
The work on the shed floor had taken a few hours to complete and I couldn't really advance the project without some black plastic sheeting, which I will lay under the plywood to protect it from the damp. So I used the rest of the time to spray some weeds on the property. It was also a good chance to have a look around the property - something I hadn't done for a while.Unfortunately, the locality has a problem with Scotch Thistle, which is a horrible spiny weed that nothing (but hungry goats) will eat. It is also very pervasive and every plant releases thousands of seeds each season.
Here's just a small sample of the Scotch Thistle, which is about a 5 minute walk from the camp site. I mixed up about 20 litres of water and added some Glyphosate and got to work. I sprayed every plant I could see, although I might have missed some because I didn't use any marking dye.
Here's another big patch near the pig's dam. Hopefully our trip to the farm next week will show that the Glyphosate has done is job.
Here's a close up. I put a stake near this weed so I make sure I can find it next week and see whether the herbicide worked.
After a few hours of spraying, I spent the rest of the day to walk around the property. As the sun set, the kangaroos usually come out to feed. Here's a mob of kangaroos near the pig's dam with the closest kangaroo in mid-bound. While wandering around, I saw a few rabbits - but no pigs. There wasn't even any sign of them near the dam.
I had an uneventful night in the shed. The temperature dropped to a relatively warm 10 degrees at night and there was no wind. Perfect sleeping conditions.I awoke at about 6:00am and packed up the car for the trip back. It's so much easier to drive back after a good night sleep. On the way back I was a bit wary of wildlife on the road because the sun and temperature was still low. About 5 minutes from the farm, I spotted a chital deer near the side of the road feeding. It was a bit startled to see me and I was equally surprised to see a deer in the area. I managed to get fairly close to the deer, but it got spooked and took off. A rare moment that I'll remember for years to come!
.
No comments:
Post a Comment