Someone did wrong by me this week. Seriously wrong. But I’m the man, I can move on. And that’s what I did. At times such as these, everyone needs a long dead military genius to guide their way through the more problematic moments of life. Sun Tzu, are you listening to me mate? What would you do? Fortunately, the dudes thoughts have been recorded in the two millennia old treatise: The Art of War. A solid guide to managing conflict. If you haven’t read it yet, why not?
It takes a lot of effort and skill to survive and thrive remote from the conveniences of the city. If I had a weakness, it may be that sometimes I make things look easier than they actually are. Being raised in what is impolitely known as a broken home which was dominated by a less than stable mother, a young bloke needs to learn how to learn. That’s how you rise above the past.
My grandfather saw how the winds were blowing for me whilst attending the high school for disadvantaged kids. He gifted me an education during late High School. I didn’t like it, but I knew what an opportunity looked like. He wasn’t the kind of guy to gift money, even as an inheritance. Ended up earning the A grade marks to get into the most prestigious of Universities, but instead went to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. Back then it was colloquially known as the working man’s college. Word on the street though in those days was that it provided the better education. Graduated with honours. Even won a prize for the top mark in the subject of Accounting Theory (perhaps a detailed analysis of Accounting Theory could be a fun topic for a future blog post?)
The youthful age of 17, found me working a full time job. It wasn’t long after that age, I left the unpalatable family home. The work paid for the part time University, which took seven years to complete. The professional post graduate took another three years of part time study. I’m not interested in further studies.
Work was more like an apprenticeship. Imagine every accounts job from the bottom right through to the top, and I’ve done ’em all. And for 36 years too. At the top of the profession, I spoke the language of my staff, and they couldn’t pull anything shifty over me. In cohesive teams we got stuff done and kicked goals. When I eventually left those lofty heights, some of my staff cried, because they knew what would come for them next.
The thing is, I didn’t enjoy speaking with the people higher up the food chain in those big organisations. They don’t want to hear straight talk. Telling it like it is, that takes courage. Most people I met who thrive in those sorts of environments come from similar backgrounds to the folks they report to. They’ll tell ’em what they want to hear. That’s not me. Eventually I’d had enough of the constant combat.
I’d guessed my niche would be found in small business. There’s less hierarchy, you report to the business owners, and they can’t afford to mess around. The professional accounting body didn’t want me taking this path though. If you come from my accounting work background, you’re prohibited from putting out your shingle and offering your services to the public. There’s a license for that. And because of my work experience, the professional body limited me to an income of $20,000 for three years. And that’s before costs. Not many people can jump that puddle, but I did with Sandra’s help.
When I was wronged last week, dismay quickly lead to anger. On Saturday I headed down into the paddock. Smashed up a super hard granite boulder into more usefully sized large rocks. And during the meditative work, I got some perspective. Then felt better. I’ve worked so hard over my life, and if they think they can do better themselves, give it a go. But they’ll find out, I’m the man.
Another week, another storm. You could see the thick clouds building over the central highlands.
This time around the storm was brief. For a day or two afterwards, the afternoons were kind of warm. It’s truly been an odd growing season. And just prior to the weather turning cooler again we had one of the most astounding sunsets I’ve yet had the pleasure of witnessing.
Regular readers will recall that an upside down tree stump was pushed up against a very large and old tree. It wasn’t good for the health of the tree. The wrong-way-around-stump was most likely dumped there during the post 1983 bushfire log recovery efforts. The monster thing was lifted out of the ground last week. It was super heavy and I could barely budge the monster even using the six foot long steel house wrecking bar. This week, the chainsaw was used to cut off the many side arms on the stump, and I finally managed to roll the thing away. It’ll get burned off over winter and the ash will be spread around as a fertiliser.
Once the land immediately in front of the large old tree was clear of the stump, I was able to use a combination of tools to clean up the area. It’s looking good now and in another year or two will be indistinguishable from the more orderly areas of the forest.
Nearby to the large old tree was a boulder. We needed more large rocks for the low gradient path project. And so whilst working in that area, we broke apart the boulder into five still large and heavy rocks.
The rocks in the above image are actually quite a soft granite which is easy-ish to split apart. Over on the other side of the farm was a much harder granite boulder. With a bit of angst to work out of my system, and a need for some quiet reflective time, the boulder was just asking to be broken apart.
The granite in the image above is super hard, but with enough work (and angst) it can be split apart.
The job took many hours of drilling and splitting, and the work is hard on both me and the tools. Eventually the job was done.
Those boulders provided a lot of large rocks for the low gradient path project. The following day we began hauling the rocks back up the hill using the large yellow power wheelbarrow.
It took another days work to haul all of the large rocks back up the hill. The smaller, yet still large rocks were all used as a second and higher layer of rocks on the low gradient path project on the downhill side of the chicken enclosure.
In another week or two’s time, we’ll add more soil to that path in order to level it out. Then a top layer of crushed rock with lime will be added. Before you know it, the path will look as if it has always been there.
Last week we’d also constructed a steel rock gabion cage. This week, the cage was put into place, and we began filling the thing with rocks. Despite how it looks, we are again rapidly running out of rocks. Peak Rocks is very real.
It’s a good time of year for produce, and the beans are now ready for harvesting.
One of the later fruits are the persimmons, and the oldest of those trees now has heaps of fruit. It’s a non-astringent variety.
The rather prolific and curious looking Japanese ginger shoots have for the first time produced their edible flowers. I’m yet to try these, but they’re meant to be a delicacy. The more usual ginger tubers really struggle growing in this cool climate, even in the greenhouse.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 11’C (52’F). So far for last year there has been 174.6mm (6.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 152.8mm (6.0 inches)