What an odd week it has been. It seems like only a few days ago that the air temperature in the shade reached 35’C / 95’F. Yet this week, when the dreaded alarm sound dares disturb my restful slumber, the skies are dark, and the air is filled with extreme humidity. The season flipped exactly on the autumn equinox. It sure is turning towards winter, right before my very eyes. As a side note, getting up in the dark irritates me no end, the patterns being not quite right… Coffee can only help at such moments.
This week at least, the need to walk around every morning watering the less hardy plants has ceased, freeing up plenty of time. The prolonged dry weather has caused me to be rather busy of late. By contrast, mornings have become more leisurely affairs, despite the notable lack of sunlight. Can’t have it all our own way, can we? The sudden change in weather has meant that regular rains have returned to the mountain range. Where was all that rain only a few weeks ago when it was actually needed? Oh well guess that’s what the water tanks are there for. When a person lives way out in a rural area, interpreting the weather forecast becomes something of a serious hobby. Everyday you pour over the available information like an astrologer reading the signs, and to try and get a feel for how the climate will be in the near future.
Analysing the data supplied from various forecasts over a long period of time, suggested to me that a week or so ago, the rains would return this week – and indeed, that’s what actually happened. Regular readers will recall that last week a project was commenced to upgrade all of the wiring up on the house roof top solar panels. The weather forced my hand with this job, mostly because it is not advisable to work on a corrugated metal roof in the wet. The steel surface during those times is just too slippery for the soles of boots to grip. Nobody wants to fall off a roof. So to do the work when the steel sheets are dry, was the smarter move. And the signs and portents with the weather divination suggested that winter weather was fast closing in. As the old timers used to say down here, better get a wriggle on with the work, whatever that means.
The re-wiring process took three days up on the roof, and thankfully is now complete. Candidly, it was all a bit mentally tiring to remain focused for hours upon hours whilst perched up in the air like a bird. However, as the English are wont to say: Mustn’t grumble. Good advice. Moving on… The house roof holds twelve solar panels, four of which are a bit of a distance away from the main eight large panels. This means that all the wires feed into two separate fuse boxes. Both of the original plastic fuse boxes have now been replaced with sturdier metal boxes. Every connection with the cables which had been out in the sun, wind and rain for sixteen years was replaced. Also the fuses were also upgraded to industrial grade equipment (high rupture current fuses for those who are technically inclined). I was dubious that the original much cheaper fuses would work when they needed to.
In other parts of the off grid solar power system, there are another three sturdy metal distribution boxes. As part of the annual maintenance cycle, all of those were inspected, tested, and cleaned. That’s it for work on that system and we’re now ready to head into another damp and cloudy winter. It’s worthwhile noting that both Saturday and Sunday enjoyed thick low clouds and each had less than one hour peak sunlight. That’s not enough solar power to fully recharge the house batteries, and certainly not enough to run the wasteful industrial civilisation we reside in. Hmm. Still, when the weather is dry, the view from up on the roof is impressive, and the panels get to enjoy that enviable view.
This week’s video was filmed up on the roof!
Work around here ebbs and flows with the seasons. Right now is the busiest time of the year. Generally speaking, up here a person does something when the time is right to do so, and that is always dictated by the weather. During the week, the various tomato vines have begun to be removed from the garden beds. Sure, the plants could be left in the ground for a few more weeks. This would provide a continued supply of fresh sun ripened late season tomatoes. But soon it will get even colder here and there would not be enough time to get the winter crops like radish, green mustard, beetroot and silverbeet established to a point where we can eat them. The plants in this area don’t grow during the depths of winter, but the cold tolerant varieties do remain alive and provide fresh food at a time of year when such things are scarce.
Around this time of year, the rats begin testing the house’s outer defences. Those twitchy nosed big rodents would love nothing more than to create a toasty warm nest under the house. This sort of untoward activity must be stopped! Every day we inspect the ground around the house and look for any signs of incursion. Lately we’ve been using cement to produce a hardened barrier that the rodents so far have been unable to breach. As part of that work, a few rat holes nearer to garden beds were baited and then sealed up using lots of rocks pounded into the ground. It’s not my preferred option, but during winter, hungry rats can consume all of the produce. An unpleasant activity, but it’s all part of the seasonal work around here.
With the now cooler weather following on from the autumn equinox, last week we were able to go on a local bush walk. The last one of those we’d done was in October last year, and it was frankly speaking hard ignore the snake we came across. Very deadly, possibly way too poisonous for its own good. Best left alone. It’s nice to know that the reptiles get sluggy in the cooler weather, but are no less dangerous. Whatever, we took the risk and enjoyed a nice local walk in a nature reserve and avoided all snakes.
Had lunch sitting at a picnic table with the forest all to ourselves, when along the path steps a sprightly old hippy. He’d been living in the area for decades in what was self described as a half finished house up the road. As someone who likes to complete tasks, this loose talk of unfinished business did not make for pleasant hearing. Foibles though can be forgiven, except he then went on to express his concerns about the world, ongoing wars, and as has been remarked upon elsewhere: death, flies and stuff. Man, you need to stop watching so much television. I’m just trying have my lunch in peace here mate! And that put an end to the one sided conversation.
Guess doomscrolling is a thing even for old hippies, but never thought to encounter it in a nature reserve of all places. If I may cheekily suggest, the old saying applies here: Before worrying, chop wood, carry water. After worries, chop wood, carry water! There’s always work to be done. Anyway, despite the evidence of the dry summer all around us, and the risk of encountering deadly reptiles and old hippies, it really was quite a pleasant place to spend some quality time. Fortunately after the hippy conversation, a most excellent apple cake restored my disturbed nerves.
Thought you lovely readers (and thanks as always for taking the time to read along and contribute to the ongoing discussion and dialogue) might appreciate another view from the roof.
Unfortunately the home made five element FM Yagi antenna was in the way of the view. You’ll notice that it’s something of a long way down! Just to geek out for a moment or two (less nerdy readers can skip on to the next paragraph) . The antenna was specifically constructed and tuned so as to pick up distant FM signals from the national youth music broadcasters nearest transmitter. Who says you can’t make this sort of advanced stuff at home?
Speaking of making stuff, another batch of soap was made this week. In order to save on costs, and because local olive oil suddenly seems hard to obtain, we trailed using the much cheaper local Canola oil (rapeseed oil). We’ll know how the soap compares after the cakes have cured in a month or two’s time. The other innovation we did in the process was to use a stick mixer to mix the ingredients. And whoa! Did that turbo-charge the process or what? The mixture was ready to pour into moulds almost immediately, except not realising that change, we left the mixture for an hour. That was interesting to get the now firm stuff into the moulds. The process used to take about three days, but no longer. This is an ideal job for people with limited living space, although it is not a process for those whom are careless.
The combination of hot and then wet weather has firmly set the crushed rock with lime which was placed at the top of the new concrete staircase project. It’s a pleasant place to walk upon, and the stairs are great to use.
And with the now regular rainfall, even the grass in the sunny orchard has begun to show some early signs of turning green again.
In breaking produce news:
The turmeric tubers growing in the greenhouse look like they’ve had a great summer.
Pumpkin leaves are displaying signs of sooty mould, which is an indicator that the growing season is fast coming to a close for those plants. The rabbits and rats have taken about half of the crop. Both critters are hiding their burrow and nest in a thickly planted garden bed, which now needs to be cleared. Due to summer burn-off restrictions being in place, this work could not be done. At this stage fire restrictions won’t get lifted for another month, but after that, the tide will turn and the garden bed will be cleared.
The hot and dry summer killed a few of the ferns. But the ferns which did survive the conditions, have now all suddenly put on heaps of new growth.
Even the mosses have bounced back now the hot and dry weather is in the past.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 13’C (55’F). So far for last year there has been 142.0mm (5.6 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 137.8mm (5.4 inches)