Inflation is a real thing, although just prior to the Federal election over the weekend, reports suggested that it’s all under control. Nothing to see here. Yeah. Sure. Frankly speaking, I hold some doubts about those claims. Moving on… Most weeks, I work six out of seven days. The work done may not take up the whole day, but it’s work nonetheless.
On a day off last week, Sandra and I decided to visit the Garden of St Erth, which is maintained by the big local gardening club, and they’re known as: The Diggers Club. Long term readers will know by now, that we have plenty of experience with digging soil. However, I believe that the name of the group is instead a reference to the colloquialism for Australian WWI soldiers who fought in trench warfare. Digging being an activity necessary to create trenches in enemy territory and hopefully stay alive.
The garden in the township of Blackwood we visited last week, is really lovely, and the office is run from an historic stone house dating back to the gold rush era – as you do. Fortuitously, the garden is located in a similar climate and environment to here. There are plenty of ornamental aspects to the property, however, there’s also a large section devoted to edible plants from orchard trees, to vegetables and berries. The influence of that nearby garden can’t be overstated. Some of the arrangements and systems they have used there, work really well, and get put to the ultimate test from err, tourists. Ideas can sometimes be picked up by the mysterious workings of osmosis. As always though, it’s implementing those great ideas, which takes work – that’s the hard bit.
Inspiration is a funny thing. The more fashionable western end of the mountain range has a lot of old hill station gardens. They were created as a summer escape for super wealthy folks who fled 19th century Melbourne to avoid the very real risk of contracting Cholera, Typhoid, or possibly both. Years ago, the national open garden scheme and the owners used to organise many of the large hill station gardens to open to the public. What a wonderful opportunity it was to amble around long established gardens and marvel at the astounding created beauty. Plus the observant person, or more correctly in this instance, persons, could see what systems and arrangements worked on the hilly sites. Those gardens are so old, they’ve all been tested by time, and natural disasters. We pinched plenty of ideas from those gardens too.
Anyway, there we were at the Garden of St Erth a few days ago enjoying the warm sunshine in a quiet out of the way spot. On that note, is it just me, or has everyone else noticed how warm this year has been? Back to the story… Picture the scene, a picnic table, quiet garden all to ourselves, greenery galore, long shade from the low sun, and the pond water level was not as high as usual. Lunch sat before us waiting to be consumed. We’d picked it up along the way.
The pre-made chicken and salad roll at $12.50 each was candidly a bit soggy. It happens and can be forgiven. The chicken however didn’t quite taste like I’d expected it would. Roast chicken is a delightful tasting meat, and hey, I’m a mostly vegetarian too. This stuff, well, I’ve heard of frozen chicken chunks being purchased out of sight of customers, and delivered in large plastic bags. Not saying that was the case here, but I wasn’t a fan of what was being placed into the mouth.
Two rolls and two small lamingtons cost about $36. Serious people suggest that inflation is now in the past, but maybe I simply need to get out more. Afterwards we had a robust discussion as to the quality versus cost equation. Honestly, my opinion is that our mad cash was poorly spent that day, and we could do better.
One interesting thought experiment a person can do when presented with a challenging new situation, is to cast their mind back to what worked in the past. It’s like looking at all those old hill station gardens and seeing how folks coped with the same gardening problems we face nowadays, but comprehending they had far less tools and resources available a century and half ago. I doubt they had power wheelbarrows or electric jackhammers in those days! Anyway, the idea popped into our heads to avoid the sad moment of biting into an average quality chicken and salad roll, and to take a picnic instead. When I was a kid, people used to pack those wicker baskets with produce to fuel you through lunch whilst traipsing around wherever it was you happened to be going (not that we travelled much or far in those days).
Talk is one thing, action is an entirely different matter. I took on-board the picnic concept and decided to do a spontaneous test upon Sandra. Always handy to have a amiable victim, sorry I meant to type, test-subject (sounds much better don’t you reckon?)
Sandra worked a very long day at the election. This was the perfect opportunity to test out the picnic idea, which incidentally cost less than $10 (for two) – you judge the quality for yourself. Here’s a photo of Sandra’s dinner from that night:
There are two types of cheese, the lighter crumbly variety is a ploughman’s sharp cheddar (with overtones of pickled onion), whilst the other more yellow slice is a mild cheddar made using a vegetable rennet. Two chunks of triple smoked ham slices. A couple of small rounds of Kabana, which is a dry sausage usually made of pork. Two hard boiled eggs. And an oven fresh baked focaccia roll. What’s not to like?
The whole thing was a surprise dinner meal which Sandra enjoyed whilst on a short 15 minute break at the election work. But also more importantly, it was a test to see whether the picnic idea is a feasible option. It’s certainly cheaper, that’s for sure. The feedback was very positive.
Look, it’s hard to adapt to the much wider changing circumstances without feeling some sort of loss. I get that. And food quality is certainly becoming more variable, presumably as costs and corners are cut. In this instance however, let the losses be your guide forward, for life is too short to consume bad or average food.
It’s been another warm and dry week. Bizarrely warm for this time of year. It’s pleasant though, and no doubts winter will arrive soon enough. Fire restriction season has ended, and presumably the volume of burn-offs has put enough smoke particles in the air to produce some lovely looking sunsets…
The sun has been good to get solar derived electricity back into the house batteries, and the other day we took the following photograph for this week’s video.
Having used off-grid solar derived electricity for the past fifteen years, I hold some strong opinions upon the subject. Observing the black-out in Spain from a far distance, caused the old brain matter to begin cogitating. This week’s video is on that very subject.
Despite recent rainfall, the grasses in the paddocks and under the fruit trees still looks dry.
The over night temperatures are cool though, and cold air falls and accumulates in the valleys. One early morning you could see that smoke from burn offs had settled along with the sunken cold air.
Now that we can burn off again, I tackled some more of the old timer loggers mess. A large stump was cut from a discarded tree. The stump always contains the heaviest and densest timber, and so is the first thing to be tackled.
It took about five hours of work to cut and extract, then burn off the large tree stump.
The burn off was quite hot, and had to be pushed together in the dark.
It didn’t help that day that the chainsaw was playing up. The machine is 14 years old, and was recommended to me all those long years ago by the now sadly missed farm machine repair dude. He was right too, the machine is a beast. It was clearly a fuel issue causing the problems, so the carburettor was completely dismantled, and then restored using parts from a kit.
You can see the component sitting on top of the orange plastic case. The job was easy enough to do, although the fine tuning afterwards took a while. The parts kit was $17. Note to self, get a replacement restoration kit. There was also a bit of fine sawdust inside the carburettor which was surprising to find. Also the fuel metering diaphragm was faulty. It had squooshes on the raised O ring – you can see them. They’re not meant to be there.
Also whilst I was doing the work, the chainsaw bar was replaced. I lined the new bar flat up against the old bar, and the grooves are clearly very different widths. The groove works to stop the chain from becoming wonky and cutting at strange angles. Of course, the bar is a consumable item and meant to wear out.
It’s a very well designed and built machine that one. It also happens to be thoughtfully designed to be repaired and maintained. This particular model was constructed in one guise or another for a couple of decades. Wouldn’t it be a fine thing if all machines were constructed that way?
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 14’C (57’F). So far for last year there has been 189.6mm (7.5 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 178.8mm (7.0 inches)