‘Tis the season for tying up loose ends, as the old timers may have said. Or did they? That lot always had such nice succinct ways of imparting knowledge, usually via pithy clichés and stinging observations. Guess that ‘whatever works’, is an effective strategy. Just spent a few minutes searching the interweb to see whether anyone has used that exact phrase before, and it appears not. Winning! As a now certified old fella with proper bona fides and stuff, I now officially declare:
‘Tis the season for tying up loose ends!
You read it here first. It’s only fair to bore younger folks with such witty talk in the vain hope that in several decades time, they’ll too wish they’d listened closer to their elders. Serves them right if they had been mentally floating away whilst I was droning on. Whatever! Anyway, that was indeed my youthful experience when on the receiving end of useful advice. My grandfather once said to me: Those who can look ahead, get ahead. All very serious, but to my young mind he said it whilst driving, and who knew that he wasn’t talking about the traffic? Timing is a thing, you know.
Speaking of timing, the dust up in the middle east has been underway for almost eight months now, and fuel can still be purchased, albeit at greatly increased prices. I’d not fully appreciated how little of my time is spent in a motor vehicle, until a long road trip yesterday. Turns out that works out to a couple of hours per week of my time, and that’s it. Combined with small efficient vehicles, there’s little wonder that increased fuel costs haven’t been considered a noticeable hit to the household budget.
My granddad was full of contradictions as he had a sharp tongue and a kindly nature. He sure may have had something unflattering things to say about the volume of traffic on the roads these days. I recall that he used to express a somewhat proprietorial tone when discussing matters of infrastructure, which presumably arose due to putting his life on the line for the country in WWII. Yesterday whilst behind the wheel, the delightfully green pastoral scenery zipped by beyond the laminated glass. Black snaking country roads wove through hilly country which as the afternoon wore on, turned grey with thick clouds. A few drops of rain were effortlessly cleared from the windscreen. In the other lane a constant stream of cars zipped by outwards bound. That traffic baffled me as there was no discernable large destination which would warrant the sheer number of vehicles. Hard to know what all the individual stories would be to produce that outcome, but clearly fuel remains at an economic price point – the facts in this instance, speak for themselves.
A younger version of myself believed that one day civilisation would hit a critical resource limit like say fuel or copper, and then we’d all fall off a metaphorical cliff with zombies ruling the streets. It’s a comforting thought, because well, who can realistically resist an onslaught of the undead? Sooner or later, you’ll make a mistake, be overwhelmed, or simply run out of ammo – then you’ll join your new friends clamouring for brains. Oh what fun times you’ll then have!
The future however is most likely going to look like today, but with less stuff and energy, and just for fun it’ll all probably be expensive. One bright spot is that instead of human brains, we’ll be clamouring for spare parts as society makes the wiser decision to repair and look after the stuff we already have.
So yeah, run short, expensive, long before running out. That economic strategy may politely be described as: ‘rationing by price’. Sure beats having some ghoul sizing up your brain for its next meal. Which brings me to, earlier in the week I drove to the big box hardware store in the nearby outer urban area. It seemed busy enough, as were the roads. Whilst in the monster sized shed, I purchased a roll of copper wire, and holy carp, but was that price correct? $30 for 5m / 16.5ft! Ouch, that stuff is expensive nowadays, and I guess all that arty-fish-al data centres require oodles of useful metals thus pushing up prices! Guess they have more leverage than myself (pun intended).
Way back in March, long term readers will recall that we were constructing the new firewood shed. That project had been a long time coming, and it was a real bummer that a war broke out mid-way. Prices suddenly went up. The steel supply company slapped an instant price hike on the uber cool dark grey corrugated metal cladding, plus just for good measure there was a whopping diesel surcharge for delivery. Chris’s economic theory of ever expanding future prices was sadly proving to be correct. For those whom are interested, I kept a record of how much the materials cost:
- Timber posts x 13 = $340
- Gravel and sand for concrete (already had the cement powder) = $60
- Roof timbers / trusses = $1,310
- Roof timber battens = $405
- Steel strapping and nailing plates (already had some) = $86
- Steel roof cladding and exterior wall cladding = $2,559
- Steel wall cladding interior (already had)
- Steel wall battens (already had)
- Stainless steel screws (already had)
- Guttering and uPVC water pipes = $322
- uPVC pipe connectors = $50
- Plywood doors and galvanised hardware = $388
- Racking for solar panels = $374
- Secondhand solar panels x 8 = $300
- High rupture current and solar fuses = $265
- There may have been some other stuff I’d forgotten, like our labour and crushed rock with lime for the ground surface
The recent experience has left me with the distinct impression that it was cheaper to construct a house sixteen years ago. Economics are alas no longer the same as those halcyon days, and will probably get worse. Right now, I’m looking around here tallying up the things which aren’t completed, then doing them. Fortunately the undead aren’t a physical nuisance at the moment, but I still hear the ghost of my grandfather telling me:Those who can look ahead, get ahead. Just wish I could comprehend what the old bloke was talking about!
It’s been a week of extreme weather. Most of the days felt really hot. Check out this photo of an over-heating Kelpie in the greenhouse:
The weather is just as confusing for the dogs, whom it should be said are yet to blow their winter fur coats. On Saturday, super humid air displaced the central Australian derived heat, as a slow moving high pressure system spun anti-clockwise and pulled moisture from the wet Tasman Sea.
To say that this year has been wet, is like pointing out that Croesus was doing OK financially. The shady orchard, which has the oldest fruit trees on the property, is looking like a thick jungle.
The many ferns are loving the conditions and appear to be having a plant party.
Earlier in the week when the sun shone with some authority and the UV clocked in at a rating of 9 (Very High), I dug a long trench for a water pipe. The roof and guttering of the new woodshed was finally connected up to two water tanks which sit a bit further down the hill. For many months, rainfall collected from that roof, streamed into a garden bed. Now it’s being stored for future use.
Combined the two water tanks store 11,000L / 2,900 gallons and are now part of a larger system which holds 19,000L / 5,000 gallons. They’ll be a decent resource to draw from if other water systems run dry for any reason. Alert readers will note that the water storage here is separated into three independent systems. A failure in any two, will be bad, but survivable. A failure in all three and I’ll be offering my brains to the zombies, life sure would be easier that way.
After many hours working in the hot sun, the trench was dug and the pipes were joined. The pipe sits mostly underground now, and a ride on mower smoothed out the disturbed soil surface. The two inches of rain fell on Sunday and was the perfect test of the system for water captured on the roof of the firewood shed. Wet stuff flowed into the tanks all day long.
Observant readers will notice that the white uPVC pipe sits on top of the sloping garden bed. If we can physically see the pipe, it has a much lower chance of being damaged by digging in the garden soil.
With the free solar energy that is hot spring days, we applied a 50/50 mixture of linseed oil and mineral turpentine to many tool handles, outdoor seats and tables. The stuff cures nicely and gives a really smooth finish. Timber is less likely to dry out and break if it is protected by oil.
There are five terraced garden beds, with the top two having rows of raspberries and roses. The downhill edge of the highest bed was showing a bit of wear and tear from rainfall over the years, so we decided to add in a rock wall which will shore up the soil. That modification requires rocks, and fortunately at this stage, due to the winter forest clean up work, we’re rock wealthy – for now. Alas Peak Rocks will rear its ugly head again sooner or later, and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth – but until then…
A couple of hours was spent – in the heat – placing rocks just so, on the downhill edge of the highest terrace. Then we weeded the two rose and some of the raspberry garden beds. That job is now completed.
A couple of trailer loads of crushed rock with lime were placed on the site next to the house overflow water tank. That job is also now completed. Yup loose ends, what are these things?
In breaking produce news:
The grapevine enclosure needs to be weeded, and all ten vines are starting to grow strongly.
The potatoes planted a few weeks ago are now beginning to send their vines upwards in search of sunlight.
In the greenhouse, the earliest of the Babaco fruit are slowly beginning to ripen. Like bananas, they transform from a tasteless green to sweet bright yellow. The two plants will supply months of tasty brekkie treats.
The steel raised round garden beds which form the kitchen garden, are producing strongly. All of the plants enjoyed this weeks taste of summer.
Over the years we’ve selected for plants which are regularly consumed including: Perennial Rocket + Rocket (Aragula) + Chives + Silverbeet (Chard) + Tomatoes + Asparagus. All of these plants now set volunteer seed and have their own particular established cycles.
It is foolhardy to count your fruit before it is harvested, but it may finally be a good year for apricots, maybe…
Plums are doing pretty good too, and the Peaches aren’t too far behind either. At this location the Anzac peach is by far the hardiest and earliest variety.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 10’C (50’F). So far for this year there has been 1,069.0mm (42.1 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 1,012.0mm (39.8 inches)
Leave a Reply