Massive apologies.  The Christmas period has been hectic, and the blog has been neglected as a result.  However, the shed is up, the stove installed, we have a bath with running hot water, the dunny (toilet to all the non-Oz readers) is functional and nearly completed, the goats, pigs and chooks are thriving, 'er indoors is still as beautiful as ever, and I have a teaching contract for next year.

Will do a proper update, with piccies very shortly.

It's all happening

This has been a busy few weeks. We bought two miniature pigs. Well....not so miniature. They're about 75-80 kg each. We named them Regan (the black one) and Janice (the spotty one.) Regan is a surly beast who retreats into her den, coming out to grumble at the world. Janice is a whining complainer who pokes her nose into everyone else's business. Of course, their names have no connection to any persons living or dead.

When Woody's Diggers had done with our trees there were plenty of tops to be dealt with. Andy, the excavator driver, left them in four tidy heaps for us to burn off. Here is one of those heaps, with me next to it to give an idea of scale.

They burned really well. This one is still smouldering 11 days after I torched it. The other three seem to be out.

We managed to get some water in the dam by buying in a couple of truckloads, so I decided to have a bath. It had been 35 deg that day and the cold water was delightful, if a little muddy. Pictures of entrance and exit are tastefully reserved for private screenings only.

The slab for the shed was poured on a 32 deg day that also had 100 km/hr winds. Tasmania's first bushfire of the season happened on the same day, about 4 hours from here, and five houses were lost.

Jack Jack and Suzy decided the dam was the place to be.

We also bought three Boer goats: 2 does and a buck. The does are Lulu - a blonde with a loud voice - and Miriam - much darker and more melodious. The buck is Desmond: well, he IS a short South African with curly hair, a cheerful disposition and gigantic cojones. That's Desmond copping it up the spare ribs from the assertive Lulu. Lulu is a cross-breed Boer, while Miriam and Desmond are full-blood.

Desmond found out all about the electric fence by getting his horns stuck under the stand-off wire - that's the wire at chest height which is there to prevent the goats from rubbing on the mesh and collapsing the fence. I don't know how much kick the fence has, but it hurts, even through a shirt, and Desmond's horns got hooked on the wire. Ken Kesey wrote a book about that sort of experience.

The shed arrived today!

About three hours after unloading and construction is well underway.

Of roads and dams and chooks and things...

A local drops in to inspect our progress.

Putting up with freezing weather, including a little snow, when I first arrived in August was to be expected. But we're now in November and there is snow predicted for the higher peaks in our area for tonight! Not funny. We've had such strong wind gusts today that I have dropped the tarp from over the caravan to prevent it from blowing away.
The past week or so has been quite eventful:
Andy finished the siteworks for the shed and dam;

we planted a further 20+ native plants, dozens of herbs and a bunch of deciduous trees to stabilise the earthworks;

the new chickens are growing well;

rain today put water in the dam (well a few litres....but it's a start;)

bought 10 grapevines - Pinot Noir - which have yet to be planted;
we've arranged to buy two miniature pigs next Monday - very exciting.

Inevitably, there are the frustrations: waiting for council to approve our development application so that our shed can be erected legally; trying to get concreters and builders to do the job before Christmas (yes, I know I should be doing it myself, but with 4 relatives arriving in about 5 1/2 weeks the pressure is on;) the weather.

The hot water system boils up the shower water: our take on a rocket stove. The shower itself is a bucket and a tin cup.

What a month!
So far we have bought an extra 10 chooks.....had a huge amount of site works done for our shed... changed our preferred housesite at least twice...bought furniture...cleared about 1 ha of land.... I nearly got killed by a "widow-maker" tree: a stringy-bark which dropped a massive dead limb...set up a veggie garden...bought an extra trailer...discovered a dragon...Jack-Jack, one of the dogs made his first kill: unfortunately, it was a bandicoot, but his second one was a mouse, so he's getting the idea. I think that's about it.

First: it's great to have She-who-must-be-obeyed on site. I'm not dropping weight as quickly as I was, and my alcohol consumption has certainly increased, but it's worth it to have her here.

Second: Jim Woodward's firm, Woody's Diggers, and their main plant operator, Andrew, are brilliant. Woody came in with a cheaper quote than anyone else, has done a better job than expected, and coming in under budget. Difficult to complain about. ...and they're damn nice guys too.

Our neighbours, Ben and Anna, are brilliant. We have made friends with a woman, Louise, from the sub-division South of us. And all is right with the world.

The widow maker

..and its dropped branch

..had to go

The biggest tree on the hill.

How the mighty are fallen...

The dragon in the Huon River.

Jack-Jack's first kill.

September

Finally we moved.

We hitched up the Suzuki Vitara to a luggage trailer full of gear (slightly overloaded) and headed south.

We visited Sue's sister, Gay, in Boort, Victoria for a while. She generously urged us to borrow her pop-top caravan for temporary accommodation, and we agreed. So there were two crossings of Bass Strait in two weeks: one with the trailer and one with the 'van.

I came down alone on both trips to get things established, little appreciating how long it takes to get things done. A week or so after I got set up, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed arrived for a couple of weeks. She was simply underwhelmed by the sleet, gas lantern for light when the generator wouldn't start, strong winds, bla-bla.

Piece of advice: don't buy a Scorpion Generator. Mine presented problems from day one: an absolute piece of crap.

After Sue left, I bought a solar panel, controller and inverter from a firm in Hobart.

Next piece of advice: don't buy solar energy components from a salesman without finding out if he knows what he is talking about. After promising delivery in 4 days, there was nothing on the ground after 10. I cracked up, and received a controller very smartly. Not the one I ordered, but a bigger beast. Worth more money, but way overpowered for my set-up. A controller came with it too.

The inverter allowed me to run the genny into a battery bank, through the inverter, and into the 'van, using the computer, etc.

Then the solar panel arrived: 300 watts. I ordered a mounting frame for it, but it wasn't made on time (surprise, surprise) and was presented with a heap of aluminium angle to make one myself, which I did.

Looked at the label on the back of the panel and thought: "This is a 48 volt panel for my 24 volt system - not good." I rang the shop and was assured that it was perfect for the system. Rang the manufacturer of the controller and was told a different story: "No. It will destroy the controller." Demanded, and got, a refund on the controller and ordered an MPPT controller from another (reliable) supplier - Tasman Energy of Deloraine are brilliant and their advice is spot-on. There was another mix-up resulting in me getting a better controller than I paid for. Result: this controller and the inverter will be more than enough for any system I am ever likely to se up. I just have to expand the battery bank and generating power. I also picked up a 500 watt wind turbine.

Sue came back down here permanently at the end of the month.

In the meantime, I had built a chookpen and picked up 6 Isa Brown chooks that Sue had ordered during her first visit. They immediately started cranking out 5 or 6 eggs per day - cholesterol city. I had also taken delivery of the two cutest dogs on earth from my daughter in Brisbane: Jack-Jack, a Jack Russell cross, and Suzy, a red-heeler/dachsund cross. At least they ate the excess eggs and protected the chooks.

Quite an eventful month.