Long time since last blog

Well it has been a long time since our last blog - our lives have been turned upside down for awhile but we are now on track again.

Many things have changed and progress has been made. All of the internal fences are gone as well as the cattle yards which we sold for a farm ute - sometimes it works fantastically well and sometimes it decides to go on strike however it does get our water container to all of our new trees so that we can water them all. Twice in pure desperation poor Tom has pushed it to the slope and we have kick started it - works a treat! We have had all of the grass slashed down and have enormous heaps of grass around the farm - apparently if we drop soil on them they will mulch down much quicker so we are in the process of doing that but also using it for around all of the new trees.

We have been madly buying trees from all over the place and can't wait to see what they will all look like. Winter months this year has been hard on our plants - all 8 of the coffee trees died from the series of 7 frosts in a row - the frosts also cut back all of our clumping bamboo, 2 of which we lost all together which is a shame - we were so looking forward to watching them spring forth over the spring/summer seasons.

All of our citrus - other than one Kaffir Lime - got through unscathed from the frosts and are doing well - we have ordered another 25 and will be lots more in what was once the front paddock which we will now not be putting any holes on at all because of the steep slope there. Perfect place for more lime trees!

We have also ordered another 18 coffee trees which should provide us with more coffee than we will ever be able to use for our own use - perhaps a future sideline for us to explore!

We have added greatly to our equipment - water container (1000 litres), ute, chain saw, brush cutter, blower (to clean up the mowers) etc etc - the list of needs for this place grows expedientially! However we deal with it one day at a time and are getting more experienced at finding novel solutions to problems.

To add to our finances I have found myself a job again. I am once more working for RSL Care as a personal carer - work I love and it gives me a break from the farm work, an income and some social contact with people - there is really no down side to it! Great!!

We are learning about plants as we go - reading up on which ones are which and their individual needs, interesting and hopefully will help us to keep from making terrible mistakes with what we plant. Hopefully it will all come together as something lovely - in time.........

We also have other fruit trees with the idea of being wholely self sustaining in fruit and vege sometime in the future -  with this in mind we are converting the carport to a green house and growing vegetables there - it is also the place where we intend to do some propogating of trees as well - so far so good.

We have several fairways and greens in the making now and the plans for placement of them has changed with the landscape being a bit of a problem in some areas but all is well and the changes working out ok.