Day 129 Bundagen Sunday 14th October 2012

Evening folks,

Susan has cracked under the blog pressure and handed it back to me.

Another honest day's toil here. First of all i must hark back to last nights pizza which although tasty must have been the most expensive per unit area that i have ever had. $19.50 and it was rattling around in a normal size pizza box.

Since i am time poor tonight a brief thumbnail of the days events. Susan gardened in many forms for the whole day. I made a days work out of pouring the concrete pad for the fire pump. To be fair the hardest part was making it correct dimension and locating the wooden template for the securing bolts in the right location. I was interrupted by rain in the middle of the day so replaced the exhaust fan for our hosts composting toilet. i managed to bash my finger with something removing the rusted on bolts. Nurse Susan applied the required band aids. I only ever bash my finger when i don't have gloves on. Or maybe i only remember it when i don't have gloves on.

Hopefully when i pull the wood off the pump will sit over the bolts.

Had a good laugh tonight when we were watching Jack Irish on the teev. Our host said " I wouldn't be going into that house with all that spooky music playing" (tension building theme music).

When we were at the irrigation/solar/all things green shop yesterday the owner in response to my comment about my panels having different maximum power voltages suggested connecting them in series to see if that improves the charge rate. I checked that my controller can handle the extra voltage, it  can so I will make the cable tomorrow  I am sure you are all riveted by this information. Will give me something interesting to try.

Anyway that's it i need sleep.

have a happy Monday back at work for those of you that are.

night Simon

Day 128 Bundagen Saturday 13th October 2012

Hi Folks

A day off for us today, as we decided to take up Shunyam's suggestion to go to the Coffs Harbour Botanic Gardens we were able to do a few pick up items for projects around the garden as well, saving Shuni a drive into Coffs.

We collected the star droppers for the peach tunnel and the elbows for the fire pump pipe, then drove into the city centre to find a jeweler to repair my necklace. This is the same necklace that went flying into the grass at 4 am in Weipa (Day 83, 2010) and has already had another repair in Tasmania.

The first jeweler was closed. The next one we stumbled upon in the city square turned out to be an interesting encounter.

Firstly he fixed my necklace on the spot and did not charge me for it. Then, as I made some remark about the necklaces' history this got us onto our road tripping the country. He suggested we should visit Yowah to see migratory birds and go opal noodling. He (Nicholas) showed us an opal piece that he had made recently. As the conversation progressed further he produced another piece which happened to be the piece I had voted for at the Bellingen Art prize (Day 120). I showed him the picture from my camera, unfortunately he did not win the peoples award! Nicholas then told us the story of the piece. It is a gold, silver and opal potpourri box and depicts Yowah and a Yowie, his mate, and other aspects from his time there. I got to hold it, truly beautiful and unique, but unfortunately outside my budget by a couple of 00's.

Black Panther

Nicholas then showed us another piece made from this composite opal with a natural "picture" of a black panther in the stone. He will probably sell it in South America as black panthers are some sort of talisman there. In this short encounter we had a good few laughs, exchanged some information, got to see some unusual pieces of jewelry, learnt a few things and mused on "synchronicity". Nicholas gave us his card. We didn't have one of ours to exchange, and I have only now looked at the name of the shop "What Women Want", also gave me a chuckle as we watched the Mel Gibson movie a couple of weeks ago.

I really recommend a visit there and have a look at his web page also. Ohh and I did buy some lovely gold sleeper earrings.

Next stop the Botanic Gardens, the gardens are not that old only established in the 1980's (opened 1988). The site having a previous history as a rubbish dump and earlier the night soil dump, might have something to do with why things are growing so well. We wandered about for a couple of hours and had planned to have lunch at the tearooms, to find the building completed but no shop.

A late lunch was finally taken at the Fish Co-op and cafe at the marina, me, grilled fish and salad, Simon, squid and chips. We had heard there was a good lookout and decided it must be the one at Mutton Bird Island so we took a walk up to the top and managed to see whales frolicking about in the distance, too far for any decent pictures or video.

Intending to drive the road between Corumba and Dorrigo we set out at 4pm stopping for coffee at Corumba before deciding this scenic drive would have to wait until another day. We drove around Coffs and Sawtell getting the lay of the land, bought take-away pizza and parked at the Sawtell lookout to watch the sun go down.

Perfect end to a nice day out.

Susan

Coffs Harbour Botanic Gardens

Human sundial CHBG

Japanese Garden

View from the Tearoom

Mutton Bird Island

Marina

Tea time parking spot Sawtell

Day 127 Bundagen Friday 12th October 2012

Evening folks,

Today started at about 5 when Susan awoke me with " I think there is a tick on my neck" There was, so i applied the Lyclear and it was well and truly dead by 8 when i pulled it out. We had a count up this evening. She has had approximately 6 to my 1 (adult size that is).

The rest of the day produced far less adrenaline although we did have three pythons on the water tank at one stage. It was windy as buggery today (that's a meteorological term). We seem to have missed the worst of the rain compared to say Ulladulla on the mid south coast which had 234mm in 24 hours. Hopefully it will be clement tomorrow since we are having a day off.

Today Susan gardened, while i dismantled the fire system trial, took down some defunct shade sail fittings and did some tidying up.

This afternoon i took a spin into Bellingen for the usual supplies, diesel, chocolate, beer and an expresso coffee. Tonight after a roast lamb dinner we watched "Welcome to Woop Woop" a quirky Australian film which was quite enjoyable.

That's it short and sweet.

Night all

Simon

Day 126 Bundagen Thursday 11th October 2012

Hi All,

Our radars went haywire overnight and we didn't wake until 8:30 this morning, we think it was because of the rain and cloud cover being so thick that we didn't know it was morning, or perhaps it was because we didn't get to bed until almost midnight.

It rained on an off for most of the day, showers Simon would say, not rain. To me any water falling from the sky is rain (except snow and hail), which by the way was forecast for Mount Lofty back home in Adelaide. Wonder if my daughter Maddie was tempted to go up there with her snowboard?

Simon's assignment today was to install a fly screen onto the kitchen window, it is a fancy contraction which slides up and down a channel just right for those situations where a screen is not needed every day. Well the job looked easier on paper, first he had to dismantle a shelf, and find some additional timber to add extra framing, consequently things are in abeyance until extra timber can be found.

Fire pump 

The sprinkler hoisted on a star picket

I washed all the outside windows and washed mildew from door and window frames. After lunch it was planting and weeding for me during breaks in rain. Simon rigged up the sprinkler and gave it a whirl, Result "it is a goer" and will do the job well once mounted on the roof.

At 6:30 we headed off the the Main House to join the choir tuition. We both enjoyed it. There was only one other male singer, and 8 women. Simon can carry a tune well, I like to sing but apparently sound like a wounded cat to Simons ear!

After choir practice we headed home for a dinner of sausages and a bit of TV before bed. Tomorrow's forecast promises sunshine, lets hope they are right.

Night folks

Susan

Day 125 Bundagen Wednesday 10th October 2012

G'day


Work proceeded at a steady pace today, Simon finished off vermin proofing the battery shed, a task which I had started yesterday, armed with the staple gun, which he also used to finish off the blueberry tunnel. I probably should explain because as we all know staples do not keep mice and rats at bay. Shunyam purchased some "vermin wire" a bird wire of about 20mm wide x 25 metres for $33, which seems exorbitant as he same wire 800mm x 40 m in Maclean was $35, they say smaller is more expensive in many things but I wouldn't have thought that meant bird wire!

I had rolled double and triple lengths and packed it under rafters and made sundry other small wads to plug up other holes. Shunyam was concerned they could still get in under the fluted roof and suggested stapling the wire in a certain way to stop this. I had of course missed an opening that they could waltz through which Simon spotted (I plead the sun was in the wrong position) he also discovered their actual entry point and plugged that as well. Still armed with the staple gun he moved on to the bird netting and stapled that into position. Last night just draped into position it actually did deter the bandicoot which had been digging there and disturbing the roots. Unfortunately I don't think the blueberries will be ripe before we leave.

View from the front

View from the back, same as the front apart from the door!

The design of these netted tunnels are very simple using star droppers and ag pipe which is bent cover, and timbers screwed to the pipes, and old door in a basic frame.

I weeded, planted, cut  and sawed branches, dug and layed weed mat and helped with meals and dishes.

Simon laid out the 50mm pipe for the fire sprinkler, he had wanted to test it today but laying the pipe out flat from its coiled position proved to be a trial, so he left it in the sun hopefully to soften a bit so that he can move it into position more easily tomorrow.

Ohh and the interesting tit bit for the day is behaviour of the pied butcher bird, which has been coming to watch me work for the past few days, for a wild thing it is not at all timid, tomorrow I will see if it will take a worm from my hand. It seems to really like them and watches eagerly where I have dug and grabs them up quickly. In telling Shunyam of the butcher bird she remarked on the kookaburras which can be hand fed, on reflection they do come up close as well.

Life surrounded by forest!

Night night

Susan

Day 124 Bundagen Tuesday 9th October 2012

Hi Folks,

The apprentice is feeling much improved and is on blogger duty once more... Today we worked on the blueberry "tunnel", Simon completed the timber slats and I assisted to pull the metres of netting up and over. We need a few more supplies, now purchased, so in theory it will be completed on Thursday.

 As usual I did weeding, planting, watering, and Simon played fireman setting up the fire pump and attaching it to the top tank. Shunyam collected the fire sprinkler which is to be mounted on the roof and has a radius 25metres and a flow rate 200l per minute, her tank will last 100 minutes at that rate. Price of one sprinkler $200!

 Bundagen is quite vulnerable to fire as it is surrounded by forest. It does have one fire truck operated by community members although I haven't ascertained if they have fire training provided by the Rural Fire Service like the farm operated units do in South Australia. Simon is currently wearing one of his sons "cast off" tee shirts emblazoned with "Fire and Rescue" from his CFS days at Seaford, hope no-one thinks Simon has any expertise in this area haha.

We headed into Sawtell for a movie night via a few shops at Tormeena. Tormeena was just forest when the Bundagen community was established, and Sawtell was a sleepy fishing town, as was Repton to the south. Apparently the local fishermen were not happy when the community was established as the lost the expanse of beach front that they used to have exclusive access to.

Shunyam directed us to the look out and Simon took some pictures, the point southward is Bundagen on the right of the pano shot below.

Kite surf action

Looking north from Sawtell towards Coffs

Pano of the Sawtell estuary

After dinner at the Thai restaurant (the famous pizza place was closed) we watched Hope Springs, the shorts were deceptive, it wasn't as funny as expected, but we did have some excellent organic popcorn, brought in by Shunyam.

Ohh and for a cool $1.75m yes $1,750,000 the picture theatre is for sale.

We toodled home at about 9.30.

Night Folks

Susan

Day 123 Bundagen Monday 8th October 2012

Evening folks,

A couple of light showers this evening after it came over very dark this afternoon.
Susan is recovering well from her virus. She was on the garden tools again today. Weeding, mulching, watering and mowing. She also prepared tea since Shunyam was at the shops stocking up as her car will be in dock for the next 3 days.

Old grey beard plodding along

The slope made the door framing interesting

Reverse view with a couple more slats to go on plus the net of course

I started on the frame for the tunnel over the blueberries and strawberries to keep the critters at bay. Not only is there an army of fruit fly to destroy the crops aside from the normal cabbage whites. There are wallabies, rats, fruit bats and bandicoots. Basically everything has to be caged and then protected from fruit fly. When you add in the watering, fertilising, planting etc. etc. Woolies starts to look like an option. It is nice to be able to pick your goods fresh for tea. I would have done a bit more on the cage but when the dark clouds arrived i raced around putting the tools away which guaranteed no rain.

Bin on left for used paper, note split pan with blue lid that slides back when you sit. Bin of sawdust in the foreground.

Included tonight are pictures of the composting toilet we use. At over $1000 these are substantially more expensive than a porta potti. They work on similar principles to others we have encountered. There are a few variations on the theme. The one we use has a split bowl to separate the liquids from the solids. The liquid goes to the grey water disposal. The useage protocol here is, do your business, used paper goes in a bin, rinse the urine from the wet side with the rose, add a bit of saw dust and clean up with antiseptic wipes if required. The lid over the receptacle slides back when weight is on the seat. There is a constant draw fan that pulls air slowly from the chamber to the outside. Quite non smelly although to be fair i haven't got too close! The big advantage of the composting toilet is it saves heaps of water.

View of the main house from our cabin looking through the vegetable patches

We are off to the cinema in Sawtell tomorrow night so i am told.

night folks

Cheers Simon