Day 342 Woodbridge Wednesday 4th January 2012

    Just around the corner from Woodbridge

    Ditto looking across to Bruny Island

Hi Folks,

Back to weather reality this morning. We had showers and sun during the day. The sort of showers that make you run up the hill back to shelter!

Today's main task was planting out the artichokes. The hardest part was not losing control of the mower and trailer taking the compost down the wet hill to dig into the bed. After planting it was mulching with newspaper topped off with compost from the rubbish dump. While Susan finished this job Ann and I travelled to pick up some shelving for the sweat shop. I started cleaning it and will finish it tomorrow.

Late in the afternoon Susan and I took a trip up the road to an old cemetery beyond Flowerpot. The church associated with it burnt down in the bushfires of 1967 along with the jetty at Middleton. In fact we travelled down 3 "Jetty Roads" none of which had a jetty left. We took a few detours checking out some of the back roads and coastline.

We returned for another latish tea. Both of us were a bit under the weather today Susan with a headache and me with the after effects of last nights alcohol.
Anyway that's it a quietish day.

Night folks

Cheers Simon

This mornings rain!

Day 341 Woodbridge Tuesday 3rd January 2012

Hi All,

I was up bright and early this morning, make that just early as there was not much brightness involved. I arrived at the Mitsubishi dealer around 815 and spent the next 5 hours walking the streets of Hobart. After nearly 12 months I am actually getting the hang of the layout. I visited many shops and in the end only bought some hay fever pills and a couple of hats which i probably didn't need but they were bargains. I picked up my car with the cost being less than the expected quote mainly because they didn't do all the work. Over discussion their interpretation of the requirements was different to mine. They obviously don't need my money. I will change the coolant when i get back to Adelaide seeing as I have it "in stock" in our shed.

Meanwhile back at the ranch Susan was digging around the roses and the orchard trees and mulching them. She also shelled peas. During the day she firmed up her visit to Newcastle from 16th to 22nd of the month. We have decided to leave here on Monday and spend a week at Mount Field National Park. There are plenty of walks to do so we should be spending the whole week there.
Tea tonight was 2 roast chickens and vegetables. Very tasty and for the second night in a row we ate outside. The weather had cooled off a bit. A warm cloudy day near 30 again although a cooler SW breeze came through late afternoon and the sun came out.

I had beers, pinot noir and chardonnay before and after tea so tonight's blog will be mercifully short.

Night folks

Cheers Simon

PS Tonight's video of dolphins out front of the property taken in my absence is not a bad effort. Well done Susan!

Day 340 Woodbridge Monday 2nd January 2012

Hi Folks,

According to the unofficial weather station outside our cabin today was the hottest day since we have been in Tasmania with a maximum of 30C. This ties in pretty well with the official 29.4 in Hobart. We actually had a few drops of rain first up this morning but the clouds soon gave way to sunshine before it clouded over in the afternoon. The other observation of note was there was very little wind all day.
Ann headed out this morning and returned with a trailer load of sheep manure plus 2 wwoofer's, Teresa and Brett. While she was away we were digging weeds from the beds to be fertilised. The many hands had the fertiliser spread quickly. With no breeze and lots of humidity i worked up a good sweat.

After carting some compost and creating a garden bed we had lunch. After lunch it was time to plant out vegetable seedlings. I managed to up end one of the styro foam boxes of seedlings fortunately the damage was light. The bulk of the seedlings planted i adjourned at 4 to remove the roof bag and perform some preventative maintenance on the roof rack. With the bag off i was able to wash the roof properly.  I didn't get around to polishing it.

Susan is now trying to work out flights to Newcastle as here sister is flying her there and back to help her pack up house since they are moving overseas This has thrown a bit of a spanner in the travel plans so we will work out what to do in the next couple of days. She will leave approximately on the 12th and return approximately on the 24th. I could be deceased after 12 days of my own cooking!

Anyway off to bed i have to be up early to take the Paj to Hobart for the big service. Won't be much change out of $800.

Night folks

Simon

Day 339 Woodbridge Sunday 1st January 2012

Hello,
As mentioned last night a drizzle had started at bed time. Today was grey, so grey we couldn't judge time by the suns location. I sat down in the cabin and checked the time this afternoon and it was after 6. I was amazed.
It drizzled all morning a very inauspicious start to the new year and hopefully not a portent for our vacation.
Today Susan, cleaned black currants, cut down and shelled all the remaining broad beans as well as cutting down the peas.
I took one of the gates off to the vegetable patch, pulled the post and re erected it so that the 2 swing gates did not overlap. It was a bit of mucking around as all the mesh fence had to be pulled off the post and refixed. In the end it turned out ok.
That was the story the day really. A quiet one after new year celebrations last night.

Cheers Simon

Day 338 Woodbridge Saturday 31st December 2011

Cheese seller one. We only had one T shirt between us!



Cheese seller 2 with bad hair day! Bad tummy day!


Hi Folks,
New years eve and a long day for the old people. We were up at 515 via the alarm of course and on our way to Salamanca Market just after 6.
We set up the stall with Ann and then waited for the cheese to arrive. The first ferry doesn't leave Bruny Island until 7 so it wasn't there till after 8.
After loading the cheese into the cold cabinet and laying out the sourdough bread we had a quick instruction session from Nick the owner on what to do.
We kicked off and i mainly looked after the bread which all had to be bagged and Susan proffered the cheese for tasting and looked after the cheese sales. Ann meanwhile was doing her thing with her range of product.
The first hiccup of the day was the till breaking down. It died and Nick was unable to breathe life into it when he returned from his stall on the Taste Festival. We proceeded on with the cash drawer out. The day was busy with all the bread selling out before midday. We started packing up per usual at 3 and were home by 530. After an R&R break we changed and drove 2 minutes down to Peppermint Bay Resort For a New years get together with the locals. The food was provided by the owners. The weather was mild and we were able to sit out side looking over the sea. Most people including us headed off before 11. We returned to our cabin and had some cheese (tasting left overs)and wine to see the new year in. I noted that when i went to turn the internet off in the car there seemed to be very light drizzle falling!
Happy new year everybody!

Cheers Simon

Day 337 Woodbridge Friday 30th December 2011

Hi All,

Rather a quiet day today. Thinking Ann was in a kayak fishing I set about some tidying up only to be startled by her emergence from her bedroom. "That was 5.30 pm not am" she said, I can be forgiven for getting this wrong 1) it is daylight well before 5.30am, 2) Ann is up and out swimming most days at 6.00am 3) Other people are seen kayaking on the bay at this time....

We were soon joined by Lizzie and Lee in the clean up effort and by 10.00 all was done. We headed to Hobart for a day off with a vague plan to visit Alan at Cygnet also. That wasn't to happen as the lure of the shops overwhelmed us. The main purchase was oils and other potions for the car service next week. Apparently the 180,000km service is a big one and will take some 3 hours. Simon calculated we have travelled 38,000kms since we left Adelaide last July.

An earlier night for Simon hence my blog efforts once again. We will leave for the markets at 6.00am to do our best albeit with a knowledge deficit about cheese.

Cheers

Susan

Day 336 Woodbridge Thursday 29th December 2011

Hi Folks,

Today was spent preparing for the evenings party.

Susan says,
Well I would have won the bet as I tumbled out of "the cabin" I saw Ann had been pottering about placing collars on trees attacked overnight by rabbits and sprinklers were twirling about in several locations. There are no water restrictions here and there are 4 massive rainwater tanks and as it rains most days I guess using sprinklers is quite acceptable, although it is an unaccustomed sight for Adeladians.

After some general preparations I was dispatched to buy 15 bags of ice the nearest location Kettering, 8 kms down the road, the woman at the servo did comment on the volume. Whilst there I ventured into the little handmade choclatarie run by Giovanni (known as John) who was a maths/science teacher until he perfected a recipe for making nougat which brought him some international recognition. It was my intention to buy one little chocolate treat, but I was greeted with a sampler so I purchased some nougat for Simon and had a lemon choccy treat to savour on the return drive. One of the reasons for the trip was to ask Giovanni if he would sign my Providore book, which he will oblige on Saturday. Apparently the book is as rare as hens teeth and I was lucky to get the copy at the Margate shop, even more fortunate it was 1/4 of the new price.

Returning "home" we finalised preparations for the party I made some several hundred papadams for the curry themed menu. I also made my signature Asian noodle salad which must have been ok as I didn't get to have any myself.

The party was in full swing by 7pm, I reckon there was more than the 60 people expected, children were kept busy playing cricket and badmington, while the adults chatted, laughed ate and drank. Such a nice bunch of friendly people.

Simon says,
The day started with a chuckle when i found a pack of Lap Huong (sic) cured sausages made by a chinese named company with appropriate amounts of chinese characters on the wrapping. The laugh was that these were made in Australia! Given the Chinese food standards this is probably a good thing.

I doodled around the periphery fiddling with solar lights and trimming grass in visually accessible areas. In fact it was a pretty easy day for me. I took some time to complete some repairs on the electrics in the rear storage area in the pajero.

On to the party which Susan has described above. I was quite surprised everyone had left by 1030. I guess some people are working today and many had children so we had some time to clean up. There were many bottles of wine with half a glass in them from which i sampled. We were back in the cabin before midnight. I spent some time watching music videos on Youtube and was consequently to bed at 2. With the rising acid from over eating, the combination of beer and wine and the late night tomorrow might be a bit of a struggle!