Weekly update 4 July 2021

A month worth of rain in a week! While the week was almost mostly a write-off, we still got some of the gardening projects complete – especially our greenhouse and seedlings!

What an absolutely awful week.

Here’s the thing. Queensland doesn’t really get rain in the winter, yet about 6 weeks ago, and this last week, we had a months worth of rain in a few days.

A month.

Of rain.

/sigh.

So not only did I get nothing done outside, but we also lost power and internet on Friday which just put everything off side.

When this happens, it’s very hard to keep up with outside chores. Today I hauled 3 days worth of horse poo out of the arena paddock because you couldn’t even get in there without going for a slip and slide. And poor Moose just kicked up everything with his hooves so there’s gigantic craters in that space.

I feel like Mother Nature is working against me lately. I was supposed to have fencing done already, earth moving done, arena done…I mean my husbands surgery is one thing, and that was absolutely needed. But this other stuff is entirely dependant on the weather and the ability to work outside which hasn’t been done. Anytime you call a tradesperson they’re a minimum of a month behind, and then when this weird random rain hits…

But I digress. I have so many posts in draft that I’ve started writing, done the photography for and just haven’t been able to finish. I hate when I have unfinished projects.

So this weeks post round-up is much smaller than I anticipated, however, I do have some updates on things I did get done.

After losing power and getting a random storm this week, I was reminded of the importance of having really good utensils in the kitchen. Read 5 of the best kitchen tools for homesteaders to see what my faves are!

Moose has now been transferred onto his new feeding mix. I’ve introduced a higher protein food and some copra to help build his topline. I’m yet to plan out a little training schedule but hopefully tomorrow I’ll get some time to do that. He’s responding well to the food, but I’ll do an update post on that in a few weeks time.

Husband is now off the crutches, but still hobbling around. So he can’t necessarily walk as fast as he wants to, but he’s walking without the crutch. Each day he gets better and stronger and I can’t wait for him to be back to his regular self soon enough.

Today with the sun out and not a rain cloud in sight, I ventured outside. I managed to sort through the left over 6×4 bale of Rhodes hay in Moose’s stable. I thought I’d lost the whole bale but I only lost the bottom 30-ish cm. So huzzah, I hauled that good hay into his paddock as the rain and lack of grass and fencing means I’ve had him mostly in his arena paddock for the entire week and he’s gone through his bale in about 4 weeks instead of the usual 7-ish. The bad hay has been thrown into the garden in a deep mulch. I’m still waiting to get some organic soil so I will lift that to put the soil down underneath, but I’ve put it there for now to stop any weeds coming through.

I do have a post on soil management I wrote recently: read 5 ways to improve your garden soil.

I also put together my new mini greenhouse and sorted out some things I had started to seed. A few seedlings I started a few weeks ago mostly died. I think it was due to excess moisture, so I fished those out and tidied them up and planted new seeds.

The other thing I want to do with my garden is use the square foot/square centimetre gardening method. It basically divvies up a garden bed into 30cmx30cm squares as best you can so you can utilise as much of the garden bed you have available. I think it will be most beneficial for me to get the best yield out of the garden bed I already have without needing to expand it further.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking the temporary paddocks down and pricing out a star picket fence. I wanted to have a fence on either side of the house yard in the same log pole style but I just can’t continue waiting for these people to come out to quote the job when I can make it myself, albeit, using a slightly different method. I still want to split the block in half, but need a gate on either side so that when we have a need to go into the back with a trailer or 4wd we can still get in there.

And the oats we planted have started to sprout! So fingers crossed we get some nice bushy greenery where we tested it and it can setup well to hold the growth.

So other than that, there might be a glut of posts coming this week as I catch up with my post schedule. I also need to spend a few days updating my soap business social media profiles and fix up the shop so I can recommence soaping soon! There’s never a dull moment on the homestead as we work through the regular maintenance items and plan the rest of the projects!

If you’re interested in seeing what else we do around the farm, make sure to keep reading and link in with our socials. We update regularly on the progress of our projects. You can also subscribe to our blog to make sure you get all the round-ups and updates first!

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