Three months and a Jetty

Three months just flew by. We've been super busy and have found that having wwoofers here certainly helps getting things done. Since our camera is broken all the photos today are from our fantastic wwoofers Lauren and Josie who were with us from Boston for 5 weeks. Josie and Lauren had a great time exploring the area and helped us with so many projects. We built a sweet little jetty on our dam affectionately referred to as the Lofty meadows pond marina. We were a little perplexed as to how we were going to dig holes for the poles in a large puddle of water when a friend gave us the tip that the poles needn't be buried. So with a bit of bracing we stood the poles up and then just braced everything to the poles on the shore. Really that makes it sound so easy but thats because I was on the shore helping with the bracing. Dave was the brave one who wallowed in the freezing cold water and wrestled the heavy poles into position. Then with the help of Wwoofers Roy&Yeji from Korea and Lauren & Josie the flooring went on. Before we knew it we had a party of pirates doing their thing on the high seas

Cooking Pizza

It has been well worthwhile building our new improved oven...it is fantastic! With a few hours firing it cooks for about 2 hours. Having the fire pit close by to shovel the coals into and then reheat the oven after a few hours is a great way to cook all night long....makes for good fun pizza parties. The big long bench set up is also a fantastic improvement-Pizza prep on one side of the oven and pizza chopping and eating on the other. We have thoroughly enjoyed all the creativity...everyone wants to get in and make their special topped pizza or calzone

Our new oven

With the help of our fantastic wwoofers we have finished our new pizza oven and we are looking forward to the first feast. Finding the clay was the first step, we found a big seam of it in the front paddock and filled the bath tub about half way and covered it with water. Our last wonderful wwoofer Dafna had begun so there was some clay in the bottom that had already been soaking for a good few weeks. This was great for stomping as it was much softer and it is certainly worth soaking the clay for as long as possible beforehand. So the bare foot stomping began in the tub ..it felt great...but jeez our feet were sore the next day!
For the first layer we added sand until it felt like a good consistancy...not too wet..and just after building the dome of sand(covered in plastic) we started throwing the mud on. We built up a good thick layer had a rest and then added straw to the mix and put the next layer on. We found it easier to add the straw by hand as we went.We then added the finishing touches and will wait a week before we pull the sand out. After three days of beautiful clear winter weather it feels quite dry and hard on the outside in the parts exposed to the sun.

Busy days

It's been a while ...because we've been so busy! We have covered our Vegie garden completly to keep all the wildlife out...we'll see how that goes! We had wwoofers from Turkey, Germany and Israel that helped us out with that...great to have all those extra hands to wrestle the net- 25m X 20m worth. I am really looking forward to planting seed without the frustration of it all being scratched up!

We've had some beautiful Wallabies around coming right up to the house...it makes me feel glad we don't have a dog to chase them off..every now and then we see a sign up on our local noticeboard for some beautiful hound and the kids beg and we only have to remind them of the little wallabies coming right up to our front door

It's been perfect weather for working out in the garden and after all the rain we had everything is growing so well. All 300 of the strawberry plant survived the trip from the vegie garden to the new strawberry plot. I was impressed because I was so rough with them..just ripping them out and throwing them around. Looking forward to the 1st fruits!

The magic of Biodynamics

I attended a biodynamic workshop on the weekend and am feeling recharged in my enthusiasm for this magic method. We spent a day covering the therory of soil structure and the elements of biodynamics and we built a huge BD compost heap. So fantastic to have 15 people gathering and preparing materials-it came together so quickly. I'm looking forward to observing how using the preperations change our Lofty meadows.

Early morning Wallabies

Every morning we have a few spots around the block that the wallabies love grazing on. We love it-they are so lovely, so inquisitive and thoughtful looking. This photo was taken yesterday- a beautiful clear autumn day and last night the rain started. It rained all night and all day ...thank goodness we were very low in water and now one tank is already overflowing. The freshly transplanted strawberries are already perking up after their move.

1st bunch of Bananas

We are coming up close to two years here at our lovely lush Lofty meadows and we'll be picking our first bunch of bananas soon. It has been so satisfying to watch them grow from tiny little suckers into big healthy fruit bearing trees in such a short amount of time.

Our old Pizza oven

So it's time to build a better version of our pizza oven. This time with a roof to protect from the weather. I would like to keep with the dragon theme...having the dragon breathe fire was fantastic. This time we will build the oven with a ledge at the front to rest waiting or ready pizzas on.

Autumn..after all the rain

We are finally feeling autumn now...beautiful cool mornings and crystal clear days. We have had so much rain everything is booming in growth. In all the rain our pizza oven finally collapsed so time to build the bigger and better version.

Lofty Meadows Dawn NYE 2009

19 months on Lofty Meadows and we have done so much