The Lockdown continues

With us all being discouraged from travelling, there has been a lot of time spent at home and in the garden.

The bench repairs have been completed and the bench is now back in the pizza oven area. In addition we have purchased a new bench for the rainforest area.

Bench repairs

The finished product

The new bench installed in the rainforest area

Our citrus fruit trees are now being harvested and indeed the lemon harvest is already complete. I converted most of the them to lemon marmalade, with the Lemon and Lagavulin recipe being a particular favourite.

This marmalade is being rapidly consumed!

Our plans for the house renovations have been steadily progressing and the plans have now been submitted for council approval. Meanwhile we have progressed the next stage of our aim to become energy independent with the installation of a Telsa battery. So far we have found the battery works well at storing excess solar energy generated during the day and then using it in the evening. Sadly our solar system has been underperforming due to shading from the trees. We will now look at relocating some of the panels once the roof is extended to the west.

The new Tesla battery installed in the carport

I have been pondering for a while on the idea of installing a large pond in the paddock area. This area is often very soggy and bog loving plants have naturally sprung up in the area. A few weeks ago I staked out the area, cut back the grass in the area, which would be pond and took some aerial shots. I'm still pondering but I think it would work.

The planned pond area between the trees. The long grass area would be an island.

After much thought I have now committed to installing wicking beds for vegetables in the gravel area. This is close to the house, but still gets plenty of sun and so should work well. The first two beds are built and I am just waiting on delivery of the wicking bed components before completing them. We will wait until the new shed is built before building any more wicking beds as they will be quite close to where the shed is going to be located.

Clearing and levelling for wicking beds

Completed wicking bed structure

I bought a wildlife camera about a month ago. It has been installed in various locations down around the rainforest area and it has been fascinating to see the wildlife that frequents the area. So far we have seen a brushtailed possum, long nosed bandicoot, a fox and lots of kookaburras. 

A fox passing through the rainforest area

Hannah, James and the boys came to stay for a long weekend which was fun. The boys enjoyed  fishing for tadpoles in the pond and each planted a paperbark down near the stream.

Fishing for tadpoles

The pizza oven was in action once again

New wellies and gloves are just the job for gardening

Jackson with his Paperbark

Max trying to be a Paperbark!

We have just had another wet weekend with 95 mm of rain yesterday. The firewood stocks have been depleting fast and we are looking forward to some warmer weather.

Things are looking soggy at the bottom of the property