Working and Growing!

Winner of the Biggest Plant with Biggest Flower competition has to be this beast of a plant (shown above) growing at the end of our drive. This is how it looked a couple of weeks ago when we noticed a giant asparagus-like flower-spike emerging from amongst the huge leaves.

And this is how it looked this morning - the flower-spike must be about 30 foot tall now, and rising! Something tells me this is not an Aussie native. If anyone can tell us what this plant is, we'd love to know. How tall will it grow? Watch this space! And, just to shatter any illusions you may have about Aussie weather, please note that Tam is wearing a long sleeved top and rain hat!

Hurrah! Tam has started her new job at Gondwana, a wholesale nursery specialising in growing and supplying native plants throughout Australia. Aside from working in a stunning location, being paid to learn all about the propogation and care of Aussie plants, Tam reports that they have a proper coffee machine. My wife is a happy woman, with breaks enhanced by the divine smell, taste and welcome effects of good espresso, whilst relaxing on a huge verandah overlooking wild Aussie countryside. Meanwhile, I'm knocking up gluten free lasagnes, rice balls, quiches and salads in the hot kitchen at Nimbin Organics a couple of days a week - where, sadly, there is no coffee machine....

Back at the ranch, we've treated ourselves to a new push-mower, to reach all the rough bits that the Duchess can't get to. This is MY mower (as opposed to the ride-on Duchess, which is undoubtedly Tam's) and it's definitely paying dividends - my tummy muscles are getting a regular and much needed work-out. Of course mowing is limited to dry days and whilst the Southern regions of Australia are suffering an apocalyptic heatwave (officially due to Climate Change) we are experiencing irregular heavy rainfall or drizzle with occasional hot spells inbetween. So everything, including grass, is growing at an alarming rate, leaving little opportunity to mow.....

Check out these Strong Gels: having successfully loaded the trailer with wardrobe, scaffolding and lots of other cast-offs from sister in Brisbane, Felicity and Tam were suitably pleased with themselves! We plan to construct a shed or car port using the scaffolding - any design ideas very welcome.

And of course, a blog entry cannot pass without a brief update on the welfare of our three remaining chooks. They are roosting in their chook house again, but are still laying randomly around the exterior of the house, rather than in the nest box where their sister perished. Here they are, brushing themselves off after a recent downpour and entertaining us with their comic antics:

They're taking over.....

Well its all gone a bit Animal Farm around here lately with some chooks thinking they're perhaps a little more equal than others! Ever since our lovely hens had a Christmas break down at Grant's, they've been getting a bit above themselves.

We suspect the hen above had ideas for writing her own blog or perhaps she wanted to redesign the hen-house using Autocad, whilst reading up on post and beam technology! And poor Milly was rather taken aback to find them roosting on her bed the other day -

The hens moved to Grant's place, 15km down winding roads, for a week whilst Tam, Milly and Jen took a road trip down to Dungog to spend a few days with Clare & Shane.

Moving the chook house to Grant's using the trailer was Jen's great idea. Unfortunately she had to work at Nimbin Organics on the day of the BIG and utterly back-breaking move, leaving Grant and Tam to get the job done.

All agreed this was a 'Never To Be Repeated' exercise. However, their home from home was a success and as Grant chooses not to celebrate Christmas at all (ie. no roast dinner), we felt they would be safe with him! Grant enjoyed their occasionally ridiculous antics and a regular supply of eggs for a week or so! Thank you so much for taking such good care of our hens Grant!

The chooks and their house are now reinstalled at our place and the girls, being well-travelled and worldly wise, are more adventurous than ever. Throughout their entire escapade - being packaged up in Tooheys boxes and transported along bumpby roads and back again a week later - the hens didn't miss a lay, and so we have collectively and with great affection named them The Lay-Team!

The road trip south - we took the inland route, avoiding the Christmas traffic on the coastal Pacific Highway. We firstly headed West to Tenterfield, winding our way up onto the Great Dividing Range - a vast plateau (1200m above sea level) and series of mountain ranges, escarpments and gorges spanning 3500km North-South along the Eastern side of Australia.

We then headed down the New England Highway, which was almost empty of traffic. I neglected to take any photos of the breathtaking landscapes we were passing through. However, somewhere near Glen Innes we came across this marvelously tacky and utterly incongruous rest-stop sign:

Just South of Armidale we headed off the highway onto the 160km Thunderbolt Way, named after Captain Thunderbolt (aka Fred Ward), a notorious 19th Century bushranger renowned for escaping from Cockatoo Island prison and committing over 200 crimes ranging from highway robbery to horse-stealing. His rather hardcore wife, Mary Bugg, allegedly swam across the shark infested waters to Cockatoo Island, carrying tools and food, to assist in her husband's escape.

These days Thunderbolts Way offers fantastic scenery and a thought provoking glimpse into the ancient and verdant landscape that original Australians enjoyed. Rolling tree-clad hills, winding valleys, bubbling brooks and waterfalls, vast horizons and hardly a vehicle in sight. And thankfully no modern-day Thunderbolts to take advantage of our remoteness.

Driving down the dramatically steep and winding road off the plateau we hit a wall of cloud and the incredible views were blanked out by a thick layer of fog. However, a detail in an Aussie anti-littering sign did catch my attention!

So onwards to Dungog and the glorious hospitality of Clare and Shane. We delighted in their house renovations since our last visit, particularly their new kitchen (the self-closing drawers were a sensation!) and thoroughly relaxed after the long trip.

Christmas day was a wonderful family affair, with 4 generations of the Hannon family sharing a huge festive feast - fresh Aussie prawns, divine salmon en croute and sumptuous turkey cooked in chocolate, Mexican style. Is it any wonder that we didn't manage to fit the pavlova in until a late breakfast on Boxing Day.

Birthday Blues: of course this was the first time ever that I've not been with my boy, Jake, on his birthday on Boxing Day. However, phones are a wonderful thing and we spoke a number of times throughout the day - I coped, with a bit of help from my lovely friends.

And after the over-indulgence of Christmas with Clare and Shane, a change of scenery was in order. So off to Hawks Nest to Shane's parents Gail and Peter's house by the sea to.....well.....carry on over-indulging with Clare and Shane of course - assisted by a lovely sea-breeze!










Life on the verandah at Hawks Nest: Well, I have to say it was hard to escape the verandah, what with the continual flow of fabulous and various consumables - for example the home made dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) being prepared by Tam and Clare above. We occasionally took strolls on the beach, taking in the views and sea air. We even braved the surf one day.

Its a hard life! Thank you Clare and Shane for a wonderfully relaxing and utterly over-indulgent break!

And here's Milly, sniffing the sea breeze and enjoying the freedom at Hawks Nest!


CHICKEN UPDATE (19th Jan) : well, its a very sad day here. This morning I discovered that one of our hens had been mysteriously 'disappeared', with just a small spot of blood in the nest box and a few feathers remaining. Most likely a carpet python. Its shocking and very sad. The other three hens are refusing to go into their pen and are roosting independently in various locations around the outside of the house. Life and death in the jungle.

Tam loves the Duchess!

To see how Tam is handling the Duchess, please go to:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=pT9i7LJQpH8

(love the sound-track - Tam's choice!)

Just to show you that we're alive and well in our snake, tick, leech and lizard infested jungle, here we are on the veranda, just before going out to the annual Nimbin Womens Dinner, a fund-raiser for the local Domestic Abuse Project. Oooh how that red dress and those pink strides clash!

It was a great night, with a fabulous cabaret, lovely food and about 150 women relaxing and enjoying the wide ranging talents of the local female population. High light of the night was the recently formed grass-skirt clad Ukelele band singing the utterly hilarious Boob-titty Boob-titty! You had to be there....




Tam on a recent bush walk at Nimbin Rocks co-op, amongst a forest of grass trees (in a pre-PC world these were known as black boys!).










View from the northern border of Nimbin Rocks Co-op looking towards the Border Ranges and the Nightcap National Park. We live at the foot of Blue Knob, the humpy looking mountain on the right.

We'd love to know you've read this, so please take a moment to comment below, or email us at tamyeld@aapt.net.au and jenmartin@aapt.net.au.

Latest chicken-house action!

Electric Storms & Random Reptiles

The TV addicts amongst you watching I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in wintry England may have noticed that its been raining a lot here. We live just down the road from the show's location. The recent storms were extremely dramatic, heart-pounding on occasion. Fortunately we've emerged unscathed, just the loss of power for one night. No trees falling on the house, no roofs or cars destroyed by mega-hail. Meanwhile Brisbane (200km north) has suffered apocalyptically - cyclones, floods, cricket ball sized hailstones. Happily, the weather has changed and we now have a cool front drawing air up from Antarctica. After the apparently relentless rain of last week, we are enjoying crystal clear blue skies and a cool breeze.

The chickens continue to supply us with an abundance of delicious eggs. One hen has gone decidedly broody, giving Tam some hen-management challenges - Mrs Broody has taken up permanent residence in the nest box and has stopped laying.

The nest box, at one end of their run, was designed for two hens (see photo above) to find privacy and lay their wonderful eggs. However, after returning home at dusk yesterday, Tam discovered all four hens crammed into the nest box. This is very unusual and quite impressive, given the nest box only measures 37cm x 44cm x 25cm. Tam's immediate reaction was 'oh my god, they've ALL gone broody!'

What to do? Perhaps they've been put off their roost, at the other end of the run, by the big sheet of paper placed beneath to catch chicken poo for the compost? So Tam clambers in - the chicken house is only about 4 foot tall - to examine their sleeping quarters. She notices a shadowy shape on their roost inches away from her face and quickly retreats to find a torch.

'There's something in the chook-house', I hear her exclaim and there, curled sleepily and contentedly on the chooks perch, is a medium sized beautiful carpet python. Another WOW moment and understanding dawns - not four broody hens, four very scared hens.


Here's the python some time later down on the floor of the chook house, rethinking its accommodation strategy, given all the flashing lights and excitable human activity. We stomp heavily nearby and slowly and with reptillian grace, all 2 metres slithers off into the starlit buzzing night.

The chooks remained tucked up tightly in the nest box, emerging fluffed up and happy this morning, unscathed and ready for another day free-ranging. We're yet to see if their laying has been affected by the snake-scare.

Tam and I, with the benefit of this experience, have added another rule to our ongoing management strategy - never crawl into the chicken house at dusk without checking with a torch first. Whilst carpet pythons are harmless to humans, many other snakes are equally likely to try out this bed & breakfast opportunity. For example the potentially lethal Red Bellied Black, the Australian brown and the appropriately named Death Adder all reside locally, if rarely seen. We don't ever walk out of the house in bare feet for this reason.

Visitors, visitors: Nephew Charlie arrived in Aus about a month ago. Here he is assisting Tam with some felling:


Ollie (friends with Jake since the age of 9) and girlfriend Kate dropped by for a couple of days respite from life in a van in the relentless rain. Here's Ollie calmly enjoying some of our local wildlife:


So another day dawns - sunny and clear - and we wonder what wild adventures might await us and our humble hens today?

Please take a moment to let us know that you've read this - you can comment below or email us at: jenmartin@aapt.net.au or tamyeld@aapt.net.au.

All Chooks Alive!

STOP PRESS: The little chook survived and revived - just one very small perfectly round egg laid 6 days after the paralysis tick episode! (see above). More soon....

Poor Little Chook

Having celebrated our lovely chickens' adaptability in my last post, less than 24 hours ago, this morning we find one of our little hens is unable to walk. Gentle examination reveals, eventually, a huge paralysis tick that has burrowed into her neck just beneath her beak. It has obviously been there for some days now - it's size at start of feeding would have been around 2-3mm.

As shown in the photo, the horrid little beasty had grown to nearly 1cm across, engorged on our poor chook's blood. Tam quickly and in one fell swoop removed the tick with her bare hands (I was impressed!). We have administered a homeopathic remedy "Ixodes", which was developed some years ago by our very own Nimbin apothecary particularly for paralysis ticks, given how rife they are in this region. However we now have to wait and see if the hen will recover. She's sitting quietly in the chicken house, having got cosy in the nest box, which is the best thing for her - movement and excitement will encourage the paralysis 'venom' to travel around her body and have more effect (usually on legs and lungs). We have no idea whether she will survive.

Here's the engorged tick photographed beside an unfed paralysis tick. I found this crawling through my hair today. The extent to which they expand while feeding is remarkable.

We'll keep you posted on our poor hen's progress. In the meantime, Tam says please send universal loving, healing energy to our littl'Un.

Eight Months since leaving Blighty!

Pondering the changes: I'm sitting here listening to Massive Attack (some things never change), Tam and my nephew Charlie (recently arrived from Eire) are in the kitchen chatting and preparing dinner and I'm enjoying my screen time!

We have no TV, no DVD player and no broadband, which is great! I very occassionally and momentarily miss being able to veg out in front of the tv. I more often wish I could surf U-Tube and check out the recommendations sent by friends (which simply take too long to download on dial up), but mostly I wonder when I ever had the time to watch tv in that previous life. I asked a local friend recently if there were any excellent films to be highly recommended that I may have missed in the last eight months and he couldn't think of a single one....however, please if you have any recommendations, let me know.

Listening to music and the fantastic ABC National Radio are mainstays. ABC radio is even better than Radio 4 - yes really - not least because I'm learning so much about this country - the history, the social documentary, the politics, the personalities, the different world view....

We have local Nim FM community radio which can lurch from fantastic to abysmal in terms of quality dj-ing, but is always entertaining one way or another! And perhaps I'll re-live my pirate radio days and get a regular show one day. I find I listen to a greater range of music, hungry for new sounds (hint hint). I'm glad to have let go of tv. It feels good.

I definitely suffered culture shock for the first few months - hard to describe the actual feelings, all I know is that I now feel settled and am no longer in the throws of it - whatever it was. Without doubt part of the shock was very, very personal - the change in my personal culture, rather than general culture. In retrospect, leaving Jake was deeply traumatic for me and I can now, with the cushion of time, allow myself to see that. I was numb. I put one emotional foot in front of the other. To an extent I'm still doing that, but the process has become normalised. And thankfully we have the luxury of cheap international phone-calls.

Life is simpler on some levels, more complicated on others - the complications however are the one's I want - how to develop the garden, how to build a workshop/guest room, how to make a living in a rural environment, making sure we get all the shopping we need when we're in town. The simplicity is welcome, oh so welcome. The elemental side of life is more immediate at a daily/hourly level - water, heat, growth, decay, light, dark, rain, wind, moonlight and sunshine. All are more significant here, away from the street lighting and convenience of town life - and I love it.

And having the chickens is a very fundamental experience - producing our own eggs, our own first class protein from living beings we're responsible for. And we harvested broccholi for the first time ever today and a very small aubergine! Tam has finished the deluxe chicken house (see above) and the four hens have settled in very well, not missing a beat in egg production with the move to their new home. If only I could be so adaptable!

We'd love to know that you've read this so either leave a comment, email us at above address (top of page) or write to PO Box 45, Nimbin, NSW 2480, Australia. Any CD compilations of your current favourite sounds are very welcome!

Peak Egg Production

We are so proud of our lovely hens - we've had at least 1 egg every day since they arrived just under two weeks ago. This morning they eggcelled themselves, producing 4 eggs between them- that's an egg each, peak production!

Here they are (see above) getting down and dirty, dust bathing at the end of the patio during their afternoon free-range. Chicken House Mark 2 is coming along slowly, mainly because there's so much else to do, and we keep redesigning it! Such is life.

If only we could let the hens free-range in the house - not an option, obviously too messy! Rather large arachnids regularly appear and we've observed that the chooks quite like to nibble on a spider - they've been known to fight furiously over them. But then the spiders catch the flies, so the spiders do a good job - if only we could stand having spiders around!

Tam and I are both getting a bit braver at dealing with the medium sized spiders (like these Huntsmen). We'll catch them and redistribute them to the far reaches of the garden, because we simply can't cope with them wondering around the house and appearing here, there and everywhere.

However, it's the really big spiders that freak us out - that's when we get Tam's industrial vacuum cleaner out and hope they don't run too fast.

Ho hum, life and death
in the Aussie bush.