Thursday 22nd September

I have got to cut down on the amount of rice I eat, which is going to be awkward as it is about all I can afford. Weighed myself today, I’m back to 83 kg, about 10kg more than I should be. L That’s the trouble with a high carbohydrate diet. I’ll have to start having more fruit meals, until I get tired of pawpaw, banana and pineapple salads. Add in some boiled/poached eggs for variety, I’ll try it for a few weeks anyway. If I can cut out 2 or 3 rice meals a week to start with it will help.

End of the week arriving, and still waiting for the parts for the mulcher to be ordered. I went in today to Farmset, they are still looking for the part number, my suggestion was forget the part number, you have the machine model number, it only has one main shaft, and bearings, and pulley, just order those. But no, we have to have the part number. Whatever happened to standardisation? You would think that a machine made in the thousands would have uniformity of parts. Well, I think it would, but not here. I’ve written to MTD.Ltd again to get the part number for Farmset to order the shaft, if I don’t do it, they certainly aren’t. The next step is to get an account with MTD and order it ourselves. And cut Farmset out of what could be a nice little earner for them being as we will probably be buying a larger mulcher next year.

Adrian arrived yesterday, Don Bosco Training School where he is currently hanging out, has a Caterpillar backhoe, with a scored and damaged hydraulic arm. They can’t get it repaired here, all of those facilities went in the civil war, so for me spending about 10 minutes online looking, he gave me a new shirt. Much appreciated as well. Found a replacement part for them from UKW in Shepparton Victoria, whether or not they can afford it is another matter, but they know where to get it from now.

We have the timber ordered for the roof of the propagation building finally, Tiffs brother is going to build it as soon as we get the materials, he figures about a week to complete. I hope it looks like I imagine it will, thatch roof open sides, it’s not really all that big, 7 metres by 10 metres, the roof pitch will be fairly high though to give the runoff for the rain. It’s still bigger than some of the houses people live in here though.

Still haven’t got water at Ranadi yet, nor toilets, power shifted, access gate, fence up, but I must be acclimatising, I’m not getting too stressed about it. It will happen, just not to my time frame.

I think the dry season has petered out, we’ve had rain most days this week, this morning was a good downpour about 5am, for an hour or so. Which keeps the day a bit cooler, but the humidity higher. So you don’t really notice the difference between it being only 30*C instead of 35*C because the humidity is about 80%. It’s been a thick cloying clammy hot day again. Another month or so till the rains really arrive, and then it will be floods, washouts, and landslips again.

Zoe was asking after my geckos today, and I forgot to tell her. I’ve got 3 of them back in the main room, 1 large one, about 4 inches, and 2 small ones about an inch long. There is one that lives in the bathroom, and another that lives in my bedroom. It’s taken them a while to come back, after me being away for a month during June.

My compost mix seems to be lacking nitrogen, or else it is still a bit fresh to use. Everything is growing in it, but not well, and looking decidedly pale. The crew got me another dozen bags of chicken manure today, I’ve got 2 bags tipped into a 44 gal drum filled with water, once that has had a chance to ferment, I’ll dilute it down and try liquid feeding the plants. When I say filled with water, the 2 bags of manure nearly filled the drum, there was about 6 inches of headroom left, but it did soak up a lot of water. It will be a strong brew though, high dilution needed.

I’m going to try some of the brewery waste mix next week, to see if there is any difference in growth rate and appearance.

Then I’ll try the brewery waste/chicken manure/sawdust mix, although that hasn’t had time to decompose yet. It will be another few weeks till we can use it.

St Kilda/Collingwood at the MCG Saturday, I hope St Kilda win, nothing like seeing the bloody Magpies get beaten. Plus it will make Kim happy at work, she supports St Kilda.