Slowly, slowly

We're slowly starting to get things organised - it will have to be slowly - the last couple of days the weather station set up out in the paddocks has been reporting 43+ degrees, so if anybody thinks I'm going to be doing anything in a hurry in that temperature....

But we're still not completely finished with the move - Adam went down last weekend in the ute and bought up Phoenix's shed (aka the new Goose house), and some of the pot plants off the deck - but there are still quite a few loads to come. We're going to borrow my cousin's trailer - she lives about an hour and a half up the road from here so I'll have to nick up and pick it up one day (Hi Jude - I'll ring you as soon as I can get sorted).

We've ordered a semi-load of straw (yes you're reading me - a semi-load). It was quite cheap, it will come in big square bales which will be an absolute bugger to handle but we'll work something out, and it will start to be distributed over the very parched orchard and into various spots where I'm plotting growing areas.

I've got my zone 1 sorted out in my head - I'll need to draw up a plan though so we can both consider the energy flows properly and work through the problems of frost etc. Then it will off to buy a cement mixer and adobe style raised beds edging to go into place.

Once we finish the moving of stuff and the cleaning up at the old place.

But it's not been all nothing here - despite babysitting one very over it dog (who is locked in the play pen). We've managed to get a lot of the lighting problems sorted out, we've replaced the faulty dishwasher and the new stove is here - and the inevitable wait for a plumber has commenced - in the meantime we're chewing through bbq fuel and getting well bloody over bbq food I can tell you.

The machinery shed is starting to get sorted out, and the washing machine is installed and running, the pantry is sort of all worked out - now I'm just unpacking supplies into it and rejigging storage containers to match the new wider shelves.

I STILL haven't found one box with coffee cups and 2 eating bowls in it. Who would think that they would just disappear off the face of the planet but I can't find them anywhere.

Complicating matters slightly this week it has been stinking hot - incendiary hot - unbelievably hot. It means that we charge out of bed (yes me - I've been up at at least 7.00am most days this week) - do what we can outside before the heat starts to ramp up, then hunker down inside and wait for the sun to go down. The evenings are bliss - cool, quiet, light, we can get quite a bit done. We're going to have to stick to this regime for a while until the worst of the horrendous summer is over (today's a clasic example - cool change has gone through Melbourne after yesterday's heat - but there's no sign of it here and it's around 43 degrees in the paddocks in the full sun - or so our weather station is reporting, I'm not going out there to verify that!).

On the upside - no more whinging about not being able to get the washing dry - you barely have to hang it out before you drag it back in again, which after the last few months of smoke and dank in the Dandenong Ranges is a relief I can tell you!

Anyway - a couple of photos just to let you see it's not all heat and slog:

The dinner time dance