Goodness.
I was at the computer and heard a heap of scrabbling noises outside. It sounded very much like rats in the wall, but upon investigation I found a visitor had taken residence at our back door for his daytime kip.
Boobook Owl
Category Archives: Around the house
Tanks done. Almost.
Well, the heavy work is done. The tanks are aligned, and the area has been nicely flattened. Now the fine detail. As I’m discovering in cabinet-making, the construction phase is often the quickest & relatively easiest. The harder and more time consuming is the fine and finishing details.
So, the mad rush is on to connect the house downpipe outflow to the tank inflows, as well as devising a system that connects four tanks and allows for both uphill and downhill water movement.
Mad rush because it HAS to be in place before it rains. It is expected to rain in a few days time…
Water tanks
Nothing is ever simple. Major renovations frequently start as a nugget of action such as “I wonder what’s behind that wallpaper?” I’m leaning more towards aesthetic these days, although I still have no idea of it, even if something fashionable smacked me on the head.
Simple gravity fed water works, but to complete the picture, wed thought to align the tanks to maximise free space, complete storm drainage works (when it rains it pours!) and flattening the remainder of the area for installation of a garden/tractor shed.
Moving tanks
What better way to convalesce from shingles than to supervise some earthworks. I’d been mulling over the idea of converting our electric pump based water supply to gravity fed for a while. Four tanks at house level and one tank at the top gate, with the idea of running the fire pump every month or so to transfer water upwards, and have Newton do the work for us downwards. The added bonus of having water when the power went out, if not the ability to boil it for a cuppa, was a bonus.
Bee garden
Anna wants a bee garden around the biolytix. In preparation for the eventual gazebo I’ll put there and bbq deck I’ll put elsewhere, I thought some planks of timber sounded pretty easy.
The more I thought about it though, the more I thought about how to do it properly. Cement in the posts, bolt the rails, use spirit level to make things straight… It’s amazing how 90 degrees is not what you thought it was…
Around the vegetable garden
Some pics from around the vegetable garden. We’d gotten our tomatoes in quite late last season, around Christmas so our cropping was also late. We’d rebuilt this bed using copious amounts of chook poo from the Stoneys somewhere (maybe too nutrient rich), and we those howling hot northerlies which killed our other celery, parsley, coriander and lettuce seedlings.
Still, it’s gratifying to have tomatoes ripening this time of year. The cherry and mini roma varieties are going great guns and very tasty too. Unripe tomatoes from a pile of prunings Anna made have ripened very well. Millipedes and other critters seem to have taken a liking to the larger varieties. And the chooks have made a haven in the undergrowth of the main bushes!
Solar PV installed
Something I had been considering for a while was to up our solar PV power production. I’d always liked the idea of self sufficiency from an energy point of view, and the excess going to grid use is a bonus. We’d initially installed 1kw in 2005. How times change!
Then it was $13k. After some investigating this time, I came across the good people at Envirogroup. The quote was for the same price for a 4kw system! This is our current (hah, electrical pun!) limit for north facing roof space and to be considered a ‘small’ generator for rebating purposes.
The only alteration we did was to up spec the inverter to a German one, our principle being that it’s the inverter that does the heavy lifting & your should get the best your budget allows, ending us up with a SMA SB4000TL Transformerless Inverter.
It’s an absolute delight to see the meter running backwards (as it were since it’s digital these days).
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Black shouldered kite
Sitting down to a lovely evening meal of Chinese dumplings and Newton’s Ridge Pinot Grigio, we soaked up the warm summer evening’s sights and sounds of the approaching dusk.
Casting an eye over at the fallen Cypress, we saw something, scattering bits of fluff on top of the old cracked stem. A juvenile black shouldered kite appeared to be enjoying his meal in the relative quiet atop. Bothered only by butterflys and taking time to spread its wing to let the day’s warmth dissipate.
Wetland
There’s still plenty of water about after the recent deluges of rain. We happened to notice a pair of nesting swans return after the several year absence of water. Our rockbank is also starting to take shape.
Golden Stag Beetle
A beautiful, shimmering beetle hovered to the ground near the back door today – it’s a golden stag beetle, scientific name Lamprima aurata. They are found in Victoria, S.A., and N.S.W. Golden Stags live in dry sclerophyll vegetation, with the larvae feeding on decomposing soft wood. This little critter was on a mission and wasn’t going to hang around to pose for a photo.
