Nirvana Biodynamics

The days start early with poultry, irrigation, mulberry picking and a general overall check before the morning heat becomes intense and its time to retreat to the relatively cool house. Our 1870’s house usually stays cool with its thick stone walls, thick curtains, high ceilings and well insulated roof. Inside cooling is via a ceiling fan plus a portable fan. We have a routine of opening it up as soon as the outside temperature is lower than outside. In prolonged heat the stone finely heats up and last night it was very late before the outside temperature dropped enough to open up the house. This morning its cool again compared to outside Here's some highlights of my early morning stroll through the vegetable garden. Pumpkin patch Austrian oilseed pumpkin January plantings January plantings of winter vegetables Black Salsify And the herb garden Angellica Artichoke- imperial star Mexican Tarragon - tagetes lucida More pictures of the summer vegetable gardens

As part of our bushfire action plan we stay at home on all total fire ban days. At least one of us has to be here but both are preferable. Sometimes Quentin has to venture out to service a fire pump as people often panic at these times –often they have not tested their fire pump for years! Also as part of our plan is to stay tuned to the radio – of which I often find tedious. For example yesterday they just talked up the heat more heat and power outages continuously. Yesterday the worst advice would have to do with pets and animals, so many people give them human qualities and think they are doing them good but often this advice is misguided. Its extremely important for them to have shade ,shelter and plenty of fresh cool water but not ice water and frozen food!. Even for us these things are not good. The best thirst quencher is cool water not cold! Domestic animals are accustom to eating food from the fridge but frozen meat is not good for digestion & would do no good in cooling ...

I am very impressed as to how the vegie garden is looking and proves that all the quality compost and biodynamic methods really pay off big time in extreme conditions.-or maybe they are more noticeable then. Although the hills are cooler – This week so far 34, 42. 45 today is about the same if not hotter than yesterday with no relief in sight.Actually at present its 44. Only the January planting have been covered. I use light weight curtains & old sheets over ¾ Polly hoops. They are held on by pieces of ¾ polly cut down the middle. I find this much better than shade cloth which is heavy and needs more supports. From Jan- March the monthly plantings are usually covered to aid germination & to keep the blackbirds from scratching them up .Once germinated the covers are removed but this week I have been covering during the day and removing them in the late afternoon. They are all looking good. I have just continued my routine weekly watering program – each bed is watered once a wee...

Hebe checks out the damage after the gusty winds of today sent half of this large twisted willow crashing to the ground around her little kennel.

The Tour Down Under provided an ideal opportunity to get together with neighbours and friends as our road was being closed for the race. It would pass by our gate 3 times at lunchtime, great excuse for a party. The tables where set up along the verge and we watched a cavalcade of bikes, cars, lots of police motor bikes (we did not know the state had that many!) pass by before finally hearing the whoosh of the race pass by. Time to chat again before it all happened a couple more times. We enjoyed a delicious range of food plus some of my raspberry wine and Bernard’s home-grown homemade champagne and of course Quentin’s beer. We have no idea who won nor do we care ....but we had a very pleasant summer’s afternoon!

Yesterday was one of those days that seemed to revolve around wildlife encounters. While making the chooks breakfast I noticed a koala wandering towards the oak tree than up, on closer inspection there where two up there but after a short while only one remained for the day. Not surprising as they seem to be in every second tree at present and the sound of their grunts continually punctuates the evening. As dusk fell Quentin noticed a couple of kangaroos come down to the creek, we had also watched them a couple of evenings before while having dinner, these were happily grazing on the grass along the creek. For after dinner entertainment a ringtail possum jumped from the cable into the mulberry tree and the back onto the cable and off into the night.

The berry harvest has been very slow so far due to a southerly weather pattern and regular small showers of rain resulting in cooler than average temperatures that have slowed ripening. Customers have been hanging out for their Christmas raspberries so by Christmas every berry had someone’s name on it! So with those busy days leading up to Christmas over it was no wonder the dogs crashed out before the first course was over. We had a pleasant slow day sharing with neighbour June and a couple of German wwoofers, which meant a vegetarian dish or two. So we tucked into a chestnut and walnut pate en croute (recipe from Wendy E Cook’s Biodynamic food and Cookbook) with plenty of roast vegies and salads all washed down with Elderflower champagne, Limeade and other special brews from the cellar.-Truly a local fare from our own harvests. The cooler weather has also allowed a lot of the brushcutting to be completed as part of the annual bushfire prevention clean up, pity the neig...