It's a Man's World

View from the Pavillion near house dam.

MALE TO FEMALE RATIO
There is certainly an imbalance in the ratio of girls to boys on this farm.......
On the Ladies' team there are presently 6 hens + 2 girl chicks, Didi and Gigi, Foxy, 6 Cows and calf and Michelle.  =19
On the Men's team there are the two roosters, 1 rooster chick, 1 bull calf and me.  = 5.

19:5, hmmm, not a great ratio, and one of the roosters is for the chop !!  Hence the need to make sure all our readers realise that it really is a man's world, in spite of how the numbers look.

MAN CAVE
A man needs a shed.  The farm has a beaut workshop and undercover areas. There is plenty of room for the Hilux, the Avalon (which is used when we want a comfy drive around the region) and the now 52 year old Spitty.

A few months ago we went to a farm clearance sale near Grafton and picked up a ute load of bargains including an arc welder, colorbond sheeting, tools, backrubs and feed containers for the cows and various other useful items for the farm.

Michelle secured  a box of tools for $140 (see picture below) .   The box included 9 hammers, 10 large shifting spanners for irrigation and mechanical work, large and small bolt cutters, 3 hand saws and various other useful small tools. I estimated the tools would have cost well over $1000 to buy individually.

SPITFIRE  REGISTERED
A man needs a hobby.  I had been putting off getting the Spitfire registered in NSW in part due to wet weather and having to drive the 33kms  to Lismore, on a dry day, to get a Blue Slip.  The WA rego was due to run out on 13 December so in a triumph (pun intended) of just- in-time planning I took it to a garage on the 11th. They amazingly passed it !!
The "blue slip mechanic" told me his workmates ribbed him about having a mid life crisis when they saw him take it out for a road test.  But it was not all smooth sailing, there had been chassis repairs done in WA over 15 years ago I was required to take it to the Serious Crime Squad office in Lismore to have them confirm the chassis number. The Serious Crime officer was most accommodating and after a call to Head Office the Spitty was given an all clear. As I said to the crime officer, it's hardly likely to have been used for a getaway car! The roads in the area are pretty poor, as is the last century suspension, so the Spitty rattled all the way to and from Lismore. I felt like Biggles returning from a flight across the channel when I triumphantly arrived home !  

Spitty with new local plates.

My next Spitty job is to chase the rattles down and eliminate them ....this should be an interesting challenge.

Didi and Gigi hiding from Foxy.

BUILDING WORK
A man needs a challenge.  In late October we had a visit from the Council Compliance Officer checking on pool fencing (which we didn't have!) and wanting to know what we were going to do regarding getting the building formally approved as a habitable dwelling.  His visit was in response to a complaint - apparently someone dobbed us in!  Prior to the inspector's visit we had already spent some months going through options with a steel frame builder so we were able to show progress. I have had to put a temporary pool fence up which will be relocated when our new pool goes in.

We plan to submit a combined Development Application in mid March for an in ground pool and extensions/modifications to the existing building so all being well we should have new pool by April (just in time for Autumn / Winter, geez) and the construction of the building work should begin in April/May.

I will act as the Owner Builder with the new extension built to lockup stage by our builder with us doing the internal fit out and using electrical and plumbing tradies where necessary for internal walls, ceilings, stairs, plumbing , wiring etc. Hopefully all the work should be completed by August.

Proposed plans - two storey section is new, single storey with dormer window is existing.

SOLAR POWER
Men understand this stuff better.  The farm house has 9KW of solar cells on the north side of the building so even at the reduced payment scheme we continue to get credit payments from the energy retailer. In summer the array produced over 40 Kilowatt hours a day (on clear days).  Michelle wants me to consider installing batteries, so that we could be completely solar reliant, but she doesn't really know about this stuff so it's up to me to work out the details and see whether it would be cost effective.

MILKERY
A man needs to get on with his to-do list (or else).  Work has now started on the milking shed so that we (read Michelle) will have an all weather milking station. Because the Dexter cows have such short legs I'll need to raise the floor in the milking stall so that Michelle can access their udders...without lying on her side.  A work in progress, planned completion is in 1 week in time for the next and final calf for the season.

One section of the yard fence will be replaced with a gate to allow easy access / egress.

Well its back to work for me (Michelle is calling...).