Spring

The insectivorous plants are recovering from winter - the venus fly trap has flower buds. One tomato plant is finally forming tomatoes - going to be a huge glut as I have more than a dozen. The native bees are loving the flowering bunching onions, and the frogs are laying eggs everywhere. The last photo is green manure just before I dug it in.

Wet and muddy

There has been lots of rain here - the soil is waterlogged. Things not doing well: corn I planted two lots of 12 but the mice ate most of them, the artichokes don't like being wet. Things doing well: potatoes (Ruby Lou) although starting to see some bugs on them, the peanuts have sprouted, comfrey is flowering. The stream has risen but no where close to flooding over the bank.

Early start to Port Stephens trip

I got a SES call out at 9:30am this morning, as I drove out noticed the creek was getting quite high so ducked back and topped up the chicken food, just in case. We went upto Coffs, me driving the Corindi 2 vehicle with a trailer. Did a couple of jobs and filled some sandbags. Left at 4pm (some disagreement - my boss wanted to leave since the other two had been out most of the day before as well and we hadn't been fed, the Coffs bosses said you can't leave till we release you, then I had to leave the room suddenly to avoid my boss's response and we left), drove back to Corindi - the highway just north was down to one lane and I decided it was safer to go back to Coffs in case flooded in at Parker Rd, plus I was soaking and a hot shower seemed attractive, plus Vinnie was leaking so would have been a very damp night. I had only done a rough pack - have my boots instead of comfy shoes and probably other stuff I forgot. The neighbour is going to feed the chooks Wed and Friday - they'll be pretty cranky since used to free ranging but it has been raining all day.