Baupal Park Farm My Organic Odyssey

10 Sept 2017

Sunday mornings are made to sleep in. Yes they are but try telling Rex that.

Wake up WOMAN – I have you boots and wont give them back.

So the cycle begins again. I get up and distract that mutt with a bone to retrieve my work boots, that have been merrily taken for a galloping walk, around and around. It’s just a game of course, but once the boots are restored to a hiding place inside, he will come in and demand his morning cuddles. Such a damned sook. But a dog’s love is unconditional, unending and totally enduring. Once he is fed of course.

With the warmer weather moving up a few notches here, the irrigation work has had to ramp up as well. So I am now turning on water every day (when not on damned PTSD course) to irrigate each bank of trees, up to 150 at a time which means walking each row in that bank and repairing , cleaning or replacing the sprinklers, replacing cockatoo damaged lines and general checks. When the weathers hot its nice cool work.

Speaking about cockatoos – right now as I type I have a flock of bloody white ones screeching overhead around cottage – to annoy me of course, baiting me to get the drone out. Grrrrrrr.
You see the cockatoos no only eat nuts on ground, but rip tree branches up in canopy, they swing on the irrigation lines and chew them!!! GRRRRRRR.

However I was blessed to have some help with this irrigation task yesterday – making the job much more enjoyable with its reduced timeline (thankyou “special” person). The change to the soil under the trees is a joy to see; dark, damp soil radiating thanks for the prolonged drinks of up to 5 hours per bank. As the flower is now moving into full bloom here the perfume at night is intoxicating. So irrigating is paramount to encourage a good firm nut set from pollinated flowers.

And talking about pollination reminds me that the beehives arrived onsite last week and I forgot to write about it. Yes I now have 10 native bee hives here. The reasoning for having native bees is that they are actually better pollinators for the macadamia flower – native nut with native pollinator? Makes sense to me.

Anyway the native bee is stingless (bonus) and much smaller so they get right in between the tiny flowerets while foraging. It’s all a works in progress for them, but I reckon 1000 bees on average per hive will make a big impact to the nut set this season.  The added bonus of bees cross pollinating between varieties should also see increased nut set retention, as some trees don’t like self-pollinating.

So ten tiny little hives dotted across the centre of the farm, positioned purposefully to get morning sun only with afternoon shade. The work they do is so critical for agriculture, not just here but globally, that after one season the hives will be split and increased out to 20, again dotted across the farm. And the honey that the native bee makes is much sweeter than normal domestic honey too, but sadly nowhere as much as the domestic type. But at the moment I'm only interested in their pollination potential, not collecting honey.

Ok – not everything here is all roses and glory. I do struggle with stuff and sometimes its funny, sometimes not, sometimes dangerous, risky and bloody well annoying. So as the saying goes – bad things happen in three’s. Like the spraying I set out to do yesterday morning. Up bright and early at 5:15 (almost…was snooze buttons fault) and off we go with a 1000 L sprayer primed and ready from night before. But first I need to top up the tractor tank with diesel. Seems a simple job?? No drama there.

So I position tractor in front of diesel tank ( a 1000L industrial tank positioned high to give a good gravity feed for filling tractors), and open valve; pull out the hose. Its cold. Hose is stuck. Hose breaks. Shit……shit……SHIT. Ok let’s just spray anyway – tank was half full (I think – gauge is dodgy).

So off I went, up the first row. Hmmmmm pressure is not as good as I expected. But I kept going. Second row and pressure stops. Engage problem solving brain woman and think. THINK.

Long story short, the main pressure tap under the spray tank, had popped off….somewhere. (The farm is 40 acres). As I watched the water pissing out underneath of sprayer tank, effectively being wasted, the sun was coming up, and I was losing time and resources. There was nothing for it but to walk the rows in dawn light to look for the plug. Of course it was found eventually and pushed back into place, but the time lost along with the water and chemical (organic I add) meant a mornings work gone. Bad luck can stop there at two, thankyou very much.

Oh well – I still can walk; have a roof over my head; live in a peaceful country with no impending floods or earthquakes. God bless Gympie.

Yeah mum and you always have me…….