Weekend on the farm

[BobL]

I've just come back from a wet weekend down on the farm where I go for my milling holidays. I went down without my milling gear because the plan was to start putting up a milling shed alongside Sandi and Huds new shipping container but everything conspired to turn it into a "put your feet up and have a few beers" type of weekend - which turned out to be OK as well.

Here's the container - 40 footer- the milling area is in an old gravel pit is about a mile and a half from the farmhouse.

The container is going to be divided into two sections one is going to hold milling gear like this.

And the rest is going to be used as a sort of a drying shed.

We are also going to build a 12 ft wide lean to down one side of the container to use as an rain sheltered milling area.

The big problem was the tractor that we were going to use to help us start the building was out of action so I then thought we might fire up Huds mill but it rained pretty well all of Saturday so that knocked that idea on the head. This is why Hud needs a milling shed.

Later that day we took a drive through their bush and came across this magic grove of these fluorescent bottlebrushes.

This is what they look like close up - the camera simply does not capture the colour - a sort of a fluorescent pink-orange-red. They look like they are emitting light even in the failing evening light.

 

[BobL]

Farm weekend part II

When we drive around the farm we usually stick one of Hud's Huskies in the back of the Ranger and we ran across this long fallen down tree with a large burl base so I simply had to put the saw through it.

Man was that outer casing of that burl hard, certainly one of the hardest woods I had ever cut. When I opened it I could see one reason why.

Unfortunately it was pretty termite ridden - crikey did the termite mud mess up the point's on the full chisel that Hud's saw was running. It's a pity because the burl itself looks pretty interesting. I need to go back to the piece with some semi-chisel chain and a bigger bar to take the slices in one cut.

We also came across this crazy tree. It's still alive and we worked out this is the third time it has fallen over. The force of life is amazing in some of these fallen trees.

We did another drive around between the rain storms looking for a base for Hud's new anvil and this is what we came up with.

Then it was back to the brand spanking new homestead where an open fire and cold beer and some of Sandi's delicious home cooked fare welcomed us.

 

[mtngun]

Great post.

I thought Australia was mostly desert ? What's with the rain ? Is it a seasonal thing ?

 

[Beefie]

Still looked like it was a fun weekend had buy all. So you are going to build a 12'wide X 40' long lean to off the one side or is it going to be shorter.

Beefie

 

[BobL]

Great post.

I thought Australia was mostly desert ? What's with the rain ? Is it a seasonal thing ?

Thanks mtngun.

Large areas of Australia are classified as desert (rainfall average is less than 10" of rain per year). But many places have little or no rain for 3-7 years and then they have massive floods so although on average they might have more than 10" of rain a year they still look like or behave like deserts for much of the time. These are closely tied into the el nino effect in the Pacific.

Most people don't realize how varied Australia is in its climate. In Northern Queensland, the town of Innisfail has an average of 142" of rainfall each year while the West coast of Tasmania has an average rainfall of 120" a year. The town of Marble Bar in Western Australia has the world record for most consecutive number of days above 100F (111 days). South East Queensland has been in a drought condition for many years but this year they have flood after flood. As one of our pop songs says, "We watch the lightning, crack over cane fields, laugh and sing, this is Australia"

Rainfall along the coast is usually very seasonal. In the north it falls in summer but in the south it falls in winter. Perth has about 30" of rain a year but it nearly all falls in June, July and August. Winter is typically 3-4 days or up to two weeks of clear blue skies and daytime temps of 70F and then 3-4 days of rain and daytime temperatures of 60 and then back to clear skies again. This is great milling weather and why I like living here.

Perth had not had any rain since last october, then last week 2" of rain fell within 2 hours and golf ball size hail wrecked thousands of cars and broke a lot of roof tiles (our house construction is typically brike and tile), many buildings, houses and apartments were flooded and we even has a small landslide.

 

[BobL]

Still looked like it was a fun weekend had buy all. So you are going to build a 12'wide X 40' long lean to off the one side or is it going to be shorter.

Beefie

Yep 12 x 40 attached to the container. so we can have 2 milling bays under cover.

 

[stipes]

Thanks Bob!!!

I've just come back from a wet weekend down on the farm where I go for my milling holidays. I went down without my milling gear because the plan was to start putting up a milling shed alongside Sandi and Huds new shipping container but everything conspired to turn it into a "put your feet up and have a few beers" type of weekend - which turned out to be OK as well.

Here's the container - 40 footer- the milling area is in an old gravel pit is about a mile and a half from the farmhouse.

The container is going to be divided into two sections one is going to hold milling gear like this.

And the rest is going to be used as a sort of a drying shed.

We are also going to build a 12 ft wide lean to down one side of the container to use as an rain sheltered milling area.

The big problem was the tractor that we were going to use to help us start the building was out of action so I then thought we might fire up Huds mill but it rained pretty well all of Saturday so that knocked that idea on the head. This is why Hud needs a milling shed.

Later that day we took a drive through their bush and came across this magic grove of these fluorescent bottlebrushes.

This is what they look like close up - the camera simply does not capture the colour - a sort of a fluorescent pink-orange-red. They look like they are emitting light even in the failing evening light.

Always enjoy your pics from the other side of the world....Last night on the DSC the had Survivorman and he was in the Aus outback,,first thing I thought of was you....Damn,,where he was,,,harsh...........
Thanks for the pics...always enjoy em!!!