Spring is in the air at Muddy Landing this week. The vegetables are jumping out of the ground, parrots exploring the fruit trees and the snakes are starting to stir.

Hedley and Penny who are enjoying yet another holiday, visited for a couple of days and were very active canoeing and walking.

The new carport is well under way, with just the gutters and roofing steel to add and a bit of concreting.

Winter 2011

We spent August in Bali soaking up the sun while the rain poured on Muddy Landing.
Amed and Lovina were the highlights and a couple of days in the south around Belangan was worth the effort of getting there.
The photos show Agung (from Amed), a waterfall south of Lovina, a jukung at Lovina, and the sensational left hand point break at Belangan.

Since we got back two weeks ago the weather has improved and the vegie garden is starting to fire up. Lyn is working in Perth for two weeks and I am working on the fencing, vegie patch and 101 other jobs. The photo below shows the new causeway with 200mm of water over it.

Meanwhile, Stephanie has been in Port Hedland working on some aboriginal language stuff and cutting up kangaroo tails.

Casey visited this week which delighted both Lyn and I. She did some canoe paddling, guitar playing and went on an 8Km hike down the west of the Brook.

Temperatures dropped below zero for a few days which will be good for the cherries.

Water in the creek

Water flowed down the brook in the last week of June and filled the new pond at the confluence of Mill Brook and St John Brook. The new earthworks are holding up well regardless of the opinions of several geologists who recently inspected the work.
Temperatures have dropped to near freezing most mornings but the days in early July have been crisp with beautiful light through the trees in the afternoons.
Work continues on re-surveying the boundary, fencing, equipment maintenance and winter vegetable planting.

Fire Bugs

Lyn spent the week setting fire to the bush - here's a photo of the dry creek bed getting razed.

Still burning after a week. Nice to do our bit to reduce greenhouse gases!

Rain at last! 30mm overnight and puddles in the creek. Awesome after such a long dry spell.

I spent too much time this week fixing the ageing John Deere tractor - it needed a new voltage regulator which had to come from the States. Also welded the front end loader and cleaned the fuel lines for the first time in several years. Now I've just got to mend the leaky hoses.

Lyn has the vegie garden all sorted for the winter with broad beans, peas, broccoli etc so we won't starve. We are working our way through a pile of pumpkins, having soup most days for lunch.