Category: Comments from Farside

Weather, Eggs, and Firewood.

several more days of ferocious gales of late, the geese are still sitting grimly although there are no guarantees on results as last week we also had an afternoon of simmering thunder. Very annoying as I have several people who’d like a gosling or two but with thunderstorms prone to kill developing embryos, it may …

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Small Bird Season

and to celetrate that time of the year Thunder caught one. I heard the scuffling and hurried to the rescue to emerge with a handful of greenfinch, short a few feathers and decidedly ruffled. I stroked the feathers back into place while the bird eyed me, apparently unafraid. Cats are scary, people aren’t so bad. …

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Happily Aging

Lately I’ve been seeing seminars offered in our area. They’re on Positive Aging, and it amused me. I don’t think that people change much over the years. I am and always have been an optimist, happy or at least contented for the past thirty years, busy with my writing since 1990, always something to do …

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Spring is here

If I had any doubt of that it was resolved two days back when I went to count spare fence posts – a friend is collecting a number from my stack of them to build a shed – and I wanted to see how many I’d have remaining once she had all she needed. From …

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Farmhouse Heating.

On Farside my heating system is dual. I have a free-standing enclosed fire that puts out 19 kw when roaring along well, and I have an oil column heater, and two hot-air heaters. But the heating mainstay is firewood. That not only provides heat that costs less than electricity would to heat the house, it …

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Remaining Wet

and it still is. So far this month we’ve had only one 24 hour period in which there’s been no precipitation of any kind, and total for the month soared past four and a half inches last night. On the other hand temperatures are quite mild – and Stroppy the gander and Sonny, his 2IC, …

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And the Wet Continueth!

I was rung by both our local newspaper and our regional one the other morning, both wanting to know the July rainfall total. (I’m the weather stringer for our village for both newspapers.) And as I’d just come in from studying the rain gauge I had the figures right there. This has been the wettest …

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Wet! Wet!! Wet!!!

and yes, it certainly is here. We’ve had several heavy downpours over July, but also a steady trickle of showers and drizzle.  The average for a July is around 90-120mls. A wet July may yield 164/5 as it did last year (and in 2000.) However this year July isn’t quite over and this morning my …

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An Overearly Spring?

And no, it isn’t, but I have a lamb all the same. It may be that the friend’s ram I used (Basil) was a bit lazy this year and didn’t get on with it until later than usual. Because the first lamb that normally gets here in May, arrived this week. In fact it was …

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Update on the Previous Excitement too

And as I’ve been away for two weeks in Auckland and Melbourne and had those events on my mind once I returned home, I forgot that a day or so before I left we had all that excitement with the Police. It was very happily resolved without anyone being injured. But as I said then, …

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