Halloween

Not really the place for tick or treaters here, semi rural, 2 -3 acre properties with farm gates at the entry to long driveways. Neither of us figured anyone would come through our gate unannounced, and we were right, so a quiet night or us at least.

The cats are now a year old as of October 29, and at the last weigh in Chocco surged ahead by another 180g and Latte made up the 100g he lost the previous month, so both are doing well.

Not so good news for the plovers in the back paddock. It looks like they lost the one remaining chick last week and are already mating again. What is weird is that we found the bodies of two adult plovers on either side of the paddock, one had the entire torso and head eaten, and the other just the head gone. We are not sure what got them, or even if they were “ours” or not. I have mowed again to get rid of the tall grass where something may have crept up on them, possibly a feral or domestic cat, or even a quoll. There are no foxes here in Tasmania. We are both hoping the plovers start nesting again soon.

I have finished both main sections of the garden screening project an it is really noticeable how it blocks the view of the sheds and things next door. It also completely changes the look of the house from that side, and by a happy coincidence the colour matches the blinds on the shade room. I still have both end bits to do, but what I am concentrating on now is another 3 metre panel out from the steps, that allows access but also screens the view.  Eventually I want to move the little BBQ and stuff over to that side of the house as it is closer to the kitchen, have some outdoor furniture, maybe some type of gazebo, and redo the little bit of lawn there.  The aloe that John gave us is getting a lot of little pups off the stem, so I may be able to have a lot of them planted out soon. The gladiolas that I had to move are all doing well, also all the different coloured ones that Eva bought are coming up. It should be a nice display in a few more weeks. All the roses I moved are putting out new growth. Once I clean  up all the weeds, grass, and extra bulbs it should be a nice area.

The new electricity meter has been in for 10 days now, and after getting the instruction on how to read it, I’m starting to get some stats. So far we have fed 210 Kw back into the grid for credit, and ​used another 58 Kw of the PV output locally. That’s $17 credit, and another $35 saved. It’s the last week of Spring here so hopefully that will increase. By my calculation we should get $155 credit and $317 saved by the end of the quarter if it continues at this rate. I’m not expecting a lot over the winter months. I reckon about 5 years for this to pay for itself, but will have a better idea in 12 months time.

Tasmania is now opened up to the rest of the mainland states apart from NSW and Victoria. The outbreaks there have subsided almost to zero, and Australia remains at 907 dead from the virus.
We are worried about my Aunt over in Texas, deaths from the virus there went from just over 800 to now 18,385 since the Republican governor opened up the state for business, as instructed by Trump. In the U.S. there are now 229,708 dead, and that could even double before the end of the year, with winter, and all of Trump’s super spreader rallies. We can only hope and pray that the people there are able to get rid of him, in spite of all the voter suppression.