Happy as a pig in mud at #HVMWF 2019

As a bloke in the queue at the bar said to me when I went to fetch a hot spiced cider, "Gumboot people are happy people!" As nice as it would have been to don tatters, face paint and fancy headpieces (we saw lots of beautiful examples), I was extremely happy with my choice of clothing for the Huon Valley Mid Winter Festival on Friday night. I counted the layers I was was wearing - six in total on my upper half! Plus thermals under my jeans and long socks in my gum boots. And I was warm as toast. There was a serious amount of mud, a little rain and a whole lot of happy punters. As I have said before, these people know how to run an event. There is plenty of seating, lots of toilets, undercover areas, fire pits to warm up by and friendly volunteers with a sense of humour. And that's before the great selection of food and beverages, sculptures and awesome music acts. Despite the testing weather conditions, there were plenty of interstate and international visitors. I had squid from the fire bugs at Tasman Quartermasters, some tasty fries, croquettes from Eten and one of Yeastie Beastie's fabulous doughnuts. With hot spiced Willie Smith's Cider in hand, we ran into a few groups of friends and made it out of the paddock car park without needing to be towed out of the mud. Happy days!

A cottage garden

The garden here at the Old Bank is a new experience for me. It's filled with cottage-y plants and flowers, like tiny daisies, hellebores, lavender, geraniums, hydrangea. I confess to knowing little about flowers, so my friend Karla kindly visited last week to show me how to prune the roses and help me identify the various plants. The garden space is small and wraps around the buildings. There's no grass, but gravel, garden beds and a cute little garden path of stones. In Sydney we primarily grew Australian natives. Up in the hills of Franklin, we were surrounded by native temperate rainforest trees and plants like native pepperberry and man ferns. I grew vegetables and planted some fruit trees as well as a few imports like maple, spruce, crab apple and ornamental pear. Here in our little winter garden, there are already so many flowers. There are bulbs starting to appear and I'm looking forward to seeing what they all are. The camellia bush is about to explode with fluffy pink blooms. Aren't they gorgeous?

Finally, snow

Winter has left her run late this year. Despite several forecasts of snow down to 700, 600, 500 metres, until last night we'd seen no more than a few flakes mixed in with rain. So with only a few days of winter left, we finally had a nice covering of snow to wake up to. And one of my photos featured in this ABC Hobart news report on the snowfalls. Nice!

Where's the snow?

The forecast for winter in Tasmania this year was "a little warmer and a little wetter". We've hit August with no snow so far, other than a few flakes mixed in with rain one afternoon. None that has settled on the ground anyway, unlike last year. The ground at our place is pretty soggy and it's a bit muddy around the chook shed, where the girls have scratched up all the grass and leaves. I won't say it's been warm, but we've certainly enjoyed the winter sun and plenty of rainbows. Dear old Baerli can't walk far now, but we've still enjoyed a few cafe lunches outdoors with the girls. I am certain the snow is yet to come...

Mid-winter festing

My favourite Tassie festival, over again. This year, friends made the trip down from the north to stay and join us at the Huon Valley Mid-Winter Festival. Friday night's burning man ceremony was awesome. After the long and tedious preamble last year ("Let me tell you a story...", a very long one that will go for about 40 minutes), it was refreshing and positive to have a woman from the local indigenous community welcome everyone to country, encouraging us to take care of the land we depend on. Then a horde of flaming arrows flew at Big Willie and up he went, to the great delight of the crowd.

I had been looking forward to trying a rabbit pie from The Princess and the Fatman made with sustainably farmed bunnies from Geeveston, and it did not disappoint. Absolutely delicious. Then a pork bun from Fat Pig Farm and some hot mulled Willie Smiths cider. And I simply can't go past Lady Hester's sourdough donuts, oh my god! As always the event is so well organised, with all the basics sorted, like enough seating and toilets, friendly staff keeping the place clean, easy parking and plenty of fire barrels to warm up by. Add the music, costumes and generally jovial atmosphere, what's not to love. Bring on 2019.

Saturday night chook abduction

The fancy new chook mansion that has housed 14 birds for the past seven months or so needs a big clean out. After the recent heavy rains in southern Tasmania, the yard is a smelly mud bog, and despite removing the bedding and nest box material upstairs regularly, it is disgusting again. So on Saturday night after dinner, David and I ventured out into the dark and windy night to snatch the hens and roosters from their perch and relocate them to the refurbished old picker's hut for the winter. One of us held the door or nest box lid open, while the other grabbed the nearest bird and (despite protestations) tucked it neatly under one arm for the march across the front paddock to their new home. Return and repeat seven times. It was a far more efficient operation than our early efforts at chook catching. All birds neatly deposited on their perches, we retreated back indoors to the fire and a glass of red. It's probably not how we would have imagined spending a Saturday night ten years ago!

As the chooks woke up in their lovely clean winter house the next morning, were they thinking 'how did I get here? Was I abducted in my sleep?' More likely, knowing their generally limited brain capacity, they just got back to the business of pecking, crowing, clucking and flapping. I feel happier knowing they will be warm and better protected from the cold wind and snow when it comes this year. After a week or two of getting used to their new location, they will be able to go out free ranging again and hopefully return to the correct home in the evening.

Hobart sings in winter

Last Saturday, our little community choir from Franklin performed three pop-up gigs as part of the Festival of Voices in Hobart. We took the bus into town and sang in the lovely Wild Gallery in Salamanca, on top of a red double-decker bus parked at the Brook Street Pier and in the IXL Atrium behind the Henry Jones Art Hotel.

It turned out to be a glorious winter day in Hobart and aside from the fun we had singing, the hanging about at Salamanca Market and walking between venues was such a treat. David drove into town to meet me afterwards and we finished up the day with cocktails at Rude Boy and dinner at Restaurant Schulz at the Polish Club. A very long and happy day out "in town".

 

#HVMWF17

The Huon Valley Mid-Winter Festival is over for another year, and this year we again spent the Friday night in the glorious cold night air in the paddocks around Willie Smith's Apple Shed in Grove. Well, some of it was spent toasting ourselves next to fire barrels. Eating pork cracking and pork buns from Fat Pig Farm, raclette with cheese from Tasmania's Heidi Farm, burritos and divine doughnuts from Lady Hester. Stu from Tasman Quartermasters was wielding the blowtorch, his cooking method of choice. We warmed ourselves up from the inside by sipping hot mulled cider.

It must be said that the 'burning man' ceremony went on a little (OK, way) too long this year, with a man telling a "story" that wasn't and fire dancers who would have been awesome if you could see them. After 35 minutes of this, some Korean tourists standing next to me wielding enormous Samsung phones turned and asked "burning soon?" Then finally, Big Willie was lit and he burned brightly in the Huon Valley sky. It's absolutely one of the best festivals of the year, set up to cater for the crowds and the cold. All my photos were rubbish though. I'm blaming icy fingers!

Winter gardening

The rabbits have eaten the tops off all my snow peas, broad beans and garlic. Broccoli, leek and cabbage seedlings have been crushed under the weight of the snow. Now the earth is hard and regularly covered in frost or snow. So I give up for now. I am planning to start again next month, with peas, radishes and replanting the snow peas and broad beans, with bunny protection this time. The exception is my snow-covered greenhouse, where broccoli, lettuce and herb seedlings are protected from the ice and the rabbits and only have the slugs to contend with.

The real winter

It was a fresh zero degrees this morning. Yesterday's snow had frozen into slippery ice. My chickens had a snow roof over their temporary chicken run in the orchard. Winter started mildly, quite warm and dry for June. But now the real winter is here. The forecast for the next week includes a few days with sub-zero starts. We are wearing polar fleece socks inside our gumboots and enjoying the log fire in the evenings.

Fleeting snow

The forecast was for snow down to 400 metres. We settled in on the lounge to watch a movie (Hunt for the Wilderpeople - highly recommend) and by the time it was over the flakes were falling thick and fast and the garden furniture had a lovely dusting of snow. This afternoon, the snow is melting and clumps of it are falling off the roof with a great thud. The first snow of the year won't last long but it was pretty! And the dogs love it.