Solar hot water

Australia is a land of much sunshine. So it only makes sense to use it to our advantage.

Thanks to a few generous solar grants from the state and federal government, we have a new 'you beaut' solar hot water system.

Its pretty clever in the way they've set it up. The water circulates through the panels and is stored in the 200 litre tank. This tank can store water close to boiling. When we turn on the hot water tap, the system either mixes the hot water down with cold water to a normal temperature, or the gas booster (the unit above the tank) heats the water as it comes out of the tank.

It means that we don't use any fossil fuel to store the water in the tank itself.

The panels above are on the north-facing section of the roof - the best possible placement in Oz.

Getting away from an electic hot water system also means that my brain has been ticking away on the possibilities that we could get a water radiator in the two rooms of the house that need it in winter... don't know if there are products that would allow us to cycle water through the hot water tank, but I'm assuming that I should be able to find something. However, that's a job for another day!

Terracing and crop circles

What happens when you take one weekend, and then add:

5 loads of laundry.
2 hot 30+ days
2 visiting familys
2 mornings working on terracing
40 corn plants
1 engagement party

We ended up with:
1 finished set of garden beds
A lot of folded laundry
1 crop circle
A couple of full stomachs

In other words, it wasn't relaxing, but still very good.

The garden beds were very satisfying. After putting them off for a few weeks, they went up in about 5 hours of hard yakka. Then some compost, a bit of lime and blood and bone for good measure, layout out the watering hose, and then a token layer of pea straw over the top.

Come and get us summer, we're ready for you.

Bec, in the meantime, true to her emerging earthy roots, was in the top corner of the yard seeding crop circles in corn. The idea is that they will grow up into another garden feature/play structure for the kids. Piper already claimed ownership...

Finally a look into the corner of the yard, where last weeknd we put down a lot of newspaper and mulched up the raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. A berry good time of it as well...

Only a few more jobs to go this year - finish the steps into the back yard, get a pump hooked up to the big tap and get a few taps hooked up to it, a shade cloth over the deak, a few more for the kids to play under, a sand pit, play structure... sigh... suppose I'll be at it for a while yet.

Cup Day

The Melbourne Cup - "the race that stops a nation," worthy of a public holiday. We all got frocked up and headed to the neighbours' place to join them in yelling at the TV for each race, and consuming much champagne and prawns in between! A few pics at the beginning of the day before the kids got grubby and we got silly (not that we did, really!).