AWESOME STORM

Well, having spoken a couple of blogs ago about storm conditions, we had a cracker last night. Distant thunder started around 6.45 pm and arrived an hour later, we spent the best part of 4 hours watching the spectacle, and listening to torrential rain- no hail. I awoke this morning with concerns about chickens/sheds/garages

and the pump house down at he stream. Having checked the rain gauge- 80+mm the sheds- all OK The pump house- just the concrete plinth and pump/electrics sitting dry above the deluge!! Great relief.

AWESOME THUNDERSTORM- WHAT A LIGHT AND SOUND SHOW!

Much is said about climate change and I am sure projections from the professionals are close to the mark. Well, last night we experienced the most powerful and violent thunder and lightning show I have ever seen in my many years. The accompanying rain was minimal, around 20mm. I counted over 40 strikes in one continuous period about 20 seconds apart and my best estimate is that on sound speed between flash and bang, all were within 2 km's (approx 1 mile) of the homestead. best light show I have seen!!! Power out with 2 of the three phases having our property links knocked down. Eskom our utility company were here within a few hours and power restored This morning checks so far show no electrical damage ( we always unplug and trip earth leakage when storms are around)

Progress- a new popular chair colour and "Half Chickens" fly

Again remiss of me, a long gap between blog's but have been travelling. Well a selected colour by a new Adirondack chair buyer has proved popular and several new orders have been received. The colour is a soft but warm silver and is most pleasing to the eye. I am delivering the first two fanback chairs tomorrow morning.

Another interesting development is a trial Anne and I have done cutting up our chickens and packing "Half Chicken" packs. Our local garage has a deep freeze where the owner sells assorted sheep cuts mainly of the cheaper rib and stew type and suggested we put a few chicken packs to test interest. Apparently the packs flew out-- hence the post title.

Farm Shed view to explain new business plan use

I am attaching the picture of the sheds from the entry gate

this picture shows the chicken sheds

the happy chickens

The furniture painting operation will now move into the sheds on the left

Southern Hemisphere heat

With heat delaying Australian tennis and news from friends at the beach that it is too hot to swim, clearly SA and Australia are experiencing the same high temps. Well to prove a point, the farm temperatures over the last few(Three)days have been 30-32 degrees C In the seven going eight years we have been here, this has not happened and the maximum for a single day has been 32 degrees with mid 20's either side. The farm has always been a cool haven during the December to February heat period. Rainfall is also down on the average with 33 mm recorded month to date. This is however a very patchy rain year, our next but one neighbours just up the road, 5 km's have had in excess of 90 mm. Today the heat wave has broken with a glorious misty morning and a pleasant 16 degrees. The sheep and chickens are much happier and I suspect the vegetables are as well with the droplets of mist providing some moisture. Some indicators that times are tough have been popping up from various sources, A beef farmer says he usually sells between 15 and 20 cattle over the Christmas season. This year just 2! A young fellow doing porkers has a similar story. The local basic foods co-op says his December sales were below the November sale. Cut hay yesterday- sunburnt and dusty. So we face a challenging year- I am pinning our hopes on Furniture. Attaching this morning's outlook

Starting to think- furniture production plan space

As we reduce the chicken inputs, we are releasing almost half the shed space for various furniture production activities. A start is to use the sheds, when completely cleaned/repainted and with some exhaust fans fitted for the finishing phase of furniture production. Currently the whole process up to sand and paint is done in the farm workshop-- far to crowded and as such becoming unsafe. That will NOT DO! Sanding and Painting is currently done in/outside my house workshop and is some 150 metres away from the shed so too much carrying back and forward. Weather is also a problem. I plan to build a Donkey boiler which will be fired by the scrap timber and which will heat up air to be driven into the sheds where moisture control is essential- ie. sheds 1&2 and 3&4 as the attached sketch depicts. I am currently contemplating selling our feed mixing equipment in the main mixing shed which I built some 6 years ago- area just short of 90m2.This will release the space for storage of raw stock timber,all the sawing operations and cut pieces store. Assembly can then be done in the farm workshop?? We will have to see when volume dictates this move. Attached- the scan sketch of sheds

WATERSHED FURNITURE PROJECT

The time has come where we are committing to a full time new branch of business for the farm. furniture sales continue to grow and with the aid of Gumtree as our advertising and repeat and word of mouth references, orders are now regular and significant. For reader's interest I am attaching our page 1 of 3 of the Catalogue.