Pity Pity

Yeh people, this can happen too;

Due to severe weather; 40 degrees one day, much rain and a lot of wind the other, it can be that it has his affects on the lettuce.

They have grown far to big and the sun damaged and burned the edges...

We had to clean out three whole tables and threw all lettuce away....

not only the lettuce were big but the roots to so we had a hard time getting them out....

Oh well, despite the fact that we had to chuck them, we knew the geese, ducks, chicken, quail and lately even the rams are very happy with the lettuce, so why not smile....

The little ducklings are waiting already....

Yammie....

and also the Geese can't wait till Fred gets to the point where he chucks out the lettuce, followed by the rams....

Because this story is called Pity, I have some other things, very different but Pity as well!!

Emu Bay beach is only 11 k's from us but we hardly have been there because there is no shade. Then David found their umbrella which we could borrow and off we went to the beach.

It looks great doesn't it??

After the first flying off of the umbrella into the air we attached a robe on it to the back of the car. When that didn't help, we attached a second one on the front and even those two robes and the foot made of an old car wheel which is very heavy, didn't stop the umbrella from flying into the air so our last trial was a carton with coca cola on the wheel and pffff that did the trick, but in the mean time we were exhausted by jumping up several times saving the umbrella haha!!

but sure, it was also very nice!!

The ones who have followed my first Weblog, know that Fred made beer himself, already for years also when we still lived in The Netherlands.

All the time we lived in Berwick in a house he also made beer, Belgium style so with a heavy alcohol percentage of approx. 9 a 10 %. 

We loved it and when we started travelling, we could manage to put all the boxes with beer, I think there were about 10 boxes with each 15 bottles, into the caravan and car. We must have weighted very heavy haha.

You can imagine there were boxes everywhere and we could hardly fit in ourselves.

When Danny travelled with us we drank one day an ouzo together and the other day a home made beer (and we had a family hug) so slowly some of it was being used.

When Danny went home to the Netherlands, we limited ourselves to drinking our beer only in the weekend and now, here on Kangaroo Island, we drank our last bottle a few weeks ago.......

My last zip..

Pity, we miss it!

BUT!! There is always a bright side of life!

We are going on holidays to the Netherlands end of April so;

Belgium Beer, HERE WE COME!!

Cheers!

New tables

G'day Mates,

Now that you have seen how the lettuce business works, I can also show you an other job what we have been doing and that is building new tables.

The parts were already laying around the property for 7 years and there has been no time to put up the last 3 tables. So there we are, just arrange a couple of "grey" (I'm pretty red at the moment) nomads, put them to work and the job's done, everybody happy!

David had to do the welding job as Fred didn't learn to weld before.

Nice job Farmer!

Then the channels had to be cleaned...

when it was windy, and I can tell you it's often on this Island, it was hard to handle these long channels...

ready to use.....

After putting the tubes level and measuring how to divide the channels, they can be screwed on to the tubes...

nice and straight....

I'm digging a trench for the water hose which has to be connected to the main water pipe, the green one you see behind me, to go through to the table....  

pfff finished digging....

After digging and putting the hose into the trench, David connected the hose to the main pipe were the water floats through and Fred is connecting the little pipes were the water goes into the channels....

seedlings are waiting to be planted.....

YES!! Table finished, lets start planting....

David happy to take a picture of we being proud haha!!

In the mean time Fred learnt how to weld but not good enough to do the last table so here he is only practising......David had to finish it properly. 

but that doesn't matter as now he can make some small projects, I'll show you later...

The first two tables are planted and growing pretty good!

The last table is finished and planted. Here you can see the pipes were the water goes through into the drain, from the drain it goes to through a filter into a tank and back to the channels...  

As you know its already a few months we are here on the Island and we still like it.

Today we have harvested our first made table and the lettuce was just BEAUTIFUL, doesn't had anything to do with us building that table of course haha! But still, we are allowed to be a bit proud aren't we??

See ya next time!

OEPS wait, I nearly again forgot to tell you something;

The seeds for the lettuce come from, yes!! The Netherlands!

Isn't that a coincidence?

Cheers! 

Stokes Bay

Sometimes when we have some spare time, we go explore the Island and go some places. A few weeks ago we went to Stokes Bay and had a picnic on the beach. The weather wasn't too good but still, you know us, we had everything prepared for a nice lunch so we went anyway.

Coming out of the driveway of 1 km....

a few impressions of the island....

First of all you have to know that approx. 80 percent of the roads are dirt roads, mostly full with potholes but hey! we've got a 4WD now don't we??

Actually in the mean time we know better. While we were bouncing around in our car, having our kidneys creeping towards our throat, Fred went once to the tip with David in Davids car and the bouncing was much less then with our car. Then Fred had a bright moment and thought that most probably our tires were too hard. So, now that's fixed, much better!

But not when we went to Stokes Bay. After digging through a booklet about Kangaroo Island, I found some nice little roads to go to the shore.....

We came along a gate, a barn and a house but still thought it was a public road......

we made some nice pictures of the coast......

so proud of his car......

in the mean time we saw people coming to the house and a dog was barking at us when we drove past to go back to the main road.

When we came to the gate, it was closed haha! We must have been wandering around in someones garden!

After opening the gate, we bounced further to Stokes Bay.....

From the car park there is a little path through the rocks which leads to the beach.... 

you will see that afterwards but first we have a walk along the beach, listening to the ocean before we take our lunch gear out....

As you can see the weather is not too good but that also has something special as then the sea is a bit wild and that fascinates....

Look at the structure of the rocks, isn't that amazing!

Listen to the music of the sea.....

Not only the sea is fascinating but also the creatures who lives in it, look at these colours!

In the rocks grows little gardens......

The weather became better and hiding between two rock, out of the wind, we had our lunch with a view on the large rock-enclosed pool that provides protection from the surf and a save swimming spot for the whole family, no creepy crawler or big jaws !! (hopefully)

aaaah, sausages!!

You come to this beach by following the signs and make your way though the headland of boulders. After our nice lunch between the cliffs we headed back on the track to the car park...

Its not easy you know!

After this lovely spot we bounced back home with the lunch between our ears but we wouldn't have wanted to miss it.

See ya next time!!

Cheers...

Lettuce - Lettuce

G'day Mates!!

Yes NEW DATA, lets go on then hey!

Right, we are on a farm and having a lot of adventures and so much to tell. It is a farm with a lot different sides, main thing is lettuce and as I already told you we are here on a free base and regularly we get delicious food like goose, duck, lam, eggs and of course lovely fresh picked lettuce, for that we are doing some work on the farm. Our main thing is picking lettuce haha!! But we have more jobs to do which I will explain in next stories, now it's time for lettuce.

This is a brilliant system; Hydroponically, let me explain how it works:

Besides Lorraine and David, company name; KI Fresh, Bridget is the main employee, besides the jobs we do to she also plants the seeds which become seedlings.

The very beginning;

seedlings;

this seedling becomes....

this lettuce, one of the seven varieties....

Here you can see the lettuce we are picking, actually it's cutting because we have to divide all leaves so we cut them a few leaves above the stem and than check all leaves before putting them in a tub. Leaves with spots, big or little will be chucked away, bugs and other animals who don't belong in there are being removed and we only put the best, crisp, leaves in the tub. That's KI Fresh’s speciality! the best lettuce from the Island and I reckon even from South Australia (maybe even whole Australia haha).

there are seven varieties; red and green coral, red and green oak, red and green butter and cos. 

They are being picked at half past 5 in the morning and we stop when the quantity is reached to cover the orders they have. Lorraine works in Kingscote, the "biggest" (approx. 1500 population) town of Kangaroo Island and she takes the lettuce with her to deliver them at the clients (mostly restaurants and hotels) before 9 o'clock, so we have to be ready before half past eight. 

Picked in the morning, at lunchtime on your plate, can't be fresher than that!!

Every tub we fill is being collected by a fully unrecognisable David because of all the cloths he is wearing; warm sweater, beanie, jacket with hood etc. he then disappears into the cooling room to pack the lettuce into bags of 500 grams. David has the Hawk eye who picks out the last bug, aphid or other creature which has been hiding in a curly leave, or even a leave with a little spot.

We also grow three herbs which is sprinkled over every tub and so mixed into the lettuce....

the end result...

As you can see this hydroponically system is for us grey nomads, perfect haha, no bending as the tables are at waist high, everything nice and clean without sand.

All the leaves we chucked onto the ground are going to the geese, chicken and ducks? When we finish a whole table we have to pull all the roots out and also that is going to our feathered friends. Fred is the person who brings the lettuce and they love it so much they nearly attack him

Don't skip this video because it's hilarious ....

In the beginning we had problems throwing all these leaves to the ground but as you can see, no leave is wasted, when Fred comes back with the second wheelbarrow, the first batch has already disappeared.

In the mean time the table is being cleaned as well and we can plant new seedlings which will take approx. 4 to 5 weeks to get to decent lettuce again.

Then we check the pipes if they are not blocked because the lettuce is getting water all the time through these pipes and channels, the water flows into a drain, then into a big tank where it gets filtered and pumped up again through the pipes and channels.

After that, the planted seeds and seedlings are getting watered and when it's hot weather that has to be repeated 4 or 5 times a day.

Well guys, this is the way this farm works on the lettuce. I hope you enjoyed looking at it and learned a bit maybe??

Till next time.

Cheers!