My move to Tasmania

[Jovial Monk]

Adelaide used to be fine, hot in february but a dry heat. Now we get 46°C. More than that, we used to get a bit of rain in the third week of January, now January tends to be hot and muggy. People used to say Adelaide was a big country town but no one has said that recently!

Not sure exactly anymore what gave me the notion to move to Tasmania but I followed up on that with a 5 day visit in Sep 2016. I invited my fave niece & great niece to come along and they did. I fell in love with the place and made an offer on a block of land. Offered $8,000 less than what it was advertised at, having done my homework on sales of blocks of land.

Tasmanian real estate zoomed madly this year and I sold my first block for more than triple what I paid for it in gross terms. So I lifted the trees from the first block and they were collected by a landscaper in Launceston who is looking after my trees and currant bushes etc.

I leave soon for Tassie again to plant nearly all the trees—some will need to stay in tree bags till I build a greenhouse etc. I hope this time to make it to the Salamanca market—there is a gap of a few days between me preparing the beds for the trees etc to be planted into and before a fence and espalier will be built.

With an unheated ground sheltered greenhouse I can grow black muscat grapes and extend the season I can grow other than winter veges by a month at each end of the season, pretty good. I think the Calville blanc d’Hiver (a French cooking apple) Beurre Bosc and Doyenne du Comice pears and quince and pomegranate trees/bushes will go in the greenhouse. Makes for a big greenhouse but it just has to be so.

I will have some decent apples and pears to eat! Jonathan, Court of Wick, Cornish Aromatic etc apples as well as Beurre Bosc, Doyenne du Comice, Beurre Hardy pears. Beurre Hardy with a hint of rosewater flavor. Peaches to eat and preserve too.

Also apples and pears for cider and perry. Proper tannic apples like Dabinett, Yarlington Mill and Brown Snout, apples for sweet cider like Golden Harvey, apples for a dry cider like King David supplemented with some Calville apples, Granny Smith and Bramley’s Seedling.

Think of the array of sweet, tart and aromatic apples for making a batch of apple butter, hmmm! Yoiu haven’t tasted a pork chop until you have tasted one fried in apple butter!!!

Once settled there can explore the Tarkine, Hobart, West Coast etc etc. Have hardly seen much of Tassie, trips there after 2016 being for working on my block. Might visit some mine sites, I am a geologist after all! Plenty of mines and gold fields in Tassie!

Pansies might think it is really really cold there. Bah. I remember Dutch winters in the 1950s, the cold winter in Europe when I went back there in 1978. THAT is cold. Tassie doesn’t get really cold except the tops of the alps etc.

Be a massive change but looking forward to that!

My house there will be made of the most fire resistant building material: straw bale. Not sure about the roof, asbestos cement perhaps, also a very fire resistant material. My fruit trees and vege patch are fire resistant too and I will plant lots of succulents. Why this emphasis on fire? Eucalypt forest not far away. Other bushfire precautions include planting hornbeam and flame trees. These look spectacular as well.

I want a butterfly attracting garden but need to review plants for fire resilience and for the local conditions there.

I don’t know about current architecture in other cities but I despise the crap being built in Adelaide now. Most contain similar features to all other new houses and home units. They have fake little gables and gewgaws like that that add to the cost and weaken the building. My house will be small and plain, a simple rectangle with gables at each end. The land is oriented roughly E-W so has a north facing half of the roof for solar panels. Also want two wind generators—Tassie winter days are short.

I will also keep about 6 chooks. Something lovely and domestic about hens contentedly clucking and home-laid eggs beat the store front crap hands down!

That will be my lifestyle.

[Redneck]

What did you hit the repeat button Monk?



And Bobby hit the delete button?



To those that missed it Monk posted the previous message about five times one after the other.

[Jovial Monk]

This software malfunctions.

[Redneck]

This software malfunctions.

A poor workman always blames his tools !

[Jovial Monk]

The software malfunctioned, idiot! I cannot help that can I?

[Redneck]

The software malfunctioned, idiot! I cannot help that can I?

Bit toey today eh Monk?

Get out of the wrong side of the bed!

Just joking with you!

[Bobby]

What did you hit the repeat button Monk?



And Bobby hit the delete button?



To those that missed it Monk posted the previous message about five times one after the other.

Yes I had to delete 5 copies of this thread.
How will Monk be able to handle the Admin Control Panel?

[Redneck]

What did you hit the repeat button Monk?



And Bobby hit the delete button?



To those that missed it Monk posted the previous message about five times one after the other.

Yes I had to delete 5 copies of this thread.
How will Monk be able to handle the Admin Control Panel?

Careful Bobby, Monks in a bad mood it seems, no jokes allowed!

[Bobby]

What did you hit the repeat button Monk?



And Bobby hit the delete button?



To those that missed it Monk posted the previous message about five times one after the other.

Yes I had to delete 5 copies of this thread.
How will Monk be able to handle the Admin Control Panel?

Careful Bobby, Monks in a bad mood it seems, no jokes allowed!

It's not a joke.

[Jovial Monk]

Nothing to do with me. Got that usual error message, hit back arrow twice then the redraw button. crap software.