april 16th

We finally have a settlement date of April 16th. The owners are away house-hunting, and we will get together with them at the end of March for a crash course in running a tourist business.

Meanwhile Pickfords are not inspiring us with confidence regarding our gear in storage in the UK, but fingers crossed a shipment of good should be dispatched shortly so in 13 weeks or so a container full of random broken goods, some of which may belong to us, should be docking in Sydney.

Ness has some very complicated plans to improve the soil and pasture quality ( it is pretty dry and barren out there ) involving enormous quantities of mulch and serious irrigation. We are lucky to have a bore of good quality water for irrigation, but need to terrace the land to stop the rains washing away the thin layer of subsoil. I fear manual labour may be involved.

We have sourced a breeder of splendid red dexter cows and will be choosing a couple of heifers, and we are inheriting 3 isa brown chooks for eggs. Serena is starting to look very manly and may well become the father of the next generation of Protea fowl. Once the luxury chook shed has been constructed we intend to get some guinea fowl.

Protea Farm is flagged on google earth, so take a look at Carara Road Mudgee and you will be able to see the lie of the land.

We just hope that the next 4 weeks are not too interminably slow, we are very keen to get started.