Prepping for Spring - New Water tanks and More Pumpkins

hi we're trying to work out how to start the video how's it going folks Robin bian here uh just doing a bit of an update yes what we been up to I'm getting ready to drive down to Brisbane for the week for work so we thought we'd show you what we did this weekend yep um so we started with the tract the tractor she now has a big nice weight on the front did it help no no so we're still getting it um skidding around corners as we turn and I am turning in very low speeds and also using just to let people know this does have the um individual brakes for both the rear tires so you put that down and both uh Wheels break at once lift it up they break individually pressing the inside one to stop that tire so I can turn better the wheels aren't exactly aligned no they're not so whether there's uh misalignment or a Bend or something so we really need to get the books so we can start playing mechanic uh Ron Ron we haven't got the books yet mate there's a local place it sells them I just haven't been into bunder when they've been open to pick them up to do that I think the slasher is too big yeah the slasher is too big we have a um it's about a 4 and 1/2t almost 5T slasher on the back needs a bit of a clean off I've also got some gear oil to um top up the um gearbox there so if there's anyone local that wants to do a swap yeah we're thinking about something smaller we'd actually like a Flail Mower May sit closer to the back um so maybe around about the same amount of weight but it just yeah just the physics of it would mean there'd be more um more weight towards the front to give us more traction a few people have suggested adding water um when you add water to the tires it's about 3/4 anywhere up to about 75% of volume that weight on the front is more than that and it still still didn't do what it was supposed to do we also saw that um report saying the water in the tiles is is not good for newer model like the really old ones that's that's okay yeah so we'd have to look into that but at the time being um we're not going to worry about it when you consider these can have a bucket out the front that weigh hell of a lot more than the amount of water in the tires so yeah so that's that's where we're up to with the tractor it's just a bit more of a um wait and see game with that y I really don't trust it driving down the hills and over the little ridges and valleys in the paddocks and not being able to steer correctly so Safety First yes in this case anyway Safety First and um normally safety third isn't it you have your other toy up and running yes Craig we got the um this is a made of ours who's a chippy thank you very much mate you sold us this for a song All it needed was a new regulator up here hooked that up yesterday got a firing up and yeah not a problem I do have some air tools from my father and some more to pick up but they got the old school fittings so I've had to buy some more of these um the newer School ones they just screw in and out you've got male fittings you got female fittings they're just a different end assembly so next time I go down I'll be grabbing a few more of them he's got Grinders drills um all sorts of paint stuff doesn't he yeah he's got a load of spray stuff so we'll be able to get Bianca set up to do her painting on the furniture yes the other thing we we fixed up the other little tractor with a trailer the back trays a patch job but we're not looking at that but we needed to use it straight away to collect pumpkins two or three pumpkins place your bits on the number of pumpkins we picked and we'll see if you're right at the end put it in the comment down here um but anyway yeah this so this is all set up now we just needed to get some new pneumatic um wheels for it the back tray it's just uh just slip into some grooves there and on the base it's a very rusted old trailer I picked it up from a dad's place and yeah popped the wrong bolts in there these are sitting proud so it was just something he was doing up um I don't know a bit hard to know what Dad was thinking um over the last couple of years but but it came in handy yes and and yes yes we did loads we did loads grab your coffee oh yes looking at the top of the um tractor there's a few Plumbing there there's a hint yes well we'll bring this one along for show and tell so we do have a bit of rubbish that we need to pick up around the place we've um starting to get into summer here or supposedly spring but we've had 31 and 30° days so that warm weather means active reptiles active reptiles means no propes hey Jack Jack no proes we don't play with them Jack got bitten by red belly for you folks who don't know uh so yeah I need to up this rubbish separate the metal from the normal rubbish and part of that because you could also put in and show video of Stumpy has ree oh yeah we've got U Stumpy the um monor lizard go has turned back up and decided to dig some holes in our yard so we're not too sure if it's a burrow for nesting or trying to dig outat really good food there or something yeah but besides um getting rid of that rubbish I've been Tiding up around the rainwater tanks there's a lot of stuff the old left up there there's some smashed oh there's a Blacky Chu or a chicky Chu chicky um need to get those dumped you got to pay um for the local Council so we're going to work out they've actually got to be driven into buber they're the council that'll accept them yeah so we want to tidy up around there so we um can see where we're walking and make sure there's no nope ropes also clearing off the top of this concrete all this stuff here came from around there and whipper snipped out the the back and as I came over here the other day I tripped on this this is a compression fitting well not this one it was an old one it's a compression fitting inside is this little sleeve inside this fitting and it's supposed to jam up against there more like that way and when I've kicked it i' I've damaged something and it started leaking quite profusely and came out and there was water all over here in the morning so we had to fix that but in taking the old fittings off I damaged the SE onto the rainwater tank which is filled with probably what 20,000 L of water oh it's above that above above where shorty can reach yes um so yeah it's not something we can just um take this out rewrap it and stick it back in with no problems as you can see there's water there and we have a slow leak just there so we haven't lost much we've probably lost round about all we used all up and lost probably about a cenm and a half over the last three days um of that leaking so we're not overly concerned but it has meant that we need to get the hurry on with the new rain water tanks these tanks are really old we definitely need new tanks and it's stupid to put it here and have our lovely massive ACTA duct going on so we've sort of put some pegs out to have a look at where two 5 m pads could be or one 10 10 by 5 Met 10 by5 yeah would' have to move the clothes line which is fine um but that's probably the best place because then it can we can have the entire house going into those two tanks from that corner there we can pretty much will run it down as well as that corner there which just runs to waste down into that gutter so the Big Shed over here also feeds into the two tanks there's a line from the gutter on the other side that runs into there yeah the lean to just runs onto the ground y so then we've got the water flow that comes off this shed so we're thinking these two small tank at the end the two 5,000 L jobbies we could move them up onto this pad and then have some room beside it for storage like things metal and stuff like that we don't want laying around in the grass and the Overflow from that can go into those two tanks um shed can go into those two tanks and then we just hook it back up uh to the pump over there and then it's still connected to all the feed yards so that pump is sitting over there and at the back of the shed there is a little we could run the line along the back concrete of that shed and then into those tanks so we don't have to dig any more holes we can make it all nice and Shmo and safe yep yep so that's that's the water tank um situation we'll actually do a proper video when we work it all out what we're doing and show the forming of the concrete pad and uh the plumbing and all that um but this stuff here was all bits and pieces was down along the side here and when I pulled it out there is a giant great big black rat sitting behind one of the um panels there so um that leads us on to another problem we''re having at the moment well the other job we did on Sunday yes so on to the feed shed by the way that's our water bucket for the chickens just hanging up there uh this is where we've been feeding the guinea fou we're not feeding them here anymore there's some water in here for them as well so because we've ended up you might be able to see the black spots on the ground there and the black spots over there We've Ended up with a fair amount of rodent activity in here uh mind you that hasn't all occurred suddenly that's been building up over the last couple of months we made a couple of traps yesterday this little rolling one uh mice may have been getting in there and jumping out I probably should have um yeah done a better job put a a little bit of water down the bottom to stop them from um jumping out but they're definitely down in here in the base of these rolls we can see when we flash a light down there we can see bits of wrap poop so we've stuck a Humane trap down the back there to try and catch some mice for the bigger Critters we made up one of these flip ones takes about 70 G for it to um tip down so hopefully to get a large wrap and that's the other style of trap we're using and what made us decide that we needed to um get motivated was they started to rip through the um potting mixers there and I think we may have caught our culprit last night we have a normal common um feral rat in there that I will be dispatching once we finish doing this video we saw that just before as we grabbed the camera and came out and let the chies out so we've got one rra where we're going to set the um cage up again or the little trap up again and see if we can catch it that looks smaller than the one that I saw yesterday so or the other day Guinea fouls are just notoriously messy so yeah we're going to have to sweep up the floor in here and we're actually going to take all the feet out of here aren't we we we're basically as you can hear that's rusted out down the bottom there we want to move the other shed over and connect it to the end here we got some electrical work that needs to come out first so so we need to save up some coin get the Sparky out to remove that and the wiring for that exhaust fan and then we'll um yeah we'll we'll look at moving that other shed over but for the time being just clear everything out hey yeah yeah just leave the traps in there one source of food actually we put a uh mous trap in with the chicken pan as well cuz Rob seeing the rat the mice run through the chicken actually had a conversation with one one night he he just stood there staring at me in shock as I was locking up the chickens that's right so but there was no mice in there when I checked it this morning so oh good okay but you better get ready to leave it's almost um I think it's pumpkin time pumpkin time show people how many pumpkins we got yep well to begin with um you may be aware of our Saga of the pig pen pumpkins um we've harvested quite a few from a single plant over there in the um over in the pig pen it grew to be an absolute monster we've harvested over 150 before a couple of weekends ago Yep this last Harvest is the end there will be no more I don't care if it grows in there it's going to get hit with a whipper snipper and it's going to be cut down cuz I'm sure that's where a lot of the mice and rats are living as well one of my jobs before being it gets back is to start taking down the fence over there and try and clean that up a bit and um yeah just houses and all sorts all sort of stuff so did you guess how many pumpkins we brought over on our little zoomy tractor trailer I bet you wouldn't have thought 143 yes 143 or 33 143 143 so this was look Chu chook oh no Maryanne was pecking at it was pecking at it she's been digging holes in them you know why if that stem came off that easy pumpk to so CH yeah there's a there's you know a chicken testing system for viable pumpkins she's done that one as well that one as well so yeah we are getting a few that um were compromised before we picked them so these ones here will just go out to the P there's a couple that have already gone a bit funny and split so we'll get rid of them this was from the hoop house so we still haven't unpacked that but yeah those ones we're going to keep um those ones that's left over from the last harest oh there's a couple that are turning as well I'm about to load up the car with probably about 30 he 30 40 pumpkins um I founded a local charity in bunder BG who looks after um a whole bunch of stuff they do school dinners they do um they had a food store for people who were finding it tough um where they could you know get free food free bread they team they team up with farmers in the area and everything so I contacted them and said there's only so many scon I can eat would you like 50 or 60 pumpkins the freezer is about a Shelf full of pumpkin Frozen in different forms yes and plus we can store like a lot of these larger ones here we're going to keep for ourselves yeah so we'll move the ones we're going to keep inside in the dark so they last a bit longer now that they're Sun hardened we'll go through these again yeah um they're coming out Tuesday yeah I'll do that they'll pick this afternoon they'll pick up the rest of the pumpkins and no more pumpkin no more pumpkin until next season until next season cuz I'm sure they're going to grow from the ones that are rotten in the padic well the ones that I just randomly lob through the fields yeah yeah and for the person who guessed how many pumpkins you get a pumpkin you get a pumpkin just hit us up I'll send it to you yeah so we're doing something tricky with the camera today bianc is standing behind me so we both fit well I could cut you off at The Shins you could we both fit it's been threatened before but anyway that's that's a bit of an update for this week bit of a look at what's been going on and be an is abandoning me for a week I don't know what I'm going to get up to you sck oh might have to go for a walk up the back no no no anyway we will pretty much will'll leave it there do let us know below if there's um anything that interests you about the farm that you'd like to learn more about um yeah and we'll we'll try and address it in the next video oh and also too we are looking at doing the live streams once a month uh towards the second maybe the second or the third weekend of every month we'll do a live stream instead of a video yeah yeah they're good lots of people come it's good for a chat yeah I'm really enjoying catching up with people who have been following us for years when we first started with the wicking beds then the aquaponics and now on the farm so you know it's it's awesome keeping in touch with all you folks and we should pretty much will leave it there mhm I got to hit the road yep hope you all have a absolutely fantastic week and hope catch you next time catch you next time couple of shorts coming through the week cheers all cool bye