10 Pretty Females

[Flying Monkey]

Well bushfires are the problem now. Keep checking maps and crossing my fingers. Had to move all my livestock and things are pretty flat out looking after neighbours properties.

I always planned to burn em.. just a little later in the year =]. Keep dancing JST. Thanks mate.

On a plus side seed crops finished up. Hard work getting seeds but got around 50 of the mountain maid and even the late girls got 9 good seeds. So if everything goes pie shape on the grove theres options up the sleeve. Gotta roll with the punches.

 

[mr.brunch]

All the best of luck mate, my popcorn is at the ready

 

[St. Phatty]

Well bushfires are the problem now. Keep checking maps and crossing my fingers. Had to move all my livestock and things are pretty flat out looking after neighbours properties.

I always planned to burn em.. just a little later in the year =]. Keep dancing JST. Thanks mate.

Are you in the Southeast part of Australia sort of near Sydney ?

I know they got some over-active wildfires there.

I'm expecting Western Australia might have similar problems but I don't know where the forests are in Australia.

Do the Bush people grow Cannabis ?

 

[YukonKronic]

Saw the thread title and was having shitty morning so I had to look despite knowing the pretty females were likely plants.
I miss S4Life.
Looks good in here though!

 

[Flying Monkey]

Well folks after a few heavy weeks things are looking up. Main fires are calming down. Still real early for any sort of fire season but We've still got some pasture for our animals and theres about 120,000 hectares of fire break all around the place. Nothing frees up new and exciting spots like a good hot burn.

Will be headed out to check on the girls in the next day or two. One way or another were gonna keep this show on the road. Thanks for the kind words and messages all. Helps keep a fella positive. Stay in the flow and tune in for some pics soon to follow.. Burnt stalks and pot ash fertalised ground or healthy ladies. I do not know...

Fingers crossed they havent run outa water. Theres a clay seam about three feet down at this spot that in wet years means they wont need any supplemental water. But this is NOT a wet year. We shall see.

 

[Flying Monkey]

Well i finally treked out to check on the gals... Still plenty of fire around and ran into a bunch of firies on the roads to the area. No probs there theyre all good fellas. The grove is within about 500ft of fire damage but up its cliff its untouched. Phew.
It may be time for a title change.. but there hanging in there.

First the pretty females..

 

[Flying Monkey]

Theres a couple of others doing ok.. One is alive and salvagable and one is eaten to the ground. Not too baad considering it could have been ash and theres been no rain since they hit the dirt but they definitely need a little pampering. I gave them all a couple of litres of water. Top dressed with some goat nuggets from up on the ridge and got the mulch spread. Ive got a few spare ladies kicking around so i can drop something in the empty whole.

You can see the critter damage.. Time to pull out the stops. Black Mamba Hot Sauce spray for the mamals, but judging from the tracks round the area my main problem is a bird. Now birds dont taste capsicain so ill need to have a think. Might just have to take a little light wire up there and string up the mesh a little tighter down low too. Also got to hit the roads and collect me some truck bombs.. Nothing smells stronger than long distance truckers piss.

Now theyre clearly thirsty and underperforming with heat stress. It was 98 degrees out there in the afternoon so gonna have to get creative moving some extra water too. Its a great spot. The seam of clay under them significantly reduces watering needs in this spot. With any kind of normal rainfall this spot can set and forget and come back to 3/4 lb beauties. But weve had half an inch since the start of spring after a bone dry winter so everything is baked.

Always super impressed with the purple marocs drought resistance on the whole its out performing the c99 in the face of the heat. But if some rain starts to fall miraculously that all might change.

 

[JustSumTomatoes]

That's a crazy concept to think about, dodging fires while out bush. I had to deal with a flash flood this year, talk about fun lol. Stay safe out there! Plants are coming along.

 

[Pumpkin]

Can you walk in some water in the meantime. Could be a while until rain.

 

[Flying Monkey]

Life of the guerilla JST. Always thinking and responding. Makes you feel alive though dont it. Flash floods are plenty serious. They can wipe a patch just as easy as bush fires.. Girls need some TLC but theyre tough. Only the strong survive brother.

 

[Flying Monkey]

Yeah water haulings definitely on the cards Pumpkin. Gonna get out there with a couple of tarps. Logs to support a reservoir and set up a piggyback system to get the water across from another ridge. I checked out the seep and if i dig down some ill be able to draw a little water bit by bit. Syphon bucket down to the reservoirs and piggy back the water from res to res. Theres a bit of rock climbing to get this done but it pays to be part monkey in the high country.

 

[Pumpkin]

Love to get some pictures of that shit set up. Not sure what you mean by a piggyback system though.

I can't manage as much monkey business as I used to, but I am sure your hard work will pay off.

Do you mind sharing your elevation out of curiosity?

 

[Flying Monkey]

These girls are bout 4000ft/1200m. I am also getting past some of the crazy mate but it keeps me fit I do alright.. Piggybacking is just using the same length of hose to move water downhill from reservoir to reservoir. Sounds fancier than it is..

Where im at when i need to move water critters will chew through a waterline as quick as say boo. Specially when you cant dig a permanent underground line- over stone- which is also a lot of work. Also exposed waterlines massively increase discovery- i try not to use them ever. Follow the arrow to the grow.

So multiple simple res's down the hill separated by a known distance and using the same pipe to syphon res to res. Its not always practical. If you can do a permanent line and its gonna last more than a watering or two all good. But it doesnt work for me with any kind of pipe i can haul by hand in spots like this.

 

[Flying Monkey]

You want dodging fires..Just for you JST.

 

[JustSumTomatoes]

That's freaking crazy. Those trees must be fire tolerant. Brush fires are actually very beneficial to them and the ecosystem as a whole. Clears out the undergrowth and redeposits nutrients back into the soil. The last time I saw brush fires like that was when I was on Andros Island in the Bahamas. They were doing controlled burns out there and driving by them was blazing hot and very intense. The native trees there (Androsian Pines) were pretty much fire proof and loved it. As always, careful out there brother.

 

[Flying Monkey]

Yeah a lot of the seeds in these parts only germinate after fires. And when a controlled fire goes through like above it gives the terrain a bity of a refresh. Plants i havent seen since the last fires start showing uo its interesting to see. Theres some tasty bush yams that only turn up after a fire.

But things are getting much hotter and drier. Long term averages are getting smashed year after year and so hotter fires are giving some plants a serious run for their money. Rainforest where theres no record of burning for thousands of years are going up in crown fires. When a big fire comes through these days it pretty much torches everything and the seedbank goes up with it. Bit of a worry. Anyway life goes on one way or another. Ill plant more Carobs. Theyre a legume, the stock love them and theyre pretty much impossible to burn.

 

[St. Phatty]

Yeah water haulings definitely on the cards Pumpkin. Gonna get out there with a couple of tarps.

I'm dealing with tarps & siphon hoses about every other day.

one thing that's interesting, how plastic hoses get coiled up, when they're cold. Then when you try to use them, a 20 foot hose, you can barely get it to stretch 10 feet.

Brought one hose in yesterday and put it in the bathtub. Then went through foot by foot and gave every section a good bend.

Now it's coiled up again, but about a 2 foot diameter coil instead of a 1 foot diameter coil.

I'm trying to buy some black rubber hose.

 

[Flying Monkey]

Yeah i hear you St Phatty. Wrangling cold pipes can be a bastard.. specially working alone.These days i mostly use clear vinyl hose unless theres no other option. Looks really neutral in the bush. Kinda camo with different light and textures showing through. Coils up much tighter than others ive tried so i can get two 200ft coils in a rucksack and lets me see whats happening if things arent working. Also is heaps more slippy on itself and other things so if im careful how i lay it i can just pull it back down the hill from the res above without it getting tangled[ too often]. Pretty bloody pricey though.. But my girls are worth it.

 

[Pumpkin]

You are pretty high up there Monkey! Have you grown these strains before at altitude?

Must get cold pretty early up there.

 

[Flying Monkey]

Yeah brother-and high as a kite =]. 15 seasons or so. I always think im up uintill i read about gardens in the kush and Nepal at four and five times the height so not very high by international standards. Ive used a lot of these kind of genetics in my own projects with good effect. But we can have long indian summers or hard frosts early. Keeps me on my toes. This year i would have preferred a few more straight up indica to take the heat and water conditions. Rekon it will be a long hot finish. Last year was like a high desert- wish id had a few more long season plants could have gone at least a month and a half longer than i planned.