Electricity hassles

Well, I've spent nearly all day with Energex (local electricity company) technicians here (well, OK, the were only here for about 3 hours all up, but it felt like all day!) going around trying to find out why the water in my sink, and the sink itself, is giving me tingles when I'm trying to wash up. All I have been able to discover is that yes, there is voltage there, but that they have no idea why. Apparently it isn't dangerous, and is in what they consider to be acceptable safety levels, but it is certainly affecting my ability to get my washing up done! It's only 2 or 3 volts, but apparently I'm very sensitive to it. Doesn't help that I have a cut on my finger, so that every time I put it in the water, it stings. Ugh. Anyway, they're coming back tomorrow to check the plugs on the power pole or something in case it is that. Hopefully it is. If not, I'll be out tomorrow to buy myself some rubber gloves for washing up!

On the plus side, I've learnt lots about electricity and how it works. I was trying to measure the current with a multimeter we bought, and wondering why it wasn't registering any voltage, when it was definitely there, I could feel it. Turns out that grounding it against the shed wall was useless, because there was current flowing through that too! Grounding it to the cement floor, or better yet, the dirt outside, gave a far more satisfactory result, and was in line with the readings they were getting. They had a very nifty little multimeter of course, which had a long line connected to a stake that they could stick in the ground outside, then walk around inside to test where they liked.

While they were back late tonight checking again because of our paranoia (we discovered in our measuring that there was low level voltage going through our gas cylinders), we ended up with hundreds of mozzies inside! So we spent a good half hour hunting them down throughout the house. Luckily, we sleep under mosquito nets, so we should still have a good night's sleep.

Today's Harvest

This is my harvest from our garden for today. A bowl of cherry tomatoes, a few beans (some ended up eaten before they made it this far!), and some strawberries and raspberries. The berries will end up in the freezer, waiting till we have enough for some jam (hopefully combined with my rosella's when they fruit), the tomatoes will sit on the bench until I have enough to try another batch of tomato sauce, and the beans will (actually, already have) be eaten.

It rained today, just in time, the garden was starting to get dry, and I was about to have to start bucketing! We're on level 6 water restrictions here in Caboolture Shire, which means bucketing water for gardens only on certain days. We're on tank water, but as we have a connection to the reticulated supply for emergencies, we're supposed to abide by council restrictions. Our hose won't reach the garden anyway, so by hand it is! Once the house is finished, we will have a dedicated garden tank, and then I will have to arrange a proper hose.

The garden is still very bitty. We've been here about 2 months now, and so far I have a total of 3 garden beds, each about 1m by 4 or 5 metres. One of these is exclusively dedicated to the strawberries, which I bought from my aunts as runners, and which are still fruiting, despite the late season. They are in the bed at the front of the photo. It's a bit hard to see, but in the bed beside the compost bin, there are some cherry tomato plants, then some corn. Running all through the bottom of these are some watermelon vines. The next bed over has some tomatoes, carrots and some more corn. The box at the end has some mosquito netting on it, and is protecting the corn from some hungry creature, we think a bird, that kept pulling the seedlings out to get to the seeds.

Plans in the next few days are to plant some potatoes, and hopefully make another garden bed on this side for the next lot of planting.