catastophe

 Newly shorn sheep in the evening sun

My new black look in the dairy.

March 8 2017

It has not rained at all since we got the big tank cleaned and a roof put on it!  Yesterday we paid for a tanker load of water to keep us going.  In many ways the cool nights and sunny mornings are bliss.  It is like waking up at a beautiful holiday site every day but life on the farm has being going through a difficult spell.

The horses quickly found the place cleared for the new fence and got into our neighbours property.  They have just bashed through the temporary fencing we put up and got out again so they are confined to a small croft by the dairy until better fencing is up.  We got up at 6 am this morning because a local man sent up his posthole rammer to put us in posts before it was sent off on another job.   We are not able to concentrate on fencing yet because we have had a rather large catastrophe in the dairy milk room.

Edd accidently left 7 litres of milk to heat on the stove and by the time he found out it had boiled to charcoal and covered everything including the walls, ceiling, and all the cheese making equipment with sticky black soot!  Even the insides of the cupboards and fridges were filthy!   At first the mess was really hard to tackle because there was nowhere clean to put anything down. The dishwasher did not remove the soot either.  We filled a sink in the laundry with hot water and dairy caustic and that worked better, except it meant hand washing absolutely everything.

Four days later and we are beginning to get some order. We have relocated one fridge into the dairy and placed the big cupboard in the laundry. I brought large plastic boxes and we have stored cleaned stuff in them. This morning I was able to clean off the large stainless steel worktop and sink and the window behind it but we will have to repaint the whole room before we put things back. I am surprised that I am not more upset and I don’t even feel angry with Edd who has been very contrite.   My attitude is that we will put it all back better than it was before and know that absolutely everything has been sorted and cleaned.

I have still had to find time to process more apples and tomatoes. I have been giving boxes of tomatoes away but they keep coming!  It is hard to keep enough water up to the vegetables with all this sun and heat. The new grape vine has yielded its first fruit and we are still getting strawberries.  Mildew is just starting on the zucchinis, which heralds the end of their season.  All being well we will get a big pumpkin crop too.

The best thing last week was that the new shearer came and was amazing.  He caught the sheep in the yard and did their feet and worming as well as shearing them.  He also did the alpaca by holding him just like a sheep and made it look easy! He charged half the amount of the last bloke too!  I hope this guy stays in business a long time because he gives exactly the service we need now we are getting older.