pumpkins and kangaroos

May 5 2017

We have woken to a frosty landscape twice this week. It seems early for this but perhaps the summer just went on longer this year.  We located the new owners for Feta and Wilma and they have now been relocated.  I am confident that they will be happy and well cared in their new home, which makes parting with them easier.  Now there are eighteen adult female goats and seven doe kids so the shed looks unusually empty.  Strangely this has encouraged rather than stopped bullying behaviour and I have to give six goats their hay first before the others come in to make sure they get their share.

We are letting the sheep out to graze on the house roof during day light hours. The grass is lush and green up there and the sheep love it.  So far they have not made any dangerous forays onto the parapet.  The goat would be up there in no time at all if we let them into this area so Edd is working hard to repair the hill fences so they can graze there this winter.  The fence he is working on crossed the main winter water flow and then rises almost vertically up the hill.  This makes fencing slow and difficult, so the job is taking time.

 We have ordered the new chook shed and a trailer but it takes time for them to be ready for pick up.  This means that we have to wait before we can get any further with some jobs.  The school camp is due in about two weeks so I am preparing for their arrival.  It does not seem a very easy time for camping but we might be lucky. The long term forecast is for dry weather.

There are kangaroos most of the day in our neighbour's paddock. A mob of thirty or so kangaroos bouncing over a hill is quite a spectacular sight if you are not used to it.  The kangaroos always come out of the forest even in the daytime during the winter and they are increasing in numbers.  Where our lane makes an L shape around the property below us there are always several by, or on the road.  We call it kangaroo corner and take great care driving round it.  Some of the roos are enormous and are not the sort of thing you want to bump into with a car.

The deciduous trees are now displaying their autumn colours.  Even the sugar maples down the drive have some red leaves this year and the gingko tees are golden.  The olives are ripening and I have several clay crocks in the kitchen containing olives and salt to remove the bitterness. 

The tomatoes were killed by the frost but the pumpkins are still going. These are pretty vigorous, determined, pumpkins but luckily the taste ok.   We grow the sort of pumpkin that stores well but they are also very tough to cut up for cooking.   Some times I do not even try and put them whole in the wood stove oven but you cannot collect the seeds for next year with this method.   A friend once told me you could get into pumpkins by dropping them onto a brick floor and I even tried this today but the pumpkin was totally unscathed by my efforts.