Very busy

December 13 2018

I am so behind with this blog.  We are into our really busy season and spare time is rare.  The goats are now at peak milk production and I make cheese most days. The hard cheeses are turning out to keep well and be reliably edible now that we vac Pac them. It is worth the effort to make them.

The male goat kids have been sold and Barak and his mate now have a small paddock to jump around in. The leg Barak broke looks crocked but does not hold him up much.  He leapt up and down the bank with obvious enjoyment.  This is a big relief for us. There is massive growth this spring and we are strip grazing the goats trying to stop them getting too much at once. They are accepting this form of control well, but they are still coming in each night looking very bloated.

The vegetables are also in full growth mode, too.  The zucchini glut is on and we cart boxes to the restaurant and still have some left for market. The beans have just started too.  I have defrosted and cleaned the freezer just in time to put in the new seasons crops. This year we have raspberries for breakfast every morning along with strawberries.  I have not had any left over to freeze yet.

The young chooks out grew the small cage and are now in the new chook shed on the old drive.  Edd’s is struggling to get the fence fixed because they will soon be big enough too free range.  The Easter egg glut has slowed down, but we still get plenty to eat and plenty to sell.  The sheep are now in the old hay paddock to the west. The grass is growing so fast that they are not making much of an impression yet.  We have had to mow the grass on the house roof because it was not eaten down enough.  The other fire precaution measures were done by the last camp.  They moved all the burnable waste in the garden and cleaned gutters.

I am preparing for our family celebration on the solstice.  I have started by working through the sun room jungle, repotting plants, washing and polishing the floor and throwing out dead leaves.  Most of  the plants needed repotting and many of the bromeliads had pups to split off.  The snake vines are so big that I am waiting until Edd is around to help me deal with them!  Meanwhile I have put up our long suffering, Xmas tree.  It is one that survived the fires because it was stored in the cellar, so I greet it each year as an old friend.  I have so many memories of Xmas’s past that it brings back. A kind of sweet and sad feeling.