Friends, family and others

November 24 2013

We have had a really busy week with a school camp here. Some of the youngsters had stayed last year so they settled down quickly into managing the farm tasks. Several of them remembered how to milk goats too, which is a help. The group task was to clear up the paddock across the gully. It still had fences and wire on the ground from the fires that were rapidly becoming buried in weeds so we were really pleased to have this job tackled.

There was plenty to do because there was a mass of fallen timber and some larger dead gums that had to be shifted as well as weeds and wire. There was enough scrap timber to have a large fire down by the ruins on the last night as well as stocking up the woodpile for winter. Once again the school was very lucky and managed a week of fine hot to warm weather! The boat was rowed around the dam a lot but no one caught any fish. We see the fish jump every night but catching any is proving hard.

We also have our friends from the UK staying. We all went over to St Andrews market last weekend and had a meal in the pub after shopping. The good thing is that they are very easy guests to have around and having four adults to do the work has made things easier to run. Today our friends have gone on a train to see Melbourne and Edd and I are going to pick our youngest son up from the airport. He has been away for a year working in WA so we are really excited about him coming home for Xmas.

Luckily we still have lots of vegetables growing. The cauliflowers have all ripened and the broccoli is behaving better and getting ready to eat in succession. There is a good crop of broad beans and snow peas and we have a delicious crumble made from mulberries my grand daughter picked. The cucumber plants have been slow and I am yet to get the zucchinis planted out which is very remiss of me.

We are now in full cheese making mode and so I have broken into the last of the cheeses from 2012. The one we are eating now tastes good but I cannot remember what type it is and the label is gone! This year I am going to try a new starter culture used in some Italian cheeses, which I have not tried before. Feta and cream cheese are easy to make so I do them if I am short of time. They are also popular with our friends.