problems

November 12 2013

How can we handle what is going on at Fukashima?  The plan is to move the fuel rods from the pool because it is up at the top of the ruined building and in danger of collapsing. Any accident could seriously affect the world even worse than has happened so far. It seems mad men build nuclear power stations to get materials to make horrific weapons of war. We are managing well from solar power so what is the problem!

Also today we have all the photos of the damage in the Philippines caused by the hurricane. It looks awful. I know first hand what it is like to loose everything in a few hours but we had the advantage of being on a farm where we at least had enough food and water to manage in the short term. My heart goes out to all those people and I feel over whelmed by their suffering.

Today’s problems are not totally limited to over seas. My Grand daughter has decided to leave her job at the outdoor education centre and needs picking up. None of us could contact her father at first, so I was preparing for a long drive but luckily he was soon available, and is setting off to fetch her home. I am not sure of all the details yet but I expect they will come out gradually. Edd is teaching all day so he is not available to help.

On the farm I am still getting ready for our UK guests; they on the road down from Sydney, so we expect them here before the week’s end.  The room is all prepared for them and yesterday I sewed small sand bags to hold the doors shut. The doors do not have any latches yet, so something was needed as an interim measure.  I am doing all the sewing that has built up over the last two years whilst I have the sewing machine all set up. I have commandeered a corner of the sunroom to act as a sewing room and it is very convenient because there is space to lay out even the big things like the curtains on the floor.

I am also making the first hard cheese for the year. I made some starter culture last night and carefully milked all the goats in an order so that I could avoid using milk from the few that have been wormed or have just kidded. The milk has been pasteurised and is now ready to add culture and rennet. There is more milk now because four of the male kids have been adopted and now part of a new family. All the other seven kids use the feeder but there are still three more goats to kid.

I have done some soul searching this week about how we will cope with Edd’s knee problems. He really finds walking painful so we need to reduce work here to an amount I can do sustainably on my own. After much thought, I have decided all the cows must go. I hate the idea of parting with Donna because I trained her to hand and machine milk myself and she is like a family pet. The two calves we have just raised must also go and Donna’s fat daughter Sharron. It will cut out a lot of walking and winter feeding. The only snag is that we have still not built the stockyards and we need them up to load them when they leave.

My daughter tells me she is hoping to buy a pony for her children for Xmas so the cows leaving would actually fit in with having another pony here. We already have a tack room set up for my eldest granddaughter to use when she rides the hafflingers, in fact we are quite well set up for ponies.