Ella supporting Dad's football team

rain, rain,rain

September 15 2016

I cannot remember another spring like this. Everyday we are getting grey skies and continuous rain.  It is like living in the UK!  The only good thing is that it encourages me to stay indoors and keep tiling in the shower.  Even Edd has started on indoor jobs and has been oiling the woodwork in the windows and doors.

The bad news is that the goats do not go out to graze in the rain and we are rapidly going through our supplies of hay and straw.  The goats need the green feed because they are pregnant and they also should be walking but their paths are flooded or full of black mud so it is hard to blame them for staying in the dry.

Silky is back at school but the term ends tomorrow. Mothers will be very stressed if the rain continues over the school holidays.  Bo has been very busy. She had to have a recording of her singing several genres of songs for a job application plus she had trips to school, restaurant work and other commitments. I am sure that she is doing too much.  Al has also lots of work on so we have not seen him this week.

new kids start to arrive

September 12 2016

The oak tree is now covered with small green leaves and the weather swings between the cold and wet of winter and the warmth of spring. Very soon the goats will start kidding and we will be kept very busy dealing with all the new arrivals.   The grass needs mowing every week and the paddocks are slowly producing more feed for the stock.  Edd has spent the week trying to untangle wire from some second hand chain link fencing we were given so that he can put it round the new orchard.  Already the young trees there are breaking bud but we do not know which grafts have taken yet.

I am still tiling the shower walls.  The last space around the shower is huge and will take me several weeks but it is the last of the white tiling.  Then it will just be a matter of the floors and then grouting.  I try to do about three hours work there a day so it is very time consuming and other jibs have been neglected. Last week was warmer and drier so I did get some work done in the vegetable garden.  The snow peas are slow but still alive and the main task is to find space for the other summer vegetables. Edd has seeds planted in potting mix and the tomatoes I potted up are hardening off nicely.

We had great fun on Saturday when a large group of Montessori teachers from all over Australia came to learn about how we work with the school at Templestowe.  Steve from the school helped us take a walk round and see the sort of tasks that the kids had completed. Then they produced a feast from the bus complete with champagne.  This was very unexpected but most welcome so we all had quite a party.

Before they left Edd took some people on a house tour and I took a more energetic group up to help me feed the animals.  Everyone had a go at extracting milk with varying degrees of success. One man kept apologising formally to the goat every time he failed.  He was so sincere and sweet that it was hysterically funny, and he kept on apologising.  Needless to say the goat stood patiently and just kept eating.

Today we have Silky, (who has too much of a cough to go to school) here whilst Bo is busy.  She was here on the right day because the first of the goats, Phantom, kidded. Silky helped me move the new babies and their mother into a pen so that she did not have all the rest of the herd trying to get involved. One of the twins is golden brown and the other is white. Phantom is a first kidder but she has coped well and already the kids are on their feet suckling.  Now the kidding has started we begin a hectic month or so.