Help with fencing

 Ella is really growing up.

 Autumn colour starts.

 Fencing the gully

April 5 2017

We have had a great week with friends from the UK staying.  This gave us a wonderful excuse to stop work so we had a BBQ up in the forest by the cascades and meals out.  Monday night in Bo’s restaurant was music night and everyone who works in the restaurant or has relatives that do crowded into the back room and supported each other to perform.  This time we had a guy with a fiddle who was brilliant and a chef who really sang out.  So lovely to see children and young adults making their own entertainment away from screens.

Rosie the large black goat went off to her new home today.  She left in a trailer covered with a tarp this time, which I felt happy about.  Wilma and Feta are going to the same home once they are mated so she will be joined by her friends soon.   We are selling several of the older goats this year because we have too much milk now that the kids are almost weaned.  Usually we buy a calf but this year they are very pricy so we are just trying to slow milk production down instead.

We are still having warm dry sunny days but the valley has been a bit smoky from controlled burns in the forest.   So far they have stayed well under control too, which is good.  In the garden the tomatoes are dying back but the pumpkins are showing no sign of mildew yet. We are still harvesting a few zucchini and amazingly we still have Tuscan black Kale to eat from three of last year’s winter plants. We have lots of beans stored in the freezer and with them a huge amount of tomatoes so we have plenty to eat.

It is good that the dry weather has lasted because at last the fencers have arrived and we are getting some help with our internal fencing.  They are doing the fence beside the old drive that stops anyone falling down the gully and putting a new fence behind the big dam so that the sheep can graze there and still let us drive to the house with out opening gates.  They have been able to use the poles from the old vineyard, which is great.

On the down side, Indi’s bees have not done well at all and she tells me that other beekeepers are having the same problems.  It has just been a really bad year for honey with plants in flower and the weather not working together well.  It is also a strange year for goats.  I have not noticed any of them coming into season yet, and it is well after the usual date when they start to cycle. 

We are now on winter timing and with the hour change it is dark at 7pm instead of 8.  We now do the evening chores at 4pm and have a much shorter working day. This week Phantom has come into season.  The goats have been very late starting to cycle this year, so I was relieved when she started calling out and carrying on to attract the buck’s attention. Despite selling goats I have probably still got an over supply of milk so some pregnancies might help.