Harvest season continues

 Olive harvest

 plants for Toby's garden

A sunless day in my jungle

May 14 2017

We picked up the chook shed yesterday.  It came in 5 pieces and we need to build a floor of concrete to put it on so that it is easy to clean and foxes can’t dig in.  I hope to get this done when the camp is here a week tomorrow.   The trailer is ready to collect.     It comes with a stock crate so that now if an animal is sick we can take it to the vet easily.  The last time we did this was when Josie was a young calf and we put her in the back of my little car.  This was not ideal for the calf or the car.

It is mother’s day today, and I have had phone calls from my younger two sons. We had a dinner at Bo’s house on Friday to mark the occasion.  Bo was held up with car troubles but Al turned up with more plants for Toby’s garden and a bottle of pink champagne. He and I scoffed this with the cheese and biscuits we had brought as our contribution to the meal.  Luckily Bo is a genius, and when she did arrive she instantly produced a gourmet meal for at least 6 of us (I was past counting at this stage) out of thin air.

The weather has been warm and sunny this week and we were all outside as much as possible.  It is a much duller, damper day today and I have lit the stove so that we get hot water for washing.  It will also help dry the olives before they are packed in glass jars under oil.  Last week they were in big jars with salt to leach out the bitterness. I now have at least a years supply so perhaps it is time to try and produce olive oil.  Ben and Indi are already getting oil from an olive grove they are managing, but they have a set up already to use which helps.

Edd is pretty much ready for his trip over seas at the end of the month.   He has a complicated timetable visiting lots of friends and family members all over the UK and Europe. I am staying to manage the farm this time and I have been trying to reduce the work that needs doing every day.  Edd has not helped by rescuing some eggs he found outside the chook shed and hatching out four chickens.  They are now in a box in the kitchen.  Just what I needed!

The sheep are starting to look very pregnant, which is also a worry.  They are doing a great job mowing all the grass on the house roof and in the house site. The vegetable garden is much more of a mess but I am leaving that so the school kids can harvest the last of the crops they planted. I have also started to make feta again now that the kids are weaned. Feta and roasted pumpkin go very well together. A friend told me this week that she gets into her pumpkins with a hammer and chisel.  I have not tried that yet.