cold weather

August 23 2017

Silkie went back to school on Monday but collapsed on Tuesday. Bo had to take her back to emergency at the children’s hospital and because Bo had to complete her own work at the children’s in music therapy Silkie ended upon our couch.   She has missed quite a lot of school so Bo and I have put her on an education program to keep her going.  I was expecting a battle to start this off but she took to it like a duck to water. 

By the end of this week she has bounced back a bit. She is hungry again and is moving freely. Bo plans to send her to school camp next week.  She obviously had a very bad reaction to a flu virus but there still seems to be some underlying condition that no one can pin down.

This week has been hard because we have had winter weather. There have been heavy frosts for the first time this year and cold days.  Two more sheep have lambed giving us a total of nine babies so far.  By my calculations we have two more pregnant sheep left to go.  After that the goats will start to kid.  The big news is that we have another potential grandchild because Al’s wife, Pip, is expecting.  It is early days so we are trying to curb our excitement.

Al now lives three hours drive away so we are not able to offer much help, which I find very hard.  We see Al every fortnight for a short time when he visits his clients in the Yarra Valley.  After all the time that we spent with him over the last few years it leaves a big hole in our lives.  His daughter, Indi, is moving out of our Donga into the new demountables that she and her partner have built. It all looks amazing but they are finding that they have far too much stuff to fit in their new space so the move is taking some time. I think there will be quite a lot of work needed to restore the donga before we can use it again.

Despite the cold weather we still have vegetables. Asparagus is sprouting and there is plenty of lettuce, rocket, celery and kale.  The turnips are ready to eat too but the parsley is slow.  The point of lay chooks we brought have not been laying well and we are still relying on the older chooks for our egg supply.  Edd and Josh have been exploring the information on growing edible fungi. Josh has sent Edd down the first stage of equipment as a father’s day gift.  We get field mushrooms here naturally, but pine mushrooms have not grown here even though I have tried to put down spores.  It seems that there are many easier, faster varieties to try.

My wool work continues. I am exploring different ways to use wool to make scatter cushions.  This week I am using a hessian backing for chain stitching an aboriginal design.  I do not know if it will work but it is fun trying.