We made soap and dyed wool
October 20, 2018
I hate this weather. I should actually be very grateful because yesterday was hot and fine when the school kids packed up their tents and today we have heavy rain ,which is refilling all the tanks. Perhaps I am just too tired to be grateful, but it is more likely that, as always, I love hot and hate cold. Mostly the week was not too bad for the campers with moderate temperatures and just one day that we retreated to do indoor work.
On that day, one teacher helped me teach the students to dye wool with onion skins, toast some muesli and make soap. That passed the time OK and Edd and the other teacher worked with the more energetic students in the big shed sorting and splitting fire wood. They seem to enjoy this work, and it is just wonderful for us to end up with well organised fire wood supplies when the winter returns.
When the weather was better this latter group helped reopen the road to the hill. A very large tree had fallen right across and blocked it completely. We can now get materials onto Bone Hill so that we can repair the boundary fence with our west side neighbours. We got the other students to paint render onto the block part of the shed wall and do some gardening, but a group of lads volunteered for the hardest job and managed to extract a massive agapanthus plant that was taking over and area.
The camp went well, and at the end complaints mostly centred around gluten free wraps. Some students ordered these, so a decision was made, and later regretted, to buy all the wraps gluten free. Every lunch was wraps so this was a big issue by Friday. At least everyone will know which wraps they want next time. For staff our main work is to keep the students safe and we decided we needed to have a set of rules written down to provide clear guide lines. There have been an unusual number of snakes sited this year so wearing the right clothes and sticking to the right places is more important than usual.
Barak, our new male kid is still confined to a box and is due back to the vets again next Wednesday to have his plaster changed. He is growing very fast and will not fit in his restricted area much longer. At least we now have five other goat kids just next to him for company. They are also males but so far are well behaved and calm. They have a very different temperament to Barak at the same age, but they are mostly the same colour. The students have enjoyed feeding them as they now all drink up straws from a feeder.
We now have a week to prepare for the next camp. Edd is off on Monday to buy more oats, we are worried that with this dry year supplies will be restricted. The dams and tanks are all full, but the ground has no moisture at all under the surface.
This leaves till last the really good news. Edd and I ARE ON OUR WAY TO BECOMING GREAT GRANDPARENTS.
