Summer arrives

 12.12.2021

Finally, the weather has changed, and hot dry days outnumber the cool ones each week. Last month we had another storm that brought down trees and power lines and we endured days with out power and floods. At least I didn’t have to water the vegetables!  Now the earth is drying out fast, the grass has gone to seed and everyone is trying to work out how to get the hay done. There used to be teams set up to cut and cart hay but finding someone now is getting harder every year. No one is catering for the small farmers any more.

 

We prefer to have traditional, small ‘square’ bales. They are not really square, but the big bales are called ‘round’ which isn’t strictly true either. You can feed out the small bales easily as they break into neat sections, the round ones fit in a bale holder and are good for feeding cows in the paddock. They are difficult to store in the shed unless you have special lifting equipment and they are also much more work to feed out in small amounts.

 

To make things even harder this year Edd needs a hip replacement and is really struggling with the pain and not being able to walk much. This all came on very fast, but he has an appointment with a specialist next week so things might get set in motion.  Luckily, I have already sold half the goats which reduces the work we do every day. We have Josh here and if I am not around to help Bo comes and does the milking and animal feeding. Edd has been very useful fixing machinery and doing stuff where walking is not essential. The milking machine broke this week but he took the thing to bits and got it running again very quickly.

 

A couple of weekends ago we had a celebration in the ruins for a dear friend who had passed away.  His partner organised their friends to come and Bo did most of the food. I cleaned up and prepared the ruins and for once the weather was perfect and everything went off well. This was a great relief for me as most of the people who came were strangers. The ruins are fabulous party space for this kind of thing. The walls are now covered with creepers so it is very much a garden setting but we have a roof or shade and two toilets.

 

I am still doing too much mowing and cursing myself for selling too many sheep. The vegies are going well. We have heaps of snow peas, and at last, zucchinis. The lettuce is still plentiful and the garlic is about ready to harvest. The pumpkins keep getting eaten by slugs and snails but so far, the beans are OK. This year we have loquats again and we are eating our raspberries and strawberries for breakfast.